Many companies are caught off guard by the ever faster pace of market change. New, previously unknown companies appear out of nowhere and become competitors overnight - sometimes in market environments they thought were safe or in supposedly secure niches. The companies gave too little thought to a medium to long-term strategy. They rarely asked themselves the two most important questions:
- What products do we want to earn our money with in the future?
- And which target group do we want to reach with them?
In such a situation, a company is at risk of losing touch with the competition.
The countermeasures often include - and rightly so - reducing costs. It becomes dangerous when sales suffer savings. This is because companies are cutting themselves in two: if sales shrink, turnover usually shrinks too. As a result, the company increasingly loses the room for maneuver that is needed for a realignment.
The remaining funds should instead be used to restructure sales. This will work differently depending on the company. In my experience, the following five steps have proven successful:
- establish a clear positioning,
- systematize sales,
- motivate the sales team in the long term,
- develop new sales channels and
- scale the business.
1. Establish a clear positioning.
The first thing to do is establish a clear positioning. That sounds simple, perhaps banal. However, this step should not be underestimated - especially if you have failed to formulate a medium to long-term strategy. With a clear positioning in relation to the competition, you can achieve two things:
Firstly, the chance to stand up to the competition and grow. To do this, companies must have a clearly defined offering with a USP. The customer benefit must be clearly in the foreground here: Only if companies can offer customers a solution to their problem can they set themselves apart from the competition and achieve higher prices for their services.
A clear positioning also has the advantage that companies can focus on their target group and only work with customers who value their offering and are willing to pay a reasonable price for the solution they offer.
2. Systematize sales.
It is astonishing that many companies, regardless of type and size, have no systematic sales processes or standards. In many places, there is a lack of awareness of the true needs of customers. Alternative industries and regions are not addressed at all. Companies simply leave addressable potential untapped.
In many places, there is simply a lack of knowledge and time for market analyses. Inquiries are not pre-qualified. Companies therefore waste resources, time and money unnecessarily. In addition, they create many offers again and again at great expense and do not follow them up afterwards.
It is essential to systematically set up the sales structure and sales organization in order to make optimal use of existing capacities:
- Standardize the quotations as much as possible.
- Pre-qualify your customers: A budget quote for a project as an indicator does not need the same level of maturity as one that will soon be realized with approved investment. A key account needs different support than a C-customer who only orders from time to time.
- Use the possibilities of modern tools to manage sales using CRM and KPIs. You can only control what you can measure.
This applies not only to your own team, but also to partners and sales representatives who sell your products and services. The data systematically obtained in this way will give you indirect insight into whether your products and services are still in vogue.
3. Motivate the sales team in the long term.
In difficult economic times, savings are often made on sales. This sounds paradoxical, but it is a reality. Especially in difficult times, sales is the spearhead of every company. Because without orders, they can't produce anything and without sales, they can't make a profit. That is why it is important to promote and permanently motivate the sales team. Be it through
- monetary incentives,
- corresponding further training measures or
- special incentives.
Especially under pressure, three employee characters crystallize. These are the outperformers, the medium performers and the low performers:
- The outperformers are the ones that everything should be geared towards. They have the winning mentality, and winners generally have above-average success. They should therefore be considered the benchmark.
- The middle group, which is the largest, can in most cases be developed further and brought to a higher level, close to the outperformers.
- The low performers can usually be developed less well or not at all. They question everything and are critical of every change and measure without being able to name solutions themselves. Anyone who is unable to develop this group should initiate appropriate consequences such as staff restructuring or, in the worst case, staff reductions.
The sales manager plays a key role in all of this. He or she has a role model function and must first and foremost communicate well and facilitate the work of the sales employees. The person must listen, take what they hear seriously and see possible complaints as suggestions for improvement. This develops a natural sense of responsibility of the individual for the group, and the interests of the company are linked to those of its employees.
4. Develop new sales channels.
We all know the classic sales channels that have more or less secured incoming orders over the years. However, over the past few years (and increasingly with the onset of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic), it has become clear that digital sales channels are gaining ground and will continue to grow in importance. Amazon and the like have been leading the way for years.
Every company, regardless of industry and product or service, must face up to the digital challenges. This begins
- with digital marketing, goes
- further via a clearly structured website or landing page and stops
- using social media channels such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram etc.
.
These media and digital sales channels promise increased visibility for the company, and leads are generated that could not have been generated beforehand to the same extent. In addition, the use of these tools makes it possible to determine key figures that allow systematic optimization of marketing and sales activities. This applies to all areas of B2B and B2C business. Nevertheless, digital sales will never completely replace traditional sales channels. In future, it will be a mixture of both, depending on the products and target group.
5. Scale the business.
Staying successful in the long term means gaining new customers in the long term. You need to scale your business.
"Scaling means nothing other than gearing your business towards growth."
Unfortunately, many companies don't want to grow, they want to stay as they are. They are content with what they have achieved because growth is only associated with more work, stress, costs, etc. Those who do not invest in their future and grow will quickly be overtaken by others and perhaps even replaced. This happens faster than you think.
"Scaling also means expanding and further developing the sales team and customer support."
Build up your structures and use digital tools. Automate and optimize your processes as much as possible to create the freedom you need for strategic planning and to achieve your business goals. The Pareto principle also applies here: perfectionism is out of place.
