With many growing companies, the Founder is the original rainmaker and primary revenue generator, and subsequent sales team members are hired and report into the Founder. Very often the Founder doesn’t have the time, nor budget, to hire a dedicated Sales Manager.
However, having a fledgling sales team report directly to the CEO or President doesn’t afford them the time and attention needed to provide the in-depth one-on-one coaching required by the individual sales team members. This often results in a loosely organized team with disjointed processes, absence of best practices, and disparate selling philosophies, which subsequently leads to loss of focus, missed targets, and potentially high turnover.
Our approach to Business Development is to “recommend SOLUTIONS” to your prospective clients, rather than “sell stuff”. To recommend solutions one has to put in a tremendous effort into the early discovery phase of the sales cycle. Engage the prospect in a deep conversation on their current state, their needs, and their challenges. All the while, taking notes, asking questions, moderating the dialogue, and listening more than talking. Crafting a solution becomes the easy part of the process, once you know the objective, decision makers, budget, and selection criteria…. (which can be given to you by the prospect…if you ask the right questions, in the right way). The objective, with every opportunity, is to be viewed as a trusted business advisor, rather than a “salesperson”. When this is achieved, success usually follows.
Agency Insights will help kick-start your sales efforts or completely restructure your business development function, by building upon the above approach and instituting a well-planned sales process, which begins with a thorough New Business Development Analysis.