If, like me, you’re unable to operate your business as usual because of the most unusual situation we’re in, it’s important to make sure you’re as ready as you can be to bounce back when things get back to normal.
It is an anxious time on all fronts. The pressure on the world’s financial markets is intense, with fears of another global recession. We’re worried about all the things we should be able to take for granted. Will we be able to go on our planned Easter holiday, watch a football match, attend a concert or go shopping? The most worrying thing is most businesses are going into lockdown and asking any employees who don’t need to come to work to do their job to stay away. Meetings are being cancelled, industry events postponed or switched to online and regular sales meetings removed from the diary.
In regular times, most of us spend all our time on our core activity. Sales teams may not quite meet their targets but, as long as they’re near enough, we put off any review of the sales process, because we don’t have the time.
Coronavirus has forced us to stop. We have entered a strange phase where we can’t do what we normally do. This is the ideal opportunity to analyse our sales function and review what we do. All those ‘we’ll do it tomorrow’ promises have landed. We can do it today. We must do it today, because we’ll need to do more than just meet our sales targets to recover, we’ll need to be super effective to bounce back and safeguard our annual results.
Most UK businesses don’t have a documented sales process, new starters learn on the job, some sales people get lucky and crack a rich seam of leads, some don’t. One in three sales hires fail and sales is not known as a stable industry.
Whatever your situation, a review is valuable and this enforced down time gives you the opportunity to do it. Ask yourself, do your staff know the answers to the following questions?
• What are the company’s objectives and how will they be achieved?
• What do you say when you’re are asked: What do you do? Would they all say the same thing?
• Do they have comprehensive knowledge of your products, services and pricing strategies?
• Do they know your value proposition and do they use it to win customers?
• Do they share their knowledge of how to handle common objections?
• Do they know how to target customers most likely to buy?
• Do they know what your sales process is?
• Do they know how to qualify leads so they don’t waste their time on ones who’ll never buy?
• Do they have access to case studies that demonstrate your best practice and how to win?
• Do they know their competitors and competitors’ product range and have strategies to beat them?
These are just a few of the items that will create a winning, sustainable sales system for your business.
Let us help you get in the best shape possible. Sign up for our online Sales Playbook at SalesEnabla.com. We’re doing our bit to help UK businesses recover from Coronavirus downtime by extending our usual 14-day free trial period. Your free trial will last right through to the end of April.
Get started today, sign up at: www.salesenabla.com
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