Every business needs a sales function to start and operate correctly. Whether that is you managing it at the start or whether you hire someone to do the work, this is a fundamental role that you just cannot do without. Often, when you get started, you do not consider the process or method to driving a sale. Businesses often find themselves up and running with relative success, but they are not quite sure of what worked and what didn’t.
what can we help with?
conversion rate improvement
We will benchmark your sales team against the industry averages and use the results to make recommendations.
education and knowledge gaps
We will help you put together training programmes to ensure all employees have the best opportunity to succeed at your company.
HR and staffing
We can help with anything from recruitment to setting up standard HR practices for your company.
pipeline management
We can explore existing and create new paid marketing strategies.
understanding your benchmarks
To start, knowing how you and your team compare to industry benchmarks will help you to find gaps. This helps identify where your team needs development. There are plenty of areas to work on with an active sales team so finding the low hanging fruit is important.
what areas should I be looking to benchmark and improve?
When you are selling to a market with a specific product, it is very rare that the lead pool is infinite. Understanding the quality of the lead you are approaching is an important starting point. From there, knowing how long it takes a sales person to make a sale in comparison to their peers and the industry benchmark will give us a good idea of what upskilling they may need.
This is an evolving process. If you are looking to continue selling at a consistent rate, you should really be investing in business development.
sales are strong but I struggle to see why
This is a common challenge that managers have with their sales team without strong pipeline management in place. This can be as simple as agreeing where their notes belong and how often it should be updated. As you start to see more you will understand where you can help each person. Strong pipeline management also starts the process of data management and this becomes an integral part of your decision making process on product development and innovation.
the sales process is strong but I am getting the most out of the team?
Hiring and developing the right people for the role is fundamental. Having one person in the wrong role can derail the process. This can be helped during the recruitment process, the onboarding of any new hire, as well as throughout the tenure of an employee.
I have the right person in the role but they aren’t performing
It can be challenging when you have hired someone who has the potential, but they are not performing. First, finding out where in the sales process they are falling down is important. Once you have done this then a good training programme for that individual will really help set them on the right track. This should be accompanied by clear expectation setting and performance management. With good support you should be able to get the best out of the right person.
You need to find your gaps and fill them. Business Improvement can be a simple roadmap to help you find the gaps and understand the next steps.
how we work
To simplify your experience, we typically follow our gap analysis process to determine the best strategy for your needs (see below). We will happily work with you on a custom project outside of our process.
I have worked with Kate and Trent since 2013. I have confidence that they will deliver what I need and never sell me something that I do not. Their process is clear and they always deliver on what we have agreed to budget.
