Whether you offer products or services, managing the sales function of your business is essential. When times are good, businesses often neglect the sales process. Sometimes the business development manager slips into an inbound role and is waiting for the phone to ring.
Carix supports clients in managing sales by:
- Scheduling and attending regular sales meetings – to avoid the “too busy” excuse
- Clarifying business development, sales and account management responsibilities in the business
- Ensuring account managers are working to retain clients, to ensure clients’ needs are being meet, to anticipate future needs, and to grow sales through upselling, and renewing and expanding contracts
- Confirming salespeople are sourcing leads, following up with inbound ones, and bringing business in
- Ensuring the business development function is not neglected, and ensuring someone is tasked with prospecting and initiating new business
- Making sure sales personnel provide weekly and monthly reports recording success and learnings, comparing numbers and targets, and outlining plans
- Tracking business development activities including number of calls, conversations, opportunities, scheduled follow ups, and plans for the upcoming week/month
- Setting clear measures and reporting requirements
- Looking at the numbers: eg number and value of leads; value of orders and estimated profitability; number and value of proposals submitted and won or lost; value of follow-on business
Working with a lot of family businesses, we find that clients often appreciate an independent advisor enforcing sales meeting and reporting schedules.
