In a process built along the lines we advocate it is critical that salespeople pursue a ‘sale’ at each business-development appointment. Now this sale may not be the achievement of the ultimate objective. In many cases it’s just permission to move to the next step in the (standardised) opportunity-management process. It may be that salespeople […]
I’ve discussed in the past that an assumption that underpins the design and management of most sales processes is that conversion (rate) is the primary driver of sales. The Sales Process Engineering method recognises this assumption as erroneous. In most all sales processes, opportunity flow (volume) is the primary driver, not conversion. It’s quite easy […]
Here’s a question If we were to classify the potential causes of low sales into three categories: Market and offer mismatch (wrong market, wrong offer or both) Lack of appropriate channels for customer to hear about us (promotional channels) or to buy our products (sales channels) Sales management (managing the sales pipeline) Which do you […]
I just had a call from a client who owns a make-to-order manufacturing firm (building materials) in New Zealand. Chris was agitated because he had just realised that, last week, across his sales team, 20 appointment slots had gone unfilled, due either to cancellations or a failure to schedule appointments. He had calculated that these […]
Years ago, I remember consulting to a small printing firm. As is often the case in job shops (make-to-order manufacturers), estimation was the system constraint. Obviously, this wasn’t a good thing. It meant that customers wanted to buy printing; that production had the capacity to fulfill their orders; but that estimating was limiting the flow […]
Why mysticism and marketing are incompatible bedfellows Imagine the reaction of your local doctor if you presented yourself with a cough and a slight fever and proceeded to inform her that you were suffering from tuberculosis! Can you imagine her obediently writing a prescription for Isoniazid and reporting your bad news to the relevant health […]
It’s a conversation I’ve had time and time again. JR-M: Does that advertising campaign work? Marketing manager: It’s a little hard to say. JR-M: How do you mean? Marketing manager: Well, the phone doesn’t ring, but at least we’re getting our name out there. There they are, those nine terrible words: but at least we’re […]
[Note: the following post concludes with a challenge. I hope you’ll consider proposing a solution!] I can’t stand it anymore. If I hear one more (otherwise intelligent) person mention the concept of a ‘profitable customer’, I’m going to scream! The concept of a ‘profitable customer’ is as big a nonsense as that of a ‘profitable […]
In her third term as Prime Minister, Margret Thatcher famously said,”… there’s no such thing as society.” She went on to say, “There are [just] individual men and women and there are families.” (Thatcher was responding to a special interest group that was casting its problems as those of society.) A few days ago I […]
