Follow-up for sales!

Sales is all about moving an opportunity through a process that takes it from the first contact through to sale and beyond.  Two things are implied:  Firstly, you have to have a process (that is a repeatable series of steps from first contact through to close – a pipeline) and secondly, you have to do something to move an opportunity through the pipeline – the follow-up.

The follow-up is therefore a defined and repeatable action that kicks-in whenever an opportunity needs to be moved through the pipeline.  For instance, when you meet someone at a networking event your follow-up might be a) send an email saying how much you enjoyed your conversation about topic x and b) add them to your database for future newsletters.

If someone subscribes on your website your follow-up might be an automatic email with latest offers.

If you finish a job for a client your follow-up might be a phone call three months later to discuss any other requirements.

An effective follow-up will be:

-          Consistent and controlled rather than left to chance or whim
-          Persistent (without being irritating)
-          Personalised, even if automated
-          Related to the prospect’s needs, not your product’s features
-          Designed to move the opportunity on in a specific way.  For a suspect, say, to establish whether they do in fact have a need for your service.  For a prospect, to establish whether they have the money – and so forth
-          A call to action
-          Intriguing and original
-          Via an appropriate medium, or mixture of media
-          Recorded, analysed and the results fed back into the design of the process

A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system will help you define and control this process – but you can do it quite simply without one.  What you can’t do without is a documented sales process and a bit of organisation.

Get more great business tips at http://www.nickbettes.co.uk.

Systemise to grow

One of the key changes you need to make to grow your business beyond you is to systemise it.

This will not only make it easier to find, recruit and manage staff it will make your business more valuable. m The value of a business depends on its growth prospects, profitability, cash conversion and the degree to which that future cash flow is at risk

One of the main risks for small businesses is their reliance upon key personnel, particularly the owner, who know and do things that no-one else knows or can do. This risk is present even if you have no plans to sell the business. If you the owner or one of your key staff are unable to work for an extended period what happens to your business?

Systemisation is the process by which the processes of the business are documented and standardised and reliance on any one individual is removed. This process also makes a business scalable; the processes can be replicated, additional staff can be selected and trained and the business can grow beyond the constraints of any one person

Find out more at this seminar "The Owners' Trap", which will explain how this and other changes should be implemented to help you to take your business on to the next level..

Learn how to raise your game by visiting my website.

Frustrated that your staff can't do things as well as you do - or don't care enough to?
Are you resigned to your business staying the same size because you have no more hours to give and you just can't find anyone to take on some of your workload?

Maybe you need to learn about motivating staff...

- Motivated staff are more productive
- Motivated staff are more positive and helpful to customers
- Motivated staff are easier to lead and will take responsibility for things that otherwise you will have to do.

This seminar "The Owners' Trap" will give you techniques to motivate your staff - as well as the other steps you need to take to take your business on to the next level..

Learn how to raise your game by visiting my website.

Key man blues??

Are you concerned that the growth of your business is limited by your available time and effort?Worried that you need to grow to afford more staff - and need more staff to grow?
To break free from the Owners' Trap you need to do the following:

1. Systemise your business
2. Get your staff to want what you want
3. Learn how to let go
This seminar "The Owners' Trap" will tell you how to do this.

Does incentivisation work?

The IoD Berkshire branch had an interesting discussion on this topic recently.  Here's my take on the subject:

The underlying assumption is that rewarding employees for achievement (usually financially) will encourage them to work harder and achieve more in pursuit of those rewards.  This view is not borne out by academic research but in practice bonus schemes are widely used.  A carefully-designed bonus scheme when implemented on top of good management practices in a well-run business is a useful management tool – but it is not a substitute for these things.

How to design an incentivisation scheme

-          Incentivisation schemes can be implemented at individual, team or organisation level or use a combination of these

-          Ensure that the rewards incentivise the behaviour you want, are tied to outcomes the employees can affect and match the motivations of the employees concerned (which may not be financial).  For some staff it will not be possible to link performance directly to financial outcomes (for example a customer support desk)

-           Understand that as circumstances change every incentivisation scheme will have unexpected and often unwanted side-effects

-          Check that you can afford all possible outcomes

-          The maximum bonus should be enough to recognise over-performance but restricted in terms of total earnings - a maximum of 50% of basic salary, usually far less

-          Tie individual bonuses to overall company performance ie an overall profitability hurdle must be achieved before individual departmental performance related pay kicks in.  The downside of this is the fact that good performers might not get what they deserve but at least it avoids the situation where you can’t afford to pay

-          Bonus payments must be self-funding within the bonusable period; that is; they must be more than covered by the improved profit delivered by the over-achievement which triggers the bonus payment

-          Make sure that base and bonus targets match the business plan and budget

-          Link bonus payments to profit not turnover – and cap them

-          Bonus payments should be at the absolute discretion of management

-          You might want to add other desirable outcomes to the scheme. For instance, you could make “100% of department having a job description and appraisal” or “Complete project X” bonus targets

General

-          The overall bonus scheme rules should be published and each individual should have a written copy of their own targets and rewards, signed by them and their manager

-          Bonus targets should be agreed as part of the business planning cycle and before the start of the year concerned

-          Performance against targets should be reviewed as part of the appraisal and performance management process immediately after year-end

-          If in doubt, keep it simple

Find out more about our business advice, business coaching and business consultancy for buusiness owners in Reading, Berkshire on our website.

Can your SME develop a brand?

What is a brand?

-          It is the shared reaction that it evokes in the people that matter to your business – customers, prospects, employees, suppliers

o   It is what they say about you when you aren’t there

o   It is the way they have come to expect you to behave

o   It is their assessment of your values and beliefs

o   It is the feelings they associate with their interaction with you

o   It is the stories they tell about you

-          It is the things you do to support the reaction

o   The kind of people you employ and the way they behave

o   The kind of customers you target and why

o   The values and beliefs that you run your company by

o   The processes you use and how well they deliver the kind of product or service your brand promises

o   Your style – of communications, dress, language and premises

-          It is the collection of artefacts that represent your business and trigger the reaction

o   Logos

o   Website

o   Company or product names

What are the benefits of having a brand?

-          You will be at the top of their list (or the front of their mind) when a prospect thinks about buying what you sell

-          It reduces perceived risk in the mind of the prospect – “No-one ever got fired for buying from IBM.”

-          It multiplies your marketing  – people find it easier to relate, and relate to, stories about feelings and a strong brand is shorthand for shared feelings about a company

-          It makes you more referable if you have a widely-accepted positive reputation – there is less risk in recommending you

How can an SME develop a brand?

-          As with all marketing, a brand is only of any use if you know what your target market and value proposition are

-          You cannot buy a brand – you have to live it and demonstrate it first so that your customers and employees develop the brand through what they say and do

-          It’s about coherence and congruence – be clear on who you serve, why and how; be clear about the values and beliefs that are important to you, your staff and your customers

-          Make sure that this comes through in everything you say and do, from marketing to invoicing, from the website to the way customer services answer the phone

-          Ask the people who matter (employees, customers, prospects, suppliers) why they chose you and what they think about your company.  This is your brand.

Why do you need a business strategy?

Companies with clearly defined strategies on average beat their competition by 304% in profit margin and 332% in sales over a ten-year period (William Joyce, Nitin Nohria, Bruce Roberson, What Really Works [book] (New York: HarperBusiness:2003)

The #1 cause of bankruptcy is bad strategy (Paul Carroll and Chunka Mui, “7 Ways to Fail Big,” Harvard Business Review (September 2008)

70% of a company’s poor performance is due to decisions about strategy (Matthew Olson, “When Growth Stalls,” Harvard Business Review (March 2008)

BUT

85% of executive leadership teams spend less than one hour per month discussing their strategy, with 50% spending no time at all (Robert Kaplan and David Norton, “The Office of Strategy Management,” Harvard Business Review (October 2005)

80% of top management’s time is devoted to issues that account for less than 20% of a company’s long-term value (Michael Mankins, “Stop Wasting Valuable Time,” Harvard Business Review (September 2004)

Only 3 out of every 10 managers are strategic (Harris Interactive Survey of 154 companies, 2009)

(I found these great points on Strategy Espresso http://www.strategyskills.com/blog/ run by Rich Horwath.)

If you don't have a business strategy - you need one now!

Understand that your task as the owner is to make your business - not to make the widgets

Start with a clear long-term Vision for your business and turn this into some strategic objectives

Then describe your Mission – who do you serve and how?

-          Describe your market

o   What needs do you serve and in which sectors?

o   Are you addressing the most attractive needs and sectors?

o   What will happen to those needs and sectors over the next five years?

o   Will addressing these needs and sectors deliver your objectives?

-          Describe how well you fit the market

o   How are you able to serve those needs and sectors uniquely well?

o   Are there needs and sectors that you are better able to serve which you currently neglect?

o   How do you need to change to take advantage of the anticipated changes in your markets or to address more attractive markets?

-          Describe your business

o   What are your core competences and are they going to remain relevant?  If not, what do you need to learn or acquire?

o   Where are your weaknesses or single points of failure?  How are you going to address these?

o   What additional or different resources and processes will you need to achieve the necessary customer and financial outcomes?

-          Turn the necessary actions and the desired outcomes into a business plan

Embed this strategy process (the learning, change and survival process) into the business cycle and management routines

There are loads of strategic techniques to help you develop your strategy.  This seminar will take you through a few of them.