(This article originally appeared on Dave Kurlan’s blog)
I’ll bet that every CEO, President, Director, VP of Sales and Sales Manager asks the “how can we increase sales?” question on a regular basis. Do you?
There are as many answers to this question as there are politicians running for US President in 2012. They include but aren’t limited to:
- Acquire smaller competitors
- Add new product lines and/or services
- Expand to new geographies
- Add salespeople
- Increase advertising
- Raise quotas
- Improve Quality
- Lower Prices
- Land some terrific stories in the press
- Develop your Sales Force
I’ll bet you can’t guess which one I’m going to address here…
Surprise – I’m going with #8 – Lower Prices. Yes – you can increase sales (and go out of business!) by lowering your prices….so instead, I’m going with #10, OK?
Why does developing your sales force make the most sense? How about 10 more reasons?
- It’s more affordable than the other options
- It makes it easier to accomplish #4 – add salespeople – and #6 – raise quotas
- B players become A’s. C’s either become B’s or get replaced with A’s.
- It has an immediate impact. The majority of the work can be completed in the first year and some of the most important work is completed in the first 90 days.
- Organic growth returns much greater profit, much more quickly than acquisitions
- Significant increase in closing percentages
- Significant increase in new opportunities
- Best practices are instituted and become legacy
- Sales Systems and Processes are optimized and become legacy
- Improved morale as they become a great, top producing sales team.
Between the global economy, the recession, the internet’s effect on buyers’ access to information, new selling tools and applications, and the need for an optimized sales process, selling has changed more in the past 5 years than it has in the past 50 years. Most companies haven’t changed their approach and still hope that their salespeople, who succeeded prior to the 2008 crash, will somehow get some momentum. But what worked in 2006 doesn’t work in 2011 and won’t work in the years to come. If you want to grow revenue, the best option is to invest in your selling machine. It’s the only one that pays dividends!