digital sales RATING

SITUATION

• With a most accurate analysis, it is unclear how
  the current sales quality of Sales Resulting is to
  be assessed:
• • Are customers with strong potential supported and is the assessment of potential accurate?
  • Is the outlined potential sufficient to reach the budget?
  • Does outside sales (selling team) support the correct number of customers?
  • Are the supported customers aware of the solutions, products, services of your company?
  • Is the ratio of the outside sales budget accurate in terms of potential?
  • Is the customer structure per selling team accurate: ratio of existing customers, growth customers, new customers?
  • Are minor customers mistakenly supported?
  • Is time accurately allocated to customers (time management)?
• How is future development assessed?
• What are the main gaps?

SOLUTION

• Sales Rating assesses the status of professionality
  of your current sales resulting pursuant to:
  … the correct, profitable potentials,
  … accuracy of potentials information,
  … correct, matching customers,
  … the right opportunity platform per outside sales   
       employee/potential to budget,
  … correct customer structure per outside sales
       employee/area,
  … correct time management per customer/customer segment.
• Sales rating is comparable to a classical balance sheet that expresses the fiscal values. It clarifies and assesses the quality of sales resulting and offers a comparative rating.
• One individual rating is provided per outside sales employee/selling team, then a condensed overview across the sales areas with several outside sales employees and finally a full company overview for executive management and board members.
• Current gaps can be identified based on the rating, and the future development can be forecast, analogously to the values of a balance sheet on a fiscal level.
• Rating allows the deduction of clear action instructions per individual outside sales employee, per sales team (sales/area manager) and is condensed the most per executive manager/ board member.

SITUATION

• The expected sales objectives for new customers
  were not achieved in the fiscal year.
• The number of new customers won is too low in
  relation to the number of outside sales employees/
  the selling team.
• The potentials of the customers for future successes
  are too low among newly won customers (minor customers).
• 20% of outside sales employees are successful, 80%
  are not sufficiently or not at all successful or (the few carry the many)
• 70% of new customer successes are induced externally
  by customer inquiries, only 30% by active acquisition.
• Weak pretexts are offered for failures, lack of time,
  better positioning of the competition, unattractive
  prices, product portfolio contains gaps.
• Those that can do acquisition, should do acquisition (hunter versus farmer), even though acquisition is the core task of outside sales employees/selling teams, because more and more customers are lost per year.
• New customer acquisition starts at the beginning of
  the year with a binding commitment to success, then peters out through the course of the year.
• A systematic new customer resulting per month, per outside sales employee/selling team is not utilized.

SOLUTION

• Systematic sales resulting of new customer acquisition.
• Appointing a fixed number of potential customers (e.g. ten or five in the pool) per outside sales employee that must be processed (pool quantity assures that a few
  new customers are won, but not all).
• Securing interactive potentials per customer and best matches to offer a solution/product profile is the manager‘s responsibility, not the responsibility of the outsiders sales employees (recognize the winner at the starting line).
• Specific sales targets for outside sales employees to be achieved with all new customers in total (target achieved with some, one, or all new customers).
• A clear, simple overview is created on one page per month through the sales resulting instrument “acquisition barometer“.
• The result is presented per month on three hierarchy levels: outside sales/inside sales/consultant and manager, sales manager and area manager/executive management/board members on one side, in reasonable, easily understood, consolidated terms.
• Clear information of measurable activities per hierarchy level per month.
• Recognize per outside sales employee/sales team where the customer to be won is located on the timeline for the year: pool, first appointment, meeting to find the key to success, closing face, result.
• If the potential new customer cannot be won after several visits, the customer must be replaced with a new one. (If potential and target do not line up: don‘t beat a dead horse).

SITUATION

• The complete company loses sales and market
  shares because the innovative strength is lost in comparison to the competition.

• The vision often does not promote creativity and is
  too theoretical in nature.

• The objectives of the company are not ambitious
  enough to demand the development of new ideas.

• The culture of the company (fundamental attitude)
  of managers and employees promotes a “staying in
  place“ rather than the search for creative new
  shores.

• Meetings are not characterized by professionally
  utilized creative skills but by debates and internal politics.

• The systemic creative search programs searching
  for ideas through the complete company come to nothing.

SOLUTION

• Innovation rating clearly shows whether strong innovation drivers, e.g.
  
  ... moving visions,
  … highly challenging objectives,
  … impressive, creative, passionate culture,
  … professional creativity skills,
  … systemic creative search programs
  
  activate innovative potentials.

• The gaps are mapped out precisely and clearly show
  the critical points to catapult the innovative
  performance of the company to a new level.

• Show clearly who in the company utilizes forces to promote innovation: board, manager, employee,
  further differentiated by functional areas of the company, estimated. A comparison will be possible. This defines necessary starting points for a new creativity initiative.

SITUATION

• Competition is assessed more like prose than in a systematic, pragmatic, continuously updated rating

• Assessment of potentials is too vague and frequently politicized. The skill of professionally assessing
  potential is often lacking

• The calibration of the competition‘s criteria is too complex and includes trivialities instead of real,
  order-relevant criteria

• Competition analysis across all competitors is an elaborate, high-volume, complex construct

• The assessment of the competition follows outdated models, e.g SWOT analysis

• Specific ways of winning competitors’ customers/ projects are frequently not derived from the
  competition analysis

• Specific levers are not derived that are available pragmatically to sales every day prior to and in negotiations

• Findings from the competition analysis and competition diagnosis remain on the meta level and are not sufficiently linked to daily work in sales

• The findings of the competition assessment used in
  sales are not sufficiently measured for success

SOLUTION

• A systematic, digital recording of relevant competitors based on an intelligent weighing of criteria identifies
  the vulnerable weaknesses

• The potential and financial strength of competitors are recorded professionally but are vague on an operational level

• The precise assessment of the position and derivation of selling points for the selling team allows the successful acquisition of orders over the competition

• Specific levers are created, which sales can use clearly and pragmatically

• Smart objection matrixes also help in successful sales negotiations

• Knowledge about the relevant competition is always available to sales, in particular prior to and during customer meetings when this knowledge is beneficial

• Time expense for monitoring competition is optimized
  as the time spent for a qualitative result is reduced

• The modified competition analysis leads to measurable results for sales, selling teams, and outside sales staff.