“What really makes you different is that you were looked to as sales leaders in the trenches. You were trusted up and down in the organization which made a big difference."
Vice President
Marketing
Sales Consultation
Customer and Market Feedback
- Why do customers buy / not buy from us?
- What are their needs today?
- How satisfied are they with our services?
- How are we doing compared to our competition?
- What do we need to do to win new business?
Telesales Programs
- How can we reach / serve customers cost effectively?
- How do we design, test and install a telesales
program? - Which customers are best served over the phone?
- How can we improve our phone selling skills?
Sales Force Design /Organization
- Does our current sales force support our goals?
- Should we set up our sales force by product,
geography, or market? - Should we have a multi-tiered sales force to
serve different customer needs? - Do we have the right sales people for the job?
Sales Compliance
- Are our sales reps tracking and reporting on
their sales calls? - Do they have a daily sales plan and follow
it? - Are they discussing the right products or services
with customers? - Are they conducting all of their planned sales
meetings?
Sales Force Organization
- Territory Management
- Are our sales reps maximizing the number of
contacts they are making? - Are we calling on too many of the same accounts
out of habit? - Are we spending travel dollars wisely?
Cross Selling
- How do we measure cross-selling success?
- Have we identified cross-sell opportunities
by customer, and held sales reps accountable? - What training or support would help?
Compensation Design
- Are our pay levels current and competitive?
- Does our compensation plan support our sales
objectives? - Does our compensation plan fit our values?
- Are we rewarding the proper behaviors?
- Is our mix of incentive and fixed compensation
correct?
Top Customer Effectiveness
- Are our sales reps, processes and organization
effectively serving large customers? - Do we understand how they should be served?
- Are we delivering too much service and eroding
profitability? - Do we have relationships at the top of each
customer organization? - Do we conduct workshops with them to understand
their needs better? - Are our agreements written and current?
- Do we have the ability to negotiate effectively
and are we standing up for our own profitability? - Prospecting for New Business
Sales Training
- Does our training match our current needs in
content, frequency and reinforcement? - Have we cut too much out of training?
- How can we get more impact out of our sales
training dollars? - Does our sales force use the best techniques
to sell?
Are we really doing it?
- What methods are we using?
- Are we pre-qualifying opportunities?
- Do we have high quality lead sources?
- Are we filling the top of our sales funnel?
- Are we working on our highest priority leads
first?
Sales Recognition and Contests
- Do you use them?
- Do they work?
- What type will be most effective?
Sales Evaluation
- How accurate are our forecasts?
- Do we rank our sales reps weekly?
- Do we communicate these rankings and act on
the information? - Who are our top performers and why?
- Do we spend too much time saving under-performers?
- Does our team have the tools they need to sell?
Sales Process Review
- Do we have a formal sales process?
- Are our reps using it and trained on it?
- Do we have metrics for each milestone?
- How many contacts equals a sale?
- Where are there delays in the sales funnel
what can we do to help? - What is our sales cycle time from start to
finish? - What is our win ratio and how can we improve
it? - Can we locate every single lead and monitor
its progress?
Sales Support & Related Services
- Do our reps have materials they need to support
the sales effort such as brochures, guides, giveaways, etc.? - Are we leveraging every corporate event for
maximum customer impact? - Are we impeding our ability to grow due to
internal barriers in functions other than sales and marketing?
(Credit, Shipping, Operations, etc)