The interface between marketing and sales is significant. It is therefore important that companies can count on well-functioning marketing and sales units. Marketing messages and sales strategies need to be coordinated with each other. The shortage of innovative distribution services is not due to the availability of good ideas or new technologies. Instead, it rises out of their successful and fast realization of marketable products and services.
According to our motto “Verkauf bewegt” (Sales Moves), it is in our belief that every company primarily lives of what it sells and not of what it produces. Of course, the products – regardless of what they may be – must certainly provide benefits for its clientele. Special attention to the cooperation among and harmonization within customers, sales and production should be paid. More than ever now, a consistent development of customer consulting and service is needed on behalf of the effective market requirements and on the customer requirements derived from these.
Fusion of Marketing and Sales
Marketing and sales act side by side too often rather than with each other. The consequence is ineffectiveness, and the preferred customer response fails. For a better integration there are a variety of possible approaches. Reasonable approaches clearly shape the organization, the information systems and channels as well as the corporate culture.
Service Innovations Grow in the Digital Environment
It should be added that the growing digitalization affects every aspect of our lives. This changes customer services, which can be observed closely in the financial service industry. Decision-makers and co-decision-makers from this type of industry state that “omni-channel support”, “online self-services” and “online communication with private clients” are, without a doubt, the three most important service trends in the next five years. The consistent management of these service trends, which surely issue a challenge, is in our view one of the crucial points. It is self-evident that the significance of these alignments varies from industry to industry, and efficiencies can be entirely heterogeneous.
What Type of Marketing Control is the Best?
We are often asked what type of marketing control is the best. This question cannot be easily answered. Numerous factors have to be considered when initiating sales strategies. Marketing control today is not only a sales-generic, but also an analytical and strategic task. It develops itself towards the consumer goods industry where it has always been a part of marketing. Let us take a closer look at the general sales manager: At the end of the day, the general sales manager is responsible for sales success. The specifics in his/her job are based on a direct sales efficiency: Marketing ensures the income of the business – thereby, the general sales manager “feeds” many other areas.
The results can be easily measured: In no other job can achievements be measured with relatively little effort than in sales.
The general sales manager’s employees are not always immediately in his or her arm’s reach: Often, they would be spread across the sales regions, and mainly perform independently.
Thus, the general sales manager takes on a particular responsibility: In the most part, he or she is responsible for the company’s success and will be measured like no other. In addition, the general sales manager has to trust his/her employees and cannot influence them directly on a daily basis.
For this reason, marketing control is assigned to a certain importance. It can have different characteristics and expresses how the general sales manager manages his/her team: from “laissez-faire” through “trust, but verify” to “micromanagement” – everything is possible and may make sense. In conclusion, marketing control means nothing more than: “What is in the target agreement of a sales representative?”
Sales Funnel
Not every management leads to an assessment of demands, not every assessment leads to offers, not every offer leads to a negotiation phase and not every negotiation leads to a successful completion of a deal. As a consequence, ones “sales funnel” needs to be fed with considerably more contacts than required or expected statements.
You do not have to be an exceptionally gifted rhetorician to be successful in sales. The magic word is quite simply DILIGENCE! It is important to fill the sales funnel – regularly, continuously, and unwaveringly! We often observe the following scenario: sales assistants make the frequent mistake by processing their initiations one by one, i.e. from the lead to the assessment through to the deal – or not. It is only after the outcome is certain (whether or not there is a statement) that the next customer is approached and dealt with in a similar fashion. This results in the so-called “saw-tooth effect” as orders do not “funnel” continuously. Orders occur when the sales funnel passes for this particular (or few) customer.
Have you ever calculated how many deals a month are needed to be successful and satisfied? How many offers do you have to provide? How many talks do you have to conduct in which you identify the needs and motifs of your customers? And how many ‘leads’ are required for this?
If you have answered these questions for yourself you can calculate how many contacts you need to add to your sales funnel every month in order to achieve the desired results.
Customer Handling
What good is a full sales funnel if we fail to position ourselves in a sustained manner toward the customer. Customer satisfaction is the most crucial element for the success of a service provider (apart from his/her ability to administer well). Because one will always buy – the demand for products and services is everywhere. At an event for customer relations, we asked the following question: “Would you purchase products and services from your own company?” This question triggered reactions such as awkward silence, sheepish smiles, gazes directed towards the ceiling, from out the corner came a hesitant “yes, of course.”
Here, we already have the first approach to the customer. Each and every customer advisor, sales assistant and service provider is also consumer. When we observe, in which company we feel comfortable and in which company we do not – purely on an emotional level – a lot has already been gained for ones own behavior. In the next step, the focus lies on the following question: What are they doing right and what are the others doing wrong?
It seems important to us to be curious about contacts, and we are able to specifically show this. Each customer contact should be seen as a win, and a chance to gain knowledge and to meet interesting people.
In order to ensure consistent quality throughout the business, especially when dealing with customers, nothing can be left to chance. Roads to success can be crossed in various ways. For years, we have designed customized sales / marketing concepts and trainings. We associate our experience from various industries with customer-specific approaches to the solution. In custom-made workshops, we ensure that the initiated contents will reach those who manage and take responsibility for the day-to-day business.
Leadership in Sales
It is a privilege to bind customers, which has become more difficult nowadays. The customer has more opportunities to compare than before due to a variety of platforms, and is more willing to take new ways. In other words, the customer is more likely to favor another company over your own. In the following, we consider one and the same issue namely to better the profit of the existing customer potential to sustainably ensure success. It is understood that the potential value is targeted as a measure for long-term customer success. A discussion with clients and a systematic “disassembling” of customer specifics is inevitable and is a decisive factor for success.
Managing Customer Consultants or Sales Representatives – But How?
What are the key factors that contribute to success in effective management? In our view, it is essential to focus on manageable steps, which can be immediately taken on in management practice in order to be successful among the employees involved.
We can safely assume that different managers lead in various ways. Next to the person-oriented leadership, structure and content contribute to the fact that sales meetings do not degenerate in a random exercise, and actual results will emerge.
The manager has the challenging task of dealing with a variety of personalities. He or she accompanies each individual on his/her road to success. One can imagine that it is not always that simple to adjust to each and every personality. Nevertheless, it is easy to induce a constructive contribution to the overall success of the company with their input.
The sales meetings are the management’s leading platform to realize a result-oriented sales management process. The communicating of sales-related management information, the generated sales result in the past period as well as the ambition and activity planning for the next cycle has priority.
We look forward to invite you to a personal meeting in order to discuss the procedure of a successful and sustainable sales meeting in detail.
