“Nobody else knows how to sell!”
That’s what one of my clients said to me when we were talking about his business development strategy.
This owner-operator had been CEO of his business for multiple decades but was frustrated that sales always seemed to depend on him.
He’d spent years on what I call the “sales/fulfillment teeter-totter.” When they were running short on cash, this very capable and charismatic CEO went out into the market and generated a bunch of new business.
But because he was out selling and not fulfilling, things broke down back in the business and customer complaints grew. That drew him back into the day-to-day operations of the business… and away from sales. Which made the business run short of cash and, well, you get the idea.
That’s the “sales/fulfillment teeter-totter.”
This CEO had a very clear sales process, that only existed between his ears.
He’d not taken the time to document it. That meant the people he hired didn’t have the instruction to execute the plan with similarly predictable results.
Drive Results is the fourth step in my proprietary 4D Transformation Method. It’s fourth because we don’t want to dump a bunch of new sales into a fulfillment system that isn’t ready for them. That’s a recipe for more complaints as your existing customers get less attention and new customers get off on the wrong foot.
But with a defined culture, a remarkable customer experience and a culture of continuous improvement, he was now ready for a business development strategy that would generate predictable, repeatable results.
Here’s what we are doing, primarily pulling years of information out of the CEO’s head and updating it with the most effective, modern techniques:
- Identified their ideal customer. They had several kinds of customers, but one clear category who paid for their expertise. We designed the rest of the process around that customer.
- Created a lead-generation strategy with repeatable activities and metrics to which the business development team would be accountable.
- Compiled a sales toolkit of case studies, testimonials, email templates, call scripts, differentiators and power statements that would connect with their ideal customer. This business had a history of delivering value for clients but hadn’t put it together for their sales process.
- Documented their five-step sales process based on the training we did with their leadership team. Those five steps are the same ones you’ll see in most sales systems for service-based businesses: Introduction, Assessment, Demonstration, Close, Follow-Up. We listed the questions to be asked at each stage, the actions to move the process forward and how to answer objections earlier in the process so they don’t cause problems at the end.
- Customized training for their team. The last step is to create the virtual, interactive training that will allow anyone on the team to learn and perform these steps with predictable results, whether they’ve been with the company 30 years or 30 days.
I talk more about how we help our clients Drive Results in the fourth phase of our one-year immersive training in this video:
If you are an owner-operator and you’re on the “sales/fulfillment teeter-totter” of your service-based business, I might be able to help you Drive Results. To find out, just take this short assessment and book a strategy call with me at the end.
All you have to lose is an hour of your time. But you could be the one thing that gets you growing your business again. Growing from the inside out.