Archive for the ‘Sales’ Category

The Warning Signs in the Recession

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

Very often the experiences of SMEs in a downturn are just not consistent with what we are led to believe. The bank balance is healthy (or at least OK), sure we are having to discount more, everyone is looking for a “deal“ but things could be worse. We are still very busy.

Just stop and think for a minute. Let me suggest as possible backdrop:

  • Business activity has reduced so to try and maintain volume margins are squeezed by discounting.
  • Purchases are down due to the slow down so Creditors have reduced.
  • Stock (if this is a feature of your business) is being used to fulfill orders in lieu of purchases.
  • Debtors are paying, later maybe, but paying.

All this change in activity can show itself in a better bank balance, initially. This can be euphoric but it can lead to a false sense of security.

It is essential to measure and monitor the level, type and profitability of sales or contracts and check the impact on the break even for the business.

If there is an adverse impact on the bottom line then corrective action must be taken and quickly.

Areas to consider for priority improvement are:

  • Sales Conversion Rates.
  • Sales Profitability.
  • Cutting out Waste in ALL Processes.
  • Get the Invoice out as soon as possible.
  • Review Terms.
  • Focus on Credit Control.
  • Monitor Preformance Monthly, Weekly or Daily.

At Practical Partners we specialise in helping you and your people to do just that. Real Business Improvement through people first and processes.

For a free initial meeting to discuss the issues facing Your business call David Hudec on 07809 839 880.

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Posted in Business Improvement, Planning, Sales | 1 Comment »

How to Improve your Selling Skills

Thursday, May 21st, 2009

On an operational level, the barriers to growing a business can be categorised as either

  • Sales Constraints or
  • Capacity Constraints

Here I am going to explore some of the fundamental issues facing businesses that are experiencing Sales Constraints and to show how we can help to remove these.

Firstly it must be realised that, very often, the actual sale, instruction or commitment to proceed is at the end of a whole series of promotional activities designed to drive traffic towards the business. At some point though there is the need to actually make a sale.

In many cases, rather than improve the effectiveness of each of the promotional activities, the knee jerk reaction to a decrease in sales is to increase the spend on the same activities and hope for an improvement.

Realistically though, if you don’t materially change anything then what can you expect? To use an old cliche, you have to break eggs to make an omelette.

At Practical Partners we specialise in delivering targetted and focussed help and we have developed an intensive half day Introduction to Selling workshop with the specific aim of providing a sound understanding of what sales is and showing you how to get better results from your selling activities by using some tried and tested techniques. The How and the What of selling.

The workshop is carried out on a one to one basis or in small teams (all from the same business). This allows you to feel comfortable in openly discussing the course material as it is introduced.

There is no role play scheduled but in our experience many people want some of the techniques fleshed out into a context they have experienced and so this is facilitated on an on demand basis.

At the end of the session you will be equipped with some powerful tools and be ready to make a real difference to your sales performance immediately.

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Posted in Sales | No Comments »