Customers’ challenges:
- Revenues decrease
- Margins shrink
- Sales teams seem demotivated.
- Sales reps work a lot, but achieve little.
- Everyone does what he wants and no one does what he should do.
- Sales people are artists who do not want to be controlled.
“If my production worked like my sales organization, I would no longer be able to ship a machine.“
CEO of a German Midsize Company
Possible cause roots:
- Too late in the customer’s purchasing cycle
- Little possibilities for differentiation of the product level
- Product focus vs. solution focus
- Low contact levels with the customers (operational vs. management)
- Rather tactical than strategic approaches
- Only vague knowledge about competition
- Lack of clear sales leadership
- Inadequate structures
- Lonely fighters vs. team players
“Sales people are artists and should be disturbed in their creativity.”
Consequences:
- Low hit rate – often only 2 out of 10 projects
- High cost of sales
- Lack of communication with in and among sales teams
- No consistent approach in selling
- No common language and common pictures
- Lack of coherent understanding of:
- Market segmentation – Where do we want to sell to?
- Customer portfolio – To whom do we sell to?
- Customer needs – What are our customers’ pain points?
- Potential solutions – What kind of solutions and products could we offer or develop to best satisfy our customers’ needs?
“The opposite of good is the good intention.”