Springboard

We Make Sales Happen

FAQ’s What we need from you

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What do you need from me?

Initially as we work through the market research phase and begin the build the pipeline we’ll need to learn more about your experiences with clients, what’s worked, what didn’t and why.  We need to know your ideas about target markets and review your marketing material.  We certainly do not rely on marketing material however it can be helpful; if you don’t have marketing material it’s not a deal breaker.  Case studies are always helpful for us to learn more about your business but also so we can share results with your prospects.

What we need most from you is to be a team member.  Our ability to be successful requires us working as a team.  We need to know enough about your services to be dangerous but we need you to be the expert.  We are able to open doors to extremely high level decision makers and we need you to shine or we risk damaging that relationship that has taken years to develop.  We’re very careful about who we bring in front of our contacts as we know one wrong move and we may never get that opportunity again.  So for you it’s about respecting all that we do today and all we’ve done to create the relationships we have that ultimately will benefit you.  We put those relationships on the line to help you grow your business.  We need you to recognize that you need to bring your “A” game to those meetings, you need to follow up in the appropriate manner and frequency, you need to deliver on what was promised at the time it was promised and you need to service the hell out of that account.  If you intend to raise your game by growing your business you need to start today with our very first introduction.

Prospect Rant #5 – They said they had connections

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Rant #5 – They TOLD ME they had great connections

It’s now 6 months later and we have no meetings scheduled.  I have to admit I love this one because it can happen across the board.  It can be your $225k hire, the retired military leader, the retired Agency head, the “commercial expert” or the newbie, etc.  You’re paying for action not cards in a rolodex.  How many former executives do you know that actually handled the sales process?  Not too many – so why would you expect them to do it for you?  You hired them for one reason and one reason only – to make introductions for you and now in order to see your investment flourish you need to pair them with someone who can communicate the opportunity and move the opportunity forward.

It can also happen with your in-house Business Development person, anyone can say they know people and how many CRM’s are filled with names and numbers that represent a person they met once at an event 5 years ago?  Again Business Development is about connections, strategy and execution.  You’re looking for someone who can figure out the puzzle, methodically go about meeting and meeting with your desired prospects, communicate in the most effective way the value that prospect would receive in working with you and moving that prospect along the pipeline IF they are the right fit.  The last thing you want is someone trying to cram a square peg into a round hole.  You want right fit clients and you need the person who is willing to walk away from a deal if in the short or long run they know it’s not going to work.  The frustration and potential damage to your reputation just isn’t worth a few months of revenue.

Let’s be honest, sales is a crap shoot.  There really is no way to tell if someone you interview really has strong connections or not (unless of course you’ve seen this person in action over a long period of time).  There’s also no way you can identify their strategic capabilities or their desire to execute.  What does work is communication and accountability.  This in no way implies you should be a micro-manager however there does need to be a standard for how information is delivered to you and vice versa.

It Really Is YOU not ME

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I’m sure at some point in your dating life someone said “it’s not you, it’s me” and you believed them.  It doesn’t mean that it was a bad thing that your relationship didn’t work out although at the time you were probably devastated.  The same happens every day in business and whether it’s you or me is irrelevant; we’re just not the right fit.

A few blogs ago we talked about our Client Acceptance Protocol and the changes we had to make to ensure we are focused on working with the right clients.  We find that there are certain business owner traits that coincide with a certain size and type of client and we’ve learned over almost 5 years where we can and cannot be successful.

Here’s what we look for in a client:

  • A unique offering, product or service
  • A CEO who knows how to delegate and outsource
  • A CEO who understands their sales cycle
  • A client who is looking to build long term happy client relationships and not just transactions
  • A respectful leadership team and corporate culture
  • A leadership team who truly understands their people are their greatest asset
  • A leadership team who regularly, consistently communicates and receives feedback with grace

What we know doesn’t work:

  • A CEO that’s a micro-manager
  • A CEO without a vision of the future of the company
  • The CEO who believes that their people are the smartest and their service is better than anyone else – this is usually the person who is not living in reality
  • A CEO or corporate culture build on disrespect
  • A CEO or leadership team that cannot accept feedback or places blame on everyone else
  • A CEO who thinks their team is disposable

As you can see it’s not easy to tell one from the other in a meeting or two.  Everyone puts their best foot forward in an interview and no one will tell you they are a passive aggressive nutcase or they micromanage everyone and everything.   People have asked why in our Client Acceptance Protocol have we instituted meetings with other members of the company and with clients along with attending new prospect meetings…this is why.  You can learn a lot from seeing someone in action, how they respond to questions, how they handle adversity.  These meetings allow us to learn more about the company, its process, its unique capabilities, and most importantly it allows us to see who we’re really partnering with.  Every day we put our relationships and our reputations on the line for our clients and one bad client can ruin years of work, we look to ensure that never happens.  Outsourced business development is a team  approach; we rely on each other to close deals and if we can’t trust the behavior of our client, we can’t in good consciousness represent them

 

Relationship Selling vs. Transaction Selling

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If we have said it once, we have said it a thousand times…

Business is all about building relationships!

While we are not saying that a transactional approach to selling is ineffective, what we are saying is that it is not the most efficient way to make a sale. The main difference between relationship selling and transactional selling is in the approach.

•      Transactional Selling: This strategy is all about short-term solutions. The sales rep is primarily concerned with the promotion and selling of the product with little or no emphasis on customer needs. This strategy, also known as traditional selling, is all about the single sale.

•      Relationship Selling: This strategy is all about building long-term relationships. The sales rep gets to know his/her customer, their needs and their wants. Then and only then does the salesperson even think about trying to make a sale.

One of these sales solutions has a higher probability of multiple transactions. We will let you guess which sales strategy we are talking about…

If you guessed Relationship Selling, then you are right!

Organizations that utilize a relationship building approach to sales have a competitive edge over their rivals. Companies that practice relationship selling continually see substantial growth in revenues and lower expenses, year after year. This is because it is cheaper to keep an existing client than it is to establish new clients with each and every sale.

It has been said that 80% of an organization’s business comes from 20% of its customers, those satisfied customers who keep coming back for more.

So as you can see, a relationship-based sales strategy has tremendous upside.

If you have any questions, contact Springboard Business Development by calling 410-832-7560 or click here today!

At Springboard we offer outsourced sales solutions for businesses in the professional services arena. It’s simple, while you focus on delivery, we bring our sales expertise and connections to focus on your business development challenges.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter as well!

Sources:

Assignment Marketing

Why Outsourcing Your Sales is a Good Idea

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As your business continues to get bigger, your time gets split between more and more tasks: marketing, management, customer relations, finances, and sales. But the more time you spend on the day-to-day activities of your business, the less time you have to expand and grow your company. What can you do? You can’t be everywhere at once.

The only solution is to hand over control of one aspect of your business to someone you can trust. The easiest and most cost-effective way to do this is through outsourcing. The benefits of outsourcing your sales to a third party vendor include:

•     Save Money: Outsourcing your sales to an entire dedicated sales team is much cheaper than hiring your own, in-house sales force.

•     No Training: You will not have to waste company time (and more money) training a new sales team.

•     Grow Your Business: Outsourcing sales allows management to focus on core business activites.

Outsourcing is becoming a common practice for many businesses as more and more companies are realizing the benefits of utilizing the skills of others to help their business venture succeed. So let Springboard take care of your sales while you focus on growing your business.

If you have any questions about outsourcing, contact Springboard by calling 410-832-7560 or click here today!

At Springboard we offer outsourced sales solutions for businesses in the professional services arena. It’s simple, while you focus on delivery, we bring our sales expertise and connections to focus on your business development challenges.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter as well!

Sources:

Is Outsourcing your Sales Force a Good Idea?

Why to Outsource Your Sales Team

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