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Practical Help to Grow Your Business
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What's Sauce For The Goose ...
Idioms, Proverbs, Analogies
What's sauce for the goose is, as they say, sauce for the gander. The usual equivalent meaning is if it's good enough for me, it's good enough for you. In other words, if something works in one area, it or its equivalent might well work in another.
The English language does it all the time with many idioms, proverbs and analogies in common use, but whose origins have often been lost to the majority of speakers. Hobson's Choice for example, meaning no choice at all, comes from a Mr Hobson who used to hire out his horses in Cambridge many years ago.
When you asked him for a horse you were offered the next one in the line, take it or leave it.
What about business? What ideas might be useful if migrated into the fields of Sales and Marketing, or between these two spheres?
One thought comes instantly to mind.
“What ideas might be useful if
migrated into Sales and
Marketing?”
Testing And Measuring
Regular readers will have seen me advocating the testing and measuring of Marketing activities in order to find out what works best for your business. Of course I am by no means alone in this and, as many people far more expert than me have said, none of us can predict for certain what will work in anybody else's business. Many businesses have accepted this idea and are running small scale trials in order to discover what to invest more strongly in to generate new enquiries and sales leads, yet there seems to be far less testing and measuring in the actual sales process.
“There's far less testing and
measuring in the sales
process than in marketing”
Analyse Sales Performance
One organisation that started analysing its sales performance and processes found some interesting results. They looked at all the opportunities that their Sales team had forecast to close over the preceding six months and found they had successfully closed 30% of them. 10% had been lost to their competitors but this left 60% where no decision had yet been made.
The obvious, but not always easily seen conclusion from this or any similar Sales function is that 'no decision' is their biggest competitor! The logical progression from this realisation is to attempt to reduce this percentage, but how? Analysing the things that worked in the successful 30% of cases will have no effect if decision making is entirely outside the control of the Sales team.
“In 60% of cases it was ‘No
decision yet’. This was their
biggest competitor!”
Eliminate The Unproductive
Instead, one needs to look at how many of these particular opportunities might be eliminated from the forecast altogether, and consequently not soak up valuable time and resources. Now it was reasonable for the organisation looked at the tactics it had used in the 30% of cases where the deals had been closed, and they found several common threads, some occurring as often as in 70% of the successes.
In the cold light of hindsight, you might think that the ideas that worked would have been duplicated elsewhere, but no. Amongst the lost orders and the delayed decisions, these success factors were only being used between 10% and 40% of the time. In fact, the more successful the tactic, the less it was found to have been used outside the 'successes' group!
Before you jump to conclusions, I should say that the most successful tactic was also the most resource intensive, so this could have been a contributing factor in its limited use. But if the tactic worked, why wouldn't anyone want to do more of it, presuming the deals that were obtained were still profitable in the widest sense? Why not do more of what works with well qualified prospects who are willing to cooperate with tactics like this? Why not use acceptance of this tactic by the prospect as a selection criterion for appearing in the forecast?
“Why not use acceptance of
tactics that work for you as a
selection criterion?”
Their Detail Doesn't Matter
You will notice that I haven't revealed what any of these tactics were, and this is deliberate. Just because they worked for someone else doesn't guarantee they will work for you. However, the analysis of your own results, and particularly the tactics employed in the successful cases, will reveal information that is a sound basis for further experiment. By discovering such facts and sharing them with your Sales team, you stand a good chance of improving your performance.
Because these are facts and not opinions or theories, it will be more likely your team will happily take notice, focus their energies and raise their game.
“What already works for you is
important. These are facts and
not opinions or theories, so
there'll be greater ‘buy in’.”
 
Copyright ©2011 David Winch
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