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I recently bought the book entitled “Harvard Business Review on Sales and Selling”. I just read the chapter called “Manage the Customer, not just the Sales Force” by Benson P. Shapiro. He wrote about a sales management team that decided to “step back and take a fresh look at the entire selling effort” when a dress line failed to increase in spite of know appeal.
Reading Shapiro motivated me to take a step back and reflected on my firm’s sales system. There are a lot of online sales options. I call it noise. It was high time to step back and get organized.
I am a very analytical, organized, task oriented task master! I believe in checklists and outlines.
So first, I drafted a sales system outline which included: (1) Product Policy and Pricing; (2) Distribution Channels for Online Training Content Sales; (3) Communication Methods; (4) Qualifying Prospects and (5) Managing Customers.
Distribution Channels include an ejunkie shopping cart on our firm’s website; a Facebook storefront; an Amazon store; a Scribd Store; Clickbank; Ebay; Lulu; Moontoast; Zazzle store; Blog for Pay via Media Bistro and the Examiner; and training videos for pay via Demand Media.
Communication methods include the 3-A’s – Advertising PULL; Appointments for personal selling PUSH; and Attending Networking Events.
Advertising PULL include Facebook ads; Google adwords; Youtube videos; direct mail marketing; email marketing; and social media posts via Hootesuite and Ping fm. Our social media posts are distributed to Twitter, Facebook, Facebook business page, Linkedin, Myspace, Google Buzz, Tumblr, Friendfeed, Identi.ca, Brightkite, and Yahoo Profile.
Appointments can be set with Facebook friends, Facebook fans, Twitter followers, and Linkedin connections using online tools like Tungle.
Networking events include Meetups; professional trade organization meetings; vendor outreach sessions; and trade conferences.
Qualifying prospects involves having a Contact Relationship Management (CRM) system that includes lead scoring. Prospects get higher scores if they are warmly engaged with us open our newsletter; comment on our blog; LIKE us on Facebook; or otherwise communicate with us.
The Customer Management component includes Opening New Account Relationships; Closing Deals; Servicing Accounts; and Maintaining Account Relationships.
Second, I created a e-file folder for each component of our sales system. The idea is to use this outline as our strategic plan.
Third, there is nothing left to do but to deploy. You have to be motivated to launch and consistently deploy!
What would you add to this system? What works for your organization?
By Clovia Hamilton, President, Lemongrass Consulting, Inc.
Clovia founded Lemongrass Consulting in 2005 with nearly 30 years of government work experience and serves as a procurement counselor in the Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center (GTPAC). Lemongrass Consulting provides strategic planning solutions including government contracting strategic marketing plans, intellectual property, social media marketing strategic plans, and other services. Contact Clovia at:
■ Web: http://www.lemongrassplanning.com/
■ Blog: https://cloviahamilton.wordpress.com/
■ LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/cloviahamilton
■ Twitter: http://twitter.com/lemongrassplans
■ Email: chamilton@lemongrassplanning.com
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