Sales Outsourcing Vs Internal Sales
Posted by admin in Sales Management on January 26, 2012
One of the toughest choices facing many brands is whether to outsource sales functions to a third party organisation or handle sales internally. Each approach has advantages and disadvantages, but sales outsourcing often proves the more effective business decision.
Handling sales internally allows a business to maintain the greatest level of control over how its sales operations are conducted. Each part of the process, from the lowest to the highest level, is controlled directly by the business itself. This leaves few barriers to prevent micromanagement of the tiniest details. Micromanagement can help when trying to keep sales processes in line with brand identity and image – no third party organisation will know your products, your pitches or your leading value propositions as well as an internal team, and third party organisations can sometimes create problems by overenthusiastically pushing products when the underlying brand is characterised by its inoffensive image. This and other miscommunication problems are less likely to occur when sales are handled in-house.
On the other hand, handling sales internally is an administrative nightmare for major brands with a whole host of other concerns. Handling sales internally represents a huge commitment of resources and will require your business to engage in the active and costly process of recruiting sales specialists. Once you have recruited an internal sales team, it will be a continuous drain on company resources – many effective sales strategies are characterised by intermittent periods of calm and intensive work, but having an in-house team means your costs of employment remain high regardless.
Outsourcing sales functions to a third party organisation can spare you from many problems associated with in-house sales. For example, if your business wants to engage in intermittent sampling campaigns tied to periods of elevated consumer spending, employing a field marketing agency for short-term contracts during your targeted time periods will spare you from the costs and hassle associated with recruiting and dismissing staff on a temporary basis.
Another significant advantage of outsourcing sales is that it enables you to take advantage of the years of sales expertise accrued by your marketing agency, leaving your staff members free to focus on producing a quality product. At a management level, outsourcing sales need not take you ‘out of the loop’ or reduce your degree of strategic control. Everything from the key performance indicators you use to benchmark success to the selling phrases you want product demonstrators to use can be determined at a senior level and even written into the contract with your agency of choice.
Many business owners treat marketing agencies with distrust – no successful business gets to where they are by leaving important decisions to chance. However, contracting work to a marketing agency with a proven track record of top performance is anything but a random decision. It does not disempower a senior management team, nor is it a sign of managerial weakness. Outsourcing sales could bring about a significant uplift in sales figures, and this is easy to test – simply allocate a local, short-term contract for sales work to the field marketing agency of your choice and analyse their performance yourself.
Cosine is an award-winning UK field marketing agency, delivering innovative field sales solutions to a range of national and international brands. Cosine field sales solutions are data-driven and effective: outsource sales functions to Cosine UK today.
Some Thoughts on Sales Management Considered
Posted by admin in Sales Management on January 26, 2012
So many companies blow it when it comes to sales management and there are a number of reasons for this. Often, the products or services sell themselves sell so well that the sale force becomes merely order takers, and pockets some hefty commissions. Other times, the sales department doesn’t know where it’s at, but as long as sales are up, no one bothers to give the group a second glance.
Look, whether your company is running away with the market share and sales are robust, or you are in dead last and left for dog meat, you still need to pay attention and manage your sales department, just as you would any other business unit. It’s amazing all the Six Sigma Strategies companies have for their supply chain, human resources, training, manufacturing, and how lax they can become with the sales department.
In fact, your sales department(s) can make or break your company regardless of your size. Perhaps you are a small to medium size business with only one, two, or a handful of salespeople, it still matters, indeed it could matter more – one bad month, or too many un-kept promises and your competition will be taking your best customers as their best prospects and sales soon enough.
Micro-Managing sales people can be a huge mistake, you don’t want to go there, still, the sales people must comply with the basic paperwork, or you need to streamline the process and get them some assistance. Their time should be out pressing the flesh, on the phone, and doing the relationship building they need to keep those sales coming in, propelling your quarterly profits, shareholder’s equity, and market share. Without a strong sales unit, your company is headed for rocky waters, like any cruise ship run aground.
Running a franchising company has taught me a lot about sales management, specifically; what can go wrong, and how to see the signs that something has gone astray well before it reflects in the company income statement – and I can tell you that it is imperative to pay attention and keep a watchful eye on your sales teams. Everyone running a company wants to win, it’s competitive, sales are competitive, so is attainment of market share – this is why some of the most competitive people find themselves in sales.
Thus, managing such a group is a totally different ball game than you may have been led to believe in MBA school. Indeed, I hope you will please consider all this and start focusing on educating yourself about sales and sales management as soon as possible.
6 Tips to Handle Coaching Meetings in Busy Crowded Areas
Posted by admin in Sales Management on January 26, 2012
Do you ever have to meet clients or colleagues in crowded areas to have a meeting, for coaching and 1 to 1 training? Starbucks, busy hotel lobbies, reception areas, service stations. Unfortunately, it’s the sign of the times and we don’t always have the privacy of a room. Read on and I’ll share some ideas on how you can get the best out of these meetings.
I could just see the Prudential logo on her notepad so I guessed she was a financial adviser meeting with a prospective client in a hotel reception in deepest darkest Suffolk.
Quite normal you might say but little did she know that I was about to start a multi room conference at the same hotel with about 60 delegates milling between half a dozen rooms on two floors with break outs planned very 15 minutes. The reception area was going to become a bit like Piccadilly Circus on steroids.
I did feel sorry for her…and her client…and I was tempted to pop over and give her some tips to handle the situation she found herself in.
Backs to the Wall
In heavy distraction areas put yourself with your back to a wall or blank area so your client doesn’t get distracted whilst watching you. You can then use all sorts of gesture and non verbal language to get your points across. You might get diverted but you can handle that can’t you?
Spatial Anchoring
Use your body language and gestures to keep more attention than just using your voice. Use special anchoring (yes you can get jabs for that at the chemist) to differentiate information. For example, when you talk about your competition move your body one way and for information about you and your service, move your body into a different position. Your client will anchor the information to the body position. So when you get to present your solution, move your body into the anchored position.
Alternatively use your left and right hands to mean things. “On one hand we could look at this option and on the other hand we could go this way”. Now emphasise or gesture the hand you would rather they take. This is quite hypnotic buy the way.
The Cooperative Angle
Always sit at 90 degrees to your client as this is known as the cooperative position but remember what’s behind you.
Eye Level
Your eyes must be level with your client. This is usually very easy when you’re both sitting down but if you’re standing up and you’re much taller than your client, you could come across as looking down at them. Not good.
Voice Emphasis
Emphasis your voice more to keep their attention. Change your tone…speed up to add excitement to a point and sloooow down to emphasise a decision. Finally, when asking for some commitment or closing, attempt to slow your voice pace and lower your tone. This change in voice is very good at building belief and credibility to your proposition. Try it, it works.
What to do with your hands
Hands? What do we do with them? When sitting down with clients, try to keep your hands below your face and above the table. This is the right zone. Keep them in this zone and use gestures. Hand to face does you no favours at all so keep them away from this area unless you want to do a classic thinking person’s pose. But you could use your little finger to see if the client gets your point.
Standing to present, keep your hands in the zone between your belly button and chin – never below or above these places. Use them to gesture and describe, don’t grasp them like there’s no tomorrow.
And with your back to the wall, using your body language to its maximum effect and your voice to gain their attention, so your client can really focus just on you, you’re open to a little bit of hypnotic language. But that’s for another day. Or is it?
And my financial adviser guest? No, I didn’t pop over to her, that wouldn’t be right or well received. Bless her though, she just carried on, but you could plainly see the client was clearly distracted much of the time. Shame that…a couple of these tips might have made all the difference.