What about the sales forecast?

We all put together a business plan for the forthcoming year, don’t we!!

It is surprising how many businesses don’t do one at all & at a recent networking meeting I took a ‘straw poll’. The result was only about 20% of 24 people.

In preparing the potential cash flow for the year, the first line titled – ‘Sales’, but how did you get to the figures you entered?

A lot of people will have taken last year’s figures added a percentage for inflation and/or possible growth and entered them.

The question I am posing is – What use are they?
In my opinion – Not a lot.

From that completed Cash Flow forecast you are going to make some decisions on your business future and if you have entered inaccurate or misleading data, how sound are the decisions you will make?

The sales forecast is one of the most important tasks, so it must be compiled with accuracy taking into account all factors of potential order intake, from your customers and the market addressed.

Once completed it also will highlight areas where you are deficient, in orders for a month or a customer(s) change in orders etc.

You are able to take some action not only in levelling out the peaks and troughs, but also where you can target your resources to the best effect.

It is a living document which must be updated regularly to keep pace with the trends in your business.

So do you prepare a sales forecast – If not: Why?

The Customer is always Right!!

This is an old saying which goes back many decades, and today it is probably more relevant.

There have been comments, in the press and media recently, about customer service in these economically challenging times, or should I say the lack of it.

When I first started in sales, to many years ago, the trainer who was delivering the course, emphasised on us that the customer in never wrong, then proceeded to add misinformed, mistaken, mislead but never wrong. At the time you do not take too much notice, but as I gained experience in the field I realised that this statement in right.

The quickest way to lose a potential or existing customer is to tell them they are wrong.

You need to phrase your questioning in such a way to lead them into a pattern of thought that gets them to review their choice, such as ‘What was your criteria for choosing that product?’

Not too long back I needed some more special connectors for a stage lighting project and went to the local electronic components store where I had previously purchased them. Not being able to find them as asked one of the staff and showed them a sample and was immediately told ‘We have never sold them’. Considering I had purchased the previous one in that same store and responded to this fact was blankly told again ‘We have never sold them and promptly walked away. Beside the bad manners, the person in question did not even offer to check their inventory or query what was, my needs.

I do not frequent that store today.

There may be occasions, after questioning, you may not be able to help them, so be honest and up front and tell them so. Your creditability will be enhanced as you have been honest.

So treat your customer with honesty and integrity and they will remain with you.

You do not stop selling

As I sit here looking out of my office window at the snowy landscape (which is becoming more frequent in the SE England winters) with my wife waiting for the delivery from a well-known cosmetics company which is now overdue by 3 days.

The fact that we have booked an order from our customer(s) the sales effort does not stop.

In the case of the awaited delivery. We know why it is late because of the bad weather, and that we should get it tomorrow. My wife has been kept informed by e-mails and text messages.

In turn she has informed her customers of the current situation.

We all face this situation sometimes and keeping our customers informed is part of the sales function.

I myself have faced it this week and contacted my client to inform him that getting to him was going to be difficult, due to the road conditions. He in turn advised that he was not expecting me to arrive but was pleased that I had confirmed the situation.

The main point in both cases was that it was appreciated that you took the time to keep them informed. It may be that your delivery is vitally important but so much better to keep them informed of the situation. In the long-term it will be appreciated.

I am sure you have had situations where something has gone wrong, say with travel arrangements and you can get no information on the situation, which is often the situation with some of our providers. You get frustrated, annoyed and vow never to use that service again.

If they keep you informed, you may not like the information but at least you have some idea of what is going on and they are doing your best to resolve it.

So keep you customers informed, it is still part of the sales function and your reputation as a reliable supplier will be intact.

E-mail or snail mail!!

An interesting question was posed recently, at my regular breakfast networking group.

What is better, e-mail marketing or the conventional marketing letter?

There are pro’s and con’s to both methods so here is my thoughts on the subject.

E-mail marketing

There are those who publicly announce that conventional advertising, letters etc are dead and e-mail marketing is the future.

With this method you can get ‘your message’ to a large number of people and it can be automated.

So long as you comply with the rules, as within the Eu it is illegal to send an unsolicited sales message, by purchasing the appropriate address lists which have been scanned for those people who have opted out.

We all receive them in one form or the other and most of them are subject to the ‘delete’ key. So you could argue that this form has now got to saturation and is loosing its advantage.

Conventional Letter

Snail mail as it is so frequently called these days. You have to prepare each one separately, except if you contract a company, to do it for you, it is not possible to get the quantity of letters mailed you could do with e-mail.

However there is one point, which I have made before – ‘people buy from people’ and a conventional letter should be individually created. That is not saying that you compose an individual letter to each recipient but it is tailored to that person, with variations of a standard letter.

Both have their advantages and disadvantages, and I am not saying which the best method is; it will depend on your market and the coverage of potential customers.

What do you think?

Your competition is good for you!

Your competitors are the adrenaline, that will keep you on your toes.
A strange phrase, maybe, but think what would happen if you had the market to yourself with no competition. You would stagnate, no innovation and your business would eventually die.

Know your competitors as well as you know your own products and market, you can always learn something new from their activities.

Taking a good example. Have you wondered why, here in the UK, there has been a surge in talent type shows on terrestrial television. All of the main channels have them, in one form or another.
The reasoning from the is that you, the viewer, are their customers and it attracts an audience.

However it can go a lot further than that, in how you present your own product range, than just pricing. As I mentioned in an earlier blog the reason to buy your product is the benefits, so you must evaluate carefully your competition product not for what it is (feature) but what it does (benefits).
This is two pronged, on one side you can compare your product against the competition and the best way of doing that is with a matrix. There will be some features & benefits which you offer and the competition does not and vice versa.
This can highlight where you may be missing something and can add it but also where your competition may be doing something better than you.
The second is that it will focus on how you can present to the market your product not just personally but in the tone of your publicity and website.

There is one warning – never, never, never, rubbish your competitors. This is the biggest mistake you can make and will turn your customers away, especially if you are attempting to replace your competition.
If you have done your homework with the comparison matrix, you can highlight where your product is better for your customers application by using the benefits.
Remember they buy benefits not features.

Act like a sniper

Act like a sniper – That is how you should work on your sales prospecting.

Too many small businesses use, what I term the blunderbuss approach. This , if I remember my history correctly, was a weapon in the 19^th century which fired shot over a large area & the probability of hitting a specific target was reduced, in so much as the energy used to dissipate the shot, spread it over a large area.

When you are seeking new customers you must act like a sniper and use a precision weapon.

This sounds a bit dramatic but too many businesses will undertake a mail shots and send it out to almost everyone in the telephone directory with a very minimal response, if any. The prospective customers will more than likely treat it as ‘junk mail’ and you know what we all do with that – file it in the waste bin. The same goes for e-mail, & that will get caught in the junk file.

The objective of the task is to win new customers so target a group of potential customers, do some research including finding the decision makers.

You can then craft your message to them, whether it is a letter or e-mail, which has relevance to them, then, follow it up a few days later with a call.

If you have done your preparation the conversion rate can be 30-40% who show interest which enables you to go to the next stage.

So act like a sniper and target your potential customers

The hardest answer in sales!

Strange title!

The answer is no, I cannot help you.

Over the many years in sales, it is something you learn the hard way, from experience. The product(s) which you sell will not meet everyone’s requirement.

Your aim is long term customer that will return to you with future requirements and getting an order at any cost is the quickest way to loose a customer.

Take for example the example I used in my ‘Listen to the answer blog’. A number of the mobile phone shops could not meet my needs and some were determined to make a sale at any cost.
So when in future I am seeking a replacement, I will not go to them as they have alienated themselves in my mind.
The better track to have taken would have been, sorry I cannot help but try X.
They did not have what I needed, so there was not potential for a sale & lost nothing.

By taking that line, your customer will remember that you were honest with them and tried to help. So there is a high probability that they will come back to you for their next requirement or when you call them in future you will get a favourable reception.

You had nothing to loose, but in future you may gain a lot, and your reputation will have gone up in the view of your customer as someone who wanted to help.

Build a relationship

The premise more orders, more profit, the answer must be – possibly.

Developing your sales is more than just getting orders, and in the current climate, for some people, that is often at any price. A few businesses that I meet, have a policy that, more orders on the book equates to larger profits, which is often not the case, especially if they have cut the price to get the order.

From the many years ‘on the road’ as a sales engineer/manager, I spent a majority of my time speaking to and visiting customers with the main aim of developing a relationship & this does take time.

As has been mentioned before, people buy from people, and if you do not have some form of business relationship, your chances of landing the order is significantly reduced.

A few years back, when I was ‘on the road’ there was one major manufacturer I visited regularly. I received odd orders but these were only small in comparison to that potentially available. Although the business relationship was friendly, there was something missing which I could not pin down. I was mentioned this at one of the monthly sales meetings and my MD at the time, who was also coach at the local swimming club, commented ‘I saw him last weekend at the swimming gala, he is a referee. The next time I visited the company I just mentioned that my MD has seen him at the recent gala and apologised for not having time to say hello. From that point onwards I started getting enquires for major projects and won some large orders.

I had taken an interest in him as a person. In future meetings often just asked ‘How was the swimming scene, at the moment’ etc, nothing deep but showing an interest.

It works but you must be subtle, relevant & patient.

Build a relationship, especially relevant for your larger customers.

They buy from people whom they trust.

It is a principal I still use, and it works!

Is a face to face sales meeting valid today?

A face to face (F2F) sales meeting is still and always will be the most important function which you undertake in your sales development.

Some people today champion the idea that with all of the facilities available online you do not need to make any visits to your customers, you can do it all via e-mails, website sales cart, social media etc.
In some cases this is true.
I have been looking for a specific book on WordPress, the platform on which this blog is based and ended up purchasing it via the web from a well know major supplier (you probably all know the one I mean), but that was not before I had visited a number of bookshops to source it, but no one had it in stock.
In this case I knew exactly what I needed, and it was convenient.

However the question I pose is, do your customers always know exactly what they want and as I have mentioned before people still buy from people.
The number of times I have visited customers with one subject/product on the agenda and leave with that, and a number of other requirements.

Yes online media has its advantages of following up visits & keeping in contact with your customer as an additional sales tool but it cannot replace face to face interaction.

Your message to the market

Your message to the market is one of the most important in the development of sales.

A few days ago I was visiting a new client, based in one of our local town centres. It was not the meeting with them but my need to park in one of the town centre car parks which brought this subject to mind.
After paying my fee, for two hours, in the parking ticket machine, I received a ticket for only one hour of parking. Luckily the parking office was nearby and queried this with them. The machine had apparently not registered a number of my coins and the problem was sorted out.
After my meeting the manager of the office was standing outside and I thanked him for his assistance and started chatting to him.
It was interesting to hear his personal opinion of the town’s car parking charges, to the fact that they now charge for parking every day including Sunday. There are a number of shopping centres all within 45 minutes drive of the one in question and the comparison of the different policies.
Two of them do not charge on Sundays, and 2 are free at weekends with also a major shopping mall, free at anytime.
After his summary he turned to me and said ‘the local council don’t want you to visit the town centre’.
Yes, that is the message they appear to be putting out.
With other town centres and a major shopping mall within easy reach, their competition, they appear to be saying come and visit here and we will make you pay for it.
Not a good message if you are trying to attract visitors (i.e. customers), and definitely not a way to keep them coming back.

So think carefully about your message to the market.