I wish you and yours wealth, health and prosperity this New Year. I also want to thank you for letting me come into your life with my weekly musings. We greatly appreciate all the comments and kind words.
To Your Success in 2007 and Beyond,
M.H Wayne and the SSI Team.
Unlike the often vague, undefined, timeless vision statement, the mission statement is a series of defined goals that are aimed at the vision.
An ideal mission has a definitive, actionable and measurable goal and should be measured on a timeline. The mission should be inspiring and challenging. Two good/amusing examples of mission:
"Beat Coke!" ~ Pepsi
"We will crush, squash, slaughter Yamaha!" ~ Honda
What is your company mission in 2007?
What is your company vision for 2007? Have you thought about it recently? Does your organization embody the vision you planned? The following are examples of company vision:
"...to make a contribution to the world by making tools for the mind that advance humankind." ~ Steve Jobs, Apple Computer
"To make people happy." ~ Walt Disney
These quotes appear to represent the true intentions of these organizations. That's a strategic planning success.
As a small or medium business executive, what are you reading that is improving your effectiveness as a leader?
Going forward, this category will provide topics, thoughts, quotes, and ideas that could possibly help your organization improve the marketing function, enhance teamwork, and maximize its return on marketing dollars spent.
Teamwork Quote and Thought:
"He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help." ~Abraham Lincoln
What 3 operational issues got in the way of maximizing your business returns in 2006? Sit down with your team and discuss. Agree on the 3 major issues. Develop a list of solutions to improve each challenge in 2007. If you really work with your team on this exercise you will reap tremendous benefits this year that could improve your bottom line.
Operations Thought:
Past operational success or failure should be chalked up as an experience. Use the lessons you have learned in 2006 as a guidepost, not a final hitching post.
This category will continue to include a variety of facts, topics, and questions to help your organization think about its operations and potential ways to maximize results.
Building a winning sales strategy for your small, medium, or small and medium business division can be a daunting process. Sales strategy is often developed by trial and error instead of careful research and a well thought out growth plan.
Today's blog includes some key thoughts to consider before you even start to update/devise a successful strategic sales plan for 2007. We hope these front-end strategic thought considerations help you and your team win in '07:
1. Identify the target market you went after in 2006 versus the actual product/service paying customers before embarking on a systematic sales plan for 2007. Use a third party research firm or management consulting firm to conduct this study. (Yes, a shameless plug.) Sounds simple enough right? Often times these are vastly at odds. You would be surprised how frequently. Something obviously has to change if your target consumer (who you have been going after) is vastly different from who is actually buying the product. This wheel spinning occurs within organizations big and small but don't let it happen to your sales team ever again.
2.Before developing a sales strategy this year consider the learning curve required to successfully implement the plan and train your sales team about your product or service at the same time. In order to avoid having a crimp in your sales plan execution we recommend automating your sales training process. This might take time off that plan this year but you'll be thanking me next year when you have increased sales productivity well into the future. The goal is to develop a process that enables you to plug a new salesperson into your workforce with minimal down time to you and your staff without compromising your sales plan/strategy timeline.
3. If there is any lack of cohesiveness and cooperation between sales and marketing vow to end it as soon as possible. These functions within an organization should be unified and the technology they share (CRM technology and related lead generation and tracking tools) should help towards this goal. If necessary, make a promise to yourself and your team to go on a team building retreat together in 2007.
4. Consider matching your sales force process and the team structure to your business peaks and valleys; the overall "business cycle." Without properly considering your lean months versus those that merely require what we call "reverse telemarketing" (answering in-bound sales calls) you can over or under estimate your sales staffing and process needs depending on the nature of your business cycle. Look at your 2007 sales strategy planning with this factor in mind.
5. Hone and define your existing sales network (contacts, current and potential leads, past customers) and the technology you use to communicate and track results. If you have one in place, fully utilize it and make sure your database is current. If you do not have such a mechanism get going on building one today. There are numerous sales tools for this function. We prefer Sales force.Com but this is not the only choice on the market. See Number 3. This is a great team building activity for sales and marketing to tackle together.
6. Something that we provide for established organizations that is incredibly helpful before, during and after developing a strategic sales plan is a win/loss study. Common sense tells you that the win/loss analysis enables sales teams to find out why they are winning accounts and why they are losing the same ones but it is usually much more than this at the end of the day. We often learn about product marketing and aspects of the organizations culture among other things that might be getting in the way of the sale. Information you never considered is usually revealed through this careful study. It is definitely a prerequisite to developing any lasting successful sales plan and is best conducted on a quarterly basis to ensure that all parts of the sales mechanism are working towards the same goals. It is also usually something that you can share with marketing to develop and create a winning partnership in 2007.
As an executive or manager, what are your thoughts for additional front-end strategies to contemplate before developing a plan?
