Author Archives: Tom Ryan

Sales As A Core Business Competency, Part 5: Sales Staff

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SIBP-2Let’s say you’re really far along in creating your business model. You understand exactly what your customers’ needs are, and you’ve crafted an outstanding value proposition for them. After a long decision-making process, you’ve decided that the best course of action for your business is to dive in with both feet and sell to your customers directly.

You’ve also decided that you’re not going to sell through your website, or rely on something passive like a kickstarter campaign. You’re actually going to hire people.

Hiring a sales staff is a big step. It’s time to ask yourself a big question: “How much will I have to pay in order to set someone else to sell for me?” Continue reading →

Sales As A Core Business Competency, Part 4: Economics

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SIBP-1What exactly does it mean to professionalize your sales process? It means making your sales activities a core function of your business. If you do it correctly, your business will be much more profitable, and you will make a lot more money.

In the earlier posts, I’ve explained the foundation of a professionalized sales structure: customers, value propositions and channels. Now it’s time to construct the larger framework that foundation supports. That means talking about costs and profits. In other words, we’re talking about the economics of your business. Continue reading →

Sales As A Core Business Competency, Part 3: Channels

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SIBP-2I’m a process guy. I like to break down complex systems into their most basic structures, looking for places where things can be improved or made more efficient. In my work with entrepreneurs and small businesses, I often see the biggest process bottlenecks in the early stages of sales process. And there’s no place this is more obvious than in how a business approaches their channels.

A channel is simply another way of saying “Places to sell your stuff.” You can also look at channels as a series of branching paths, almost like branches on a tree, with each one reaching out to a specific kind of customer. Just like a tree, you can often get the best results by knowing which branches to prune.

Right off the bat, most businesses need to make a big decision in which branch to prune. Will they focus on direct or indirect sales? Direct sales means selling directly to the customer or end user, while indirect sales means that your customers aren’t the final customer, and instead they sell to the final customer as middlemen. Continue reading →

Sales As A Core Business Competency, Part 2: The Value Proposition

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SIBP-2How well do you know your customers? Do you know what they really care about? And, most importantly, do you know why they buy from you?

You don’t need to be a genius to realize the best way to get candid feedback from customers is to simply ask them. You’ll be amazed and how much you’ll learn if you actually talk to your customers.

You might learn, for instance, that the biggest problems your customers are trying to solve isn’t the one you thought it was. Perhaps you’ve been pitching your product on its price point, but your customers are more compelled to sign on the dotted line by your service plan. There are countless factors that go into making a sale, and the only way to determine the decisive ones are to go straight to the source. Continue reading →

Sales As A Core Business Competency, Part 1: The Customer

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SIBP-3Creating a professional sales competency in your business is the single biggest success hack there is. I’ve seen firsthand the impact that a professionalized sales process can make. Not only can it make you a lot of money, it can also completely change how your company is seen by investors, competitors and potential customers.

It’s easy to tell when a business hasn’t developed its sales core competency. They give off the impression that they are just “winging it,” reinventing the process for every prospect and opportunity as they go. At best, this is in inefficient and wildly inconsistent way to generate sales. At worst, it can prevent real traction and turn off both prospective customers and investors, contributing to premature failure. Continue reading →

The 10 Core Elements of Sales Competency

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SIBP-1No matter what kind of company you build, sales should be a core business function. If there’s one mistake I see entrepreneurs consistently make, it’s giving the sales side of their companies the short end of the stick. As a result, the sales processes tend to be treated as afterthoughts, rather than top-level priorities.

That’s always struck me as a strange attitude for an entrepreneur to have. After all, the most important thing for any growing business is traction, and there’s no faster way to grow traction than having truly professionalized sales process. When a company is “winging it” with their sales process, it shows. It’s only when a business develops a truly professionalized sales competency that the bulk of investors start to pay attention.

The tricky part for many entrepreneurs is lack of experience with a truly competent sales process. Even those with a background in sales might not know how a professional sales process works at the higher levels. And even when you do know how it works, implementing it can be a challenge. Continue reading →

Top 10 Red Flag Sales Rep. Expressions

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Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jenny-pics/

Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jenny-pics/

By their very nature, salespeople tend to be optimists. They have to be. When you deal with daily rejection from prospects, the one thing that keeps you going is the idea that the next big sale is just around the corner. In that setting, having an optimistic outlook is invaluable.

That said, it’s all too easy for unchecked optimism to get the better of a well-meaning sales rep. As an entrepreneur, small business owner, or sales manager, it’s important to evaluate sales opportunities objectively, and to learn how to filter out the inherent optimism of a sales rep. This allows you to avoid countless headaches and uncertainties down the line. Continue reading →

Sales As a Core Business Process

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IMG_2523When it comes to organically growing a company, you can’t beat the value of a strong sales process. Strong sales isn’t just important for your bottom line, it’s also a powerful indicator of traction, which is absolutely vital for attracting investors.

The big question for many entrepreneurs is “Where do I start?” It’s one thing to know that sales is important, and to know that you need to build a strong sales process, but another thing entirely to know the steps for building one. Continue reading →

The Importance Of Traction

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Traction is where the rubber meets the road. Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/stevensnodgrass/

Traction is where the rubber meets the road. Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/stevensnodgrass/

What happens when your car doesn’t have traction? If you lose traction before you get moving, your wheels may spin, but you won’t be going anywhere. Worse than that is losing traction while you have momentum. If you lose traction on an icy road, for instance, you could easily crash.

The same basic principles of traction apply in business. When a startup is young and most vulnerable, gaining traction in the market is hugely important to making progress. For more established businesses, losing traction can all too easily result in disaster. Continue reading →

Aligning Short-Term Needs With Long-Term Goals

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IMG_2481When you’re an entrepreneur, you’re driven by passion. Creating a successful business is about more than having a great product or service idea. It’s about pouring your energy and time into accomplishing a big, audacious goal. In the process, your dream is going to regularly collide with the realities of life.

After all, we have to support ourselves. We have mortgages to pay, bills to take care of and groceries to buy. The challenge then becomes aligning those short-term needs with your long-term goals, allowing you to accomplish everything you’re looking to achieve. Continue reading →