Sales management: Often the early bird really does get the worm!

All too often developing an opportunity builds up steam over time with resources and effort increased as it becomes a surer reality, terminating in frantic bidding and customisation of your offering to meet the stated requirements.

This is quite understandable as a Sales Manager is loathe to commit resources without a reasonable assurance that they will not be ‘wasted’.

Unfortunately, experience teaches us that this cautious approach is not only inefficient, but frequently results in lost work as the true buying motivation goes undiscovered by the sales team. In itself this is nothing new, collective wisdom has long extolled the need for early engagement.

So, as a manager how can you successfully walk this tightrope between success and resources wastage?

Before looking at this let’s get some terminology agreed; Business development is NOT sales, even if it is undertaken by the same person. Larger companies often have a separate team such as Hunters or Account Managers, but what they all have in common is that success ultimately depends on identifying the NEED(s) and developing the perception not only that you can address this NEED better than anyone else, but that the NEED is significant enough to warrant the cost of your solution. Once (and only once) this is achieved can the lead but considered a realistic opportunity, and either passed on to technical sales people, or flagged as warranting limited resources being invested in trying to win the work. Frequently it is left to the technical sales team to try and uncover these NEEDS which presents several problems.

Firstly, the early stages of an opportunity are privileged in terms of access to all customers, and through this your ability to uncover the NEEDS behind the technical requirements. It is also the time to validate and calibrate your solution with as wide a range of people as possible. Secondly, if this is left to the technical sales team not only is there considerable duplication of effort but teams will be reluctant to shutdown an opportunity that has already been qualified by the BD team. This results in a far greater number of poor opportunities taking up resources time for little probable return. This requires even more self-discipline when a single person is undertaking all of the activities.

Finally, clearly separating these activities allows the validation questions to be refined and improved over time, and a clear understanding of what it takes to move an interesting sales lead into an opportunity that you have a realistic chance of winning in a profitable manner.

This is the basis of the Mbrace Winning opportunities workbook aimed at helping sales teams accomplish this balancing act between success and resource wastage. Contact us for further information.