Bringing in new revenue is never easy. The best companies increase their sales by breaking down internal roadblocks and barriers that make the administrative part of selling to their customers onerous. In short, they maximize revenue by getting out of their own way.
Consider these examples of companies that are getting in their own way when it comes to increasing sales.
A national sales manager at a sporting goods company has to cover for a large vacant territory. Hunched over his laptop while trying to set up a new client, he mutters to himself, “Boy, we sure make it hard for our reps to place an order.” Multiple screens to populate and redundant data entry make the task of ordering product slow and cumbersome. This is especially disconcerting to him because he wrote many of the ordering protocols.
A sales vice-president at a security devices company is frustrated with his accounting department. An uncharacteristically large order from a long-term customer in good standing is held up there because it falls outside of the account’s approval limit. It’s month end, and without this significant order his team will miss its sales goal.
In both of these examples, bringing in new revenue is difficult. The policies and procedures to be followed, created with the best intentions, have sound management principles behind them. Unfortunately, somewhere between the top floor and the sales room floor, things get lost in the translation and the customer experience suffers. Viable sales are put on hold, and cash flow suffers. Customer and employee frustration rise as well.
Getting out of your own way as a company means being flexible and creative in the application of policies that affect bringing in new revenue. Business fundamentals must be adhered to, of course, but simplifying and streamlining process wherever possible should be top of mind.
Simplification does not mean cutting corners. It refers to the elimination of redundancies and excessive diligence that stall the sales process, stymie the flow of products out the shipping door and slow the flow of cheques in the front door.
Here are some easy places to look for choke points that hinder your process and delay the acquisition of new revenue.
Proposal creation: How long does it take your people to produce a quote or proposal? If it takes is more than one hour then you have a choke point. Create templates in bullet-point form that are easy to populate. Refine your selling process so that proposals are built during the sales process, rather than near the end.
Pricing approval: Shoot for 24 hours. Put pricing discretion and discounting ability in the hands of a few accountable individuals. Crown them the “keepers of the profit margin” and measure their adherence to this duty regularly.
Operational approval: Stray calls to managers to set up new customers make the approval process un-scalable and unmanageable. Put a simple and practical communication protocol in place. Allow information to flow back and forth between the right people in a timely manner. Provide for checks and balances that allow for clean customer setup.
Credit application process: Bad debt is money out the window. Delayed sales is money that can’t get in the window. Lock the right parties in a room and get this piece figured out for your company.
Input of orders: Simplify, simplify, simplify. Make it so easy to order your products that a six-year-old can do it.
Revenue generation is a stream that runs downhill. When excess debris piles up, damming and pooling occurs. The flow stops. Getting out of your own way means moving what needs to be moved to allow the flow to be maintained.