If you didn’t have any doubts or concerns at all, you wouldn't be the successful business person you are.

Doubts and Concerns

These are some of the normal concerns that our customers (and their staff) have shared with us before we started projects with them.

“We don’t do sales!”
Are you concerned that creating a “sales” environment will conflict with the way you currently do business? We often find that clients believe that developing a systematic focus on the sales process will somehow damage some of their core beliefs. “We don’t do sales!” is a belief that we often hear.

This is a natural starting position from business owners who have found their way into business through following a passion or a technical expertise, and in the early stages of growing a business the lack of a sales focus need not stand in the way of growth. Usually customers “buy” (they are not sold) the technical specialism, or they share the founders’ passion for the business area. Either way, in the early stages, there is usually enough work to round, and enough income to pay the bills.

We tend to get involved at the next level. The early business, perhaps now a few years in, has ceased to grow at its earlier rate. The business owners find that orders have levelled off (or are beginning to shrink), though they may have invested, and be equipped to handle much more business than they are selling. Businesses are vulnerable at this stage because they are committed to growth though do not have the capability to sell the business they need to keep trading.

“We already do sales training!”
And if that is all it takes, great! (though we could deliver the training for you). We so often find, indeed it is the reason that we built a consulting business, that it takes more than just training to be successful in sales. Our Sales Improvement Plan takes a comprehensive approach to improving your sales results.

“We probably can’t afford you”
Well, let’s see. Our intention is to create value for you by improving your sales capability giving you results you can actually measure. When your sales are growing with a consequent increase in your gross margin, you will be able to do the sums about affordability better than we can.

“We can’t take time out to start anything new right now ”
You probably can’t, which is why we have developed support mechanisms for your sales staff, which will work with them, as they work for you. Days out for sales training may not be necessary when we can spend time working with your staff as they conduct their normal sales function. We find that we can learn much more about what is getting in the way of achieving sales by observing sales

“Our sales staff don’t want to be told how to do their job”
We are certain they don’t, so we won’t. We always start from a belief that existing sales staff know how to do their job. Our role is to give them the chance to learn new skills so that they can do their jobs even better.

“We’ve never used a business consultant before”
In the same way that in the early days of establishing a business, you may not have had an accountant (they come along fairly quickly), or a solicitor (they come along next). In the same way as you use other professionals to help you with technical areas that you may have not spent time studying, we can help you with our own area of expertise, which is developing sales capability.

“We only have a small business, you might not be interested in us”
We work with businesses of all sizes from a range of business sectors, situated throughout the UK and Europe. In our experience, we get faster and bigger results, working with smaller businesses because, like leaning on the rudder a small boat, we get an immediate change in direction which we can all recognise for what it is. Large businesses are different and making a measurable change does take longer, though when the changes start taking effect, you can watch a huge bow wave as the large ship starts turning. We have different strategies for different business sizes, and we’ll shape one specially to suit you.

“This sounds like an involved process”
Yes it is involved. Our examination of your sales process is very detailed (our Sales Improvement Plan examines over forty critical components required for robust sales performance). It doesn’t have to involve you though. We do the work, then we report back to you. As we do this, we will not get in the way of your normal business activity, rather we will compliment it (you’ll be aware of the Hawthorne effect).

If you have any particular concerns that we haven’t answered for you, please feel free to talk them through with us.

“We were unsure to start with but frankly we were stuck for choices, everything we had tried hadn’t worked so we were getting desperate. I wished we’d tried you first, it would have saved us a lot of time and money” – TM, Senior Partner

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