Results
The results of the sales activities and relationships that a company has achieved can be some of the most valuable elements of mustering new sales. By taking advantage of its past successes a company can build on the reputation it develops with other clients to establish their presence in the marketplace and convince other potential clients to seek our their products or services. “Leverage resources likes repeat business. Leverage those successes in the past to get new stuff. For the NYSE sale, we became a primary component of the NYSE’s annual statement as the document was filled with pictures of its newly engineered trading floor with our monitors all over the place. They were very proud of their efforts to modernize the Exchange and we benefited from it.”
As all of these activities take place over time and the company begins to see how its operations and processes happen, it is effective to constantly reflect on their processes and look to see how they can be improved. For example, “Leverage your manufacturing. Improve that and make that better. Clean up the document and order handling process so in the future it will help speed up the sales. Increase efficiencies in all aspects.” Though trying to improve processes may be one of the last things a growing company may be looking at as it fights to accommodate massive growth, it appears that doing as much as one can will function to facilitate change as it is needed to make future activities more effective and efficient.
Keeping the sales collateral and product information constantly updated will certainly benefit the company and give them the chance to leverage newer success as quickly as they happen, “Profile your top customers and integrate them into the presentation of the missions statement for example.” Furthermore, leveraging this information can further succeed in promoting the company’s overall mission and goals so they become more refined and understandable by the client as time goes on, “In the past PixelVision was perceived as a very custom product organization. Sales were very deal driven and the company was very reactive. When one is starting up it is of tremendous benefit to get some key accounts. Now as we transition into a higher product volume and more standard product driven, we become more market driven and less reactive. Becoming less deal driven and more market driven means we have to leverage all of our resources.”
Take-Away
Whether an organization earns $14MM in annual revenues or $14, there are strategies and activities that all can undertake to accomplish some of the fundamental goals of marketing and sales efforts. Knowing one’s marketplace, knowing one’s customers, knowing one’s own organization and product or service offerings, and staying flexible to accommodate all these elements as they may change over time is fundamental in achieving an effective sales and marketing effort. “It is dangerous if you fall into the trap of staying with the status quo. Need to find the right product for you to sell… I can’t stress that enough. Do the market work first: do research, do analysis, undertake studies, and just plain understand. Go to trade shows yourself and poke around, see what’s out there. There has to be a product that is right for the market, and the markets change fast.” – ###