Reflect n Grow

Let me share with you in greater detail, what exactly is covered in this course? 

When I was developing this course, the key consideration was to create something that provides outrageous levels of sales success and at the same time is easy to implement. I call this "the Growth Sequence".

What is the growth sequence?

You can only grow if you are truly and genuinely motivated to grow. You believe that you in charge of your own destiny and you are willing to do whatever it takes to get there. The only thing that I have taken as an assumption is that your deeply concerned about your growth and are keen to do something about it. This is the starting point of the growth sequence.

The next step is to translate your vision or desire into a goal. Goals are important as they not only serve as milestones but also provides you the opportunity to assess whether you are on track or not. Goal setting is the second step of the growth sequence.

Now that you are clear about your goals, you need to be able to identify the key drivers of your growth. Interestingly there are only three key drivers when it comes to sales - you need to get more clients and/or you need to sell more of the same products/services to them and/or sell different products/services to them. So, the third step of the growth sequence is to identify the key drivers of your growth or the key challenges that need to be addressed.

The last two steps in the growth sequence are developing the action plan and incorporating them in your day to day working.

The course is developed along the lines of the growth sequence that I described above.

This course has a total of 5 modules and a Bonus module on staying motivated and developing good sales habits.

Let's go through through each of the sections in some detail here:

Section 1: The Double & Half Strategy to grow your sales

The first logical step to getting anything done is to set clear goals. Since the sales accelerator is all about fast tracking your business growth, I have taken the liberty of setting the goal for you. The goal is simple - How do you double your revenue? 

Since the goal is set, you need to figure out what would it take to double your revenue. The Sales Equation is a great way to find out the real issues that need to be addressed to double your revenue.

The Sales Equation is defined as:

# Clients X Volume X Margin = Revenue

As you would notice, the sales equation captures the key drivers of your business. The primary driver is  your customers. One simple strategy is to double your customer base.

If it is not possible to do so, you can sell more of your existing products to your current set of customers. You would need  a good up-selling strategy to do so.

The last option is to sell more profitable products. In other words, you sell products that have much higher revenue potential for you.

In reality, it is not a choice between the three key drivers, it is some combination of all the three that would be required to double your revenue.

The sales equation helps you identify the most important one that can lead to doubling your revenue at a point in time.

The purpose of introducing the sales equation is to highlight a very important point regarding sales skills. This is not well understood by many sales people. The sales skills required to deliver on any of the key drivers are different.

If you want to double your revenue by adding more clients then you need to be great at prospecting skills. You should know how best to prospect and get the desired number of new clients added to your business.

If you want to sell more of your existing products, then you need to be good at up selling skills. How well can you can analyse the needs of your customers is the most vital skill for up selling your existing products.

If you want to change the margin or sell more profitable products, then you are most likely trying to serve a very different need of the customer. Many times to sell more profitable products, you may need to approach an entirely different set of customers. This is the most difficult strategy to execute as you too would have to develop a good understanding of the new product category that you are intending to sell. New Products are not in control of the sales team and most of times you would have to convince your product development team to launch the products that are most likely to be bought by your customers.

In my experience, most sales people are generally aware of what does it take to double your revenue. They may not have articulated it as clearly as you can do with the help of the sales equation. 

So, the real question is that why is it that sales people are unable to execute their growth strategies given that they are aware of it.

The answer to this question is the fact that they just do not find enough time to service their current set of clients and also find time to prospect and grow their client list.

This is where the "Half Strategy" comets into play.

I use a modified version of the ABC analysis to help you find time to invest with clients who can make a big difference to your business.

The ABC analysis is known to many as the 80:20 rule or the pareto principle. You may be aware that 20% of your clients potentially contribute to 80% of your revenue. I would like to highlight here that it is not the exact numbers that matter but the fact that some clients are more valuable than the others.  

If you would do one more iteration of the 80:20 rule, you would come to the conclusion that 4% of your clients contribute to 64% of your revenue. I term these top 4% as A+. Also the bottom 64% would contribute only 4% of your revenue. 

This information is vital for you. 

Even if you give up on 64% of your clients, the business impact would be negligible. I use this fact to drive home the point that if you want to grow your business, you will have to start by giving up some existing clients so that you can find time for those (A+/A clients) who can contribute much more!

Section 2: Building a single Segment Concentration

Whatever be your strategy, you cannot get sales success without having a constant pipeline of new clients. In this section, we build a deeper understanding of the ideal client segment. Once we have identified the ideal segment, we will go and search for clients that meet our profile in our next section.

I have been surprised by the fact that when it comes to selling, many individuals involved in sales and business development believe that they should be able to sell to anyone. Their belief is that the key to selling is their ability to adapt their pitch to the prospect. This is not true. No two clients derive the same level of benefit from your product or services. Hence, it is important to be able to identify who is likely to get the most amount of value from what you have to offer. Hence your focus should be to try and service those individuals who can potentially derive the maximum benefit from your services. I term this group as a “Single Segment” and not as a “Target Group”.

A single segment is a subset of the target group. For example, you may be servicing some high Net-Worth clients. This is a very broad group. You could have professionals, senior corporate executives or Business Owners – all of them high Net Worth but with a very different mindset and way of working. Even within professionals, Doctors , Lawyers, Architects… have very different needs. Even within doctors, General Practioners would be very different from cardiologists. Even General Practioners in Mumbai would be very different from General Practioners in Guwahati. Even General  Practioners in South Mumbai would be very different from those servicing clients based in suburban Mumbai. The point is to identify the single segment that is most likely to work for you.

Section 3: Finding Prospects and converting them into customers

Now that you have a clarity on the single segment you would like to focus on, the next logical step is to figure out a way to find them, connect with them and convert them into profitable customers.

In this section, we discuss prospecting in greater detail. The biggest challenge is to reach out to strangers and convert them into your top customers.

Successful sales people have one thing in common when it comes to prospecting. They rely on “Referrals”. It is unfortunate that we think Referrals work in B2C businesses. The reality is that “Referrals” are even more powerful ways to acquire clients in B2B businesses.

In this section, I discuss why many of you might struggle with referrals and what does it take to get a successful referral strategy going.

We them move on to getting to understand what it takes to get better conversions and Improve your conversion ratio. This is one feedback that I have got from all the sales people that I have worked with... I get meetings but am unable to convert, “What should I do?”

The answer to this question is “your engagement strategy”. How do you stay engaged with your prospects after they have said “No”! There is a lot of research on this subject and it indicates that the conversion ratio generally is around 3%. Imagine, you meet over 100 prospects and you convert only 3. I am not sure of the source of this research but I can confidently say that there must be a lot of truth to this. The simple proof is that all sales people hate prospecting. And the reason has to be that if success rate is so low, why work hard?

When it comes to engagement, you need to think not in terms of B2B or B2C but H2H. All interactions are between two human beings and hence you need to master the H2H interaction. To help you understand and develop your engagement strategy, I have classified all sales calls into three categories viz. Relationship Calls, Value added calls and the sales nudge. As the terms itself indicate, Relationship calls are made without any sales motive. Wishing your prospects and clients on their birthdays or anniversaries is a great example of “the Relationship call”. When you try and educate your clients or help them find ways to solve a problem or help them is any manner even unrelated to your business, I term them as “value added calls”. The sales nudge is all about calling and asking for business.

If you want to improve your conversion ratio, you need to change the content of your follow up calls. You need to increase the ration of Relationship Calls + Value Added calls as compared to the sales nudge. If you stop selling and engage genuinely with your prospects, you are more likely to get more customers than pestering or pushing clients to buy from you all the time.

Section 4: Maximising the Life Time Value

Now that you have figured out a way to acquire your best clients, how do you keep them, get higher amount of repeat business and take their active help in getting more clients through Referrals.  Life Time Value as a concept points you in that direction.

Life Time Value is defined as the total business potential that you can derive from a single client. This is the sum total of their current business, future business and Referrals. As you would notice, a client may saturate in terms of their own potential but their ability to provide for referrals is infinite. And hence you need to figure out a way to get this going for you.

Clients will only give your more business or referrals if you serve them well! Unfortunately, most sales people forget their clients as soon as they have acquired them. In this section, I help you develop your service strategy- what you need to do proactively with your current customers.

Section 2, 3 and 4 are all about clients – acquiring them, nurturing them and maximising life time value.

Section 5: Action Changes Things

When I created this course, I was very clear that ultimately I want to be a Sales Transformation Coach. Transformation only happens if you implement the learning’s successfully. In this section, I discuss more about what does it take to implement the learning’s from my course.

Section 6: How to stay motivated and build good sales habits?

In this Bonus section, I share my personal insights on how you stay motivated and the key sales habits that you need to build in your career. This is what eventually leads to stupendous growth in your life and career.