"Nothing endures but change”

“Nothing endures but change” - Heraclitus-540 B.C.

What we are facing (economic turbulence) is not at all unprecedented. Simply put, there are good times when things are going well and it’s easy to make money, and there are bad times, when it’s much more difficult to make money. Prior to 2008 we had a run of good times that exceeded most of our expectations. I have often said that it didn’t take a genius to make money during that run. However, “Profit covers many sins.” That means that many of us got a little complacent. Maybe we didn’t quite run our business following absolute best practice. Maybe some of us overlooked less than the best performance expected from our employees. Maybe we were a little too compassionate regarding employee effectiveness and as a result we haven’t “weeded the garden” to allow our good employees to flourish.
A historic shift must be created by you and your executive team. Employee morale and buy-in must increase every day. Don’t forget the cardinal rule. “There is no room in your organization for loyal, yet incompetent people.” Gardening must become a way of life. Continuous pruning will keep you on track as your team rises or falls to the occasion. If an assessment of the company and your team was performed properly, pruning will be a non-issue. If you made mistakes, pruning will become an active initiative.

Confidence in execution means you are on the winning side of turmoil and confusion. More importantly, you know what it takes to succeed in this economic environment. You now have the vehicle, the process, the initiative and the team to execute. Your leadership has provided the following:
• A clear plan with clarity of purpose and participation of the employees
• A raised bar with relevant accountability
• A definitive marketing and sales strategy
• Best practices and determination to reside in the upper quartile for performance once recovery is secure
• A measurement of success through activity management and customer satisfaction formally

You are now in a position to execute your initiatives. You attacked your sales process first. The sales process is at the heart of your success. It is both complex and subjective because it deals with both customer management relationship activities and contingency-recovery initiatives.
You have asked and answered the following questions in creating your sales plan. You must take action based on those answers.
• What determines a profitable customer?
• What methods and processes do you use to identify customers?
• What is new in the external environment?
• What are your competitive advantages?
• What are your competitor’s competitive advantages?
• What are the methods used for gathering competitive intelligence?
• What changes have taken place externally or with your competitors that offer opportunity?
• What initiatives do you have to improve highest delivered value?
• What initiatives do you have to reach the goal of low cost provider?
• What types of customers and segments do you want to do business with?
• Who decides what customers you target?
• What types of customers are the most profitable?
• Have you identified target markets?
• How do your sales representatives spend their time?
• How often do you plan formal business reviews to compare expectations to results?
• How do you measure costs?
• Who reviews and is responsible for customer profitability?
• How do you measure customer retention?
• How do you track lost business and lost customers?
• How do you determine which customers to fire?
• How do you prospect?
• How do you identify critical success factors?
• How many and which customers represent 80% of your revenue, your profit?
• Has your average order size increased or decreased?
• What single thing has the biggest impact on your profitability?
• What are your competitive strengths?
• What volume does the top 10% of your customers represent?
• What do your sales representatives claim the key obstacles to their success are?
• What support could be added to your sales effort to increase revenue producing actions?
• What is your current market share?
• How do you measure growth?
• How do you maximize account penetration?
• What is the role of your inside sales staff?
• Do inside sales proactively solicit business?
• How do you define supplier performance?
• How do you forecast usage?
• How do you analyze your warehouse operations?
• What are your inventory turns?
• Do you measure your cash to cash cycle?
• What metrics are you using for supplier performance?
• Have you defined and analyzed your logistics initiatives?

Check out Rick’s new CD series and workbook “Unlocking the Secrets to Amazing Sales” @ http://www.ceostrategist.com/resources-store/unlocking-the-secrets-to-amazing-sales-incredible-profits.html It is a must addition for your sales training initiatives. Order today and get a bonus copy of Rick’s book “Turning Lone Wolves into Lead Wolves ----56 ideas to maximize sales.
www.ceostrategist.com – Sign up to receive “The Howl” a free monthly newsletter that addresses real world industry issues. – Straight talk about today’s issues. Rick Johnson, expert speaker, wholesale distribution’s “Leadership Strategist”, founder of CEO Strategist, LLC a firm that helps clients create and maintain competitive advantage. Need a speaker for your next event, E-mail rick@ceostrategist.com. Don’t forget to check out the Lead Wolf Series that can help you put more profit into your business.