Lack of effective sales strategies is one of the main causes of not having extraordinary sales results. How many times does the company say to its managers, hey !!! We are going wrong, we need winning sales strategies but right now! And yes, the team searches for strategies, implements them, but none usually works in the desired way, or worse, every attempt to find a strategy is as if it were looking for a needle in a haystack.
This can happen by having an inexperienced business leader or, what usually happens more often, the day to day has, not only the leader but the entire team so busy and stressed with a thousand and one things and pending that they do not have almost time to breathe and they always go to forced marches.
In this type of situation, leaders or key team members spend much of their time putting out fires without paying attention to what is really important.
Let's assume that despite all this, the team leader finds a business strategy that will lead the company to better results. But when implementing it, there are no signs of change in the numbers, and this is when the company often questions the effectiveness of its leaders.
Formula 1
Last week reading an article on Formula 1, it caught my attention that Sauber, one of the teams participating in the world championship, kicked out of their ranks an exceptional driver like Pedro de la Rosa.
According to one of the leaders of this team, he said that he had dispensed with this pilot since he did not meet expectations and did not give the expected results for the experience that Pedro de la Rosa has.
The truth is that indeed, in terms of numbers, Pedro de la Rosa only managed to score in a single race, since the vast majority of all in which I participated had to leave or had a position not too over-salient due to technical problems with his car. His car didn't always leave him lying. Still, despite having an uncompetitive car and many technical problems, De la Rosa and his team implemented excellent strategies but when the races came, the results were demoralizing. For me it is obvious that the problem was not having the most basic, that is, not having a good Formula 1 car. As simple as this, but the director of Sauber blamed his best driver for not complying !!!
On many occasions, businessmen or leaders, such as the Sauber team manager, quantify the results based on figures alone, with almost nothing else in mind.
True, the figures are indicative and often speak for themselves. But basing everything only on figures, you run the risk of having a limited vision of what really happens within the company and within a team.
An excellent strategy will never work, unless you have a car that can at least finish a race. Although Sauber had a driver as the two-time world champion in Formula 1, Fernando Alonso, if there is not a good car, no matter how good a driver feels behind the wheel, no matter how good a support team, no one can win even with the best strategy if you don't have the basics, an excellent car.
The same thing happens at the sales level !!!
The 3 mistakes
Many companies wonder why if they analyze what is happening, they spend time, money and human resources to sell more and, in some cases, they go back to previous schemes that “worked, or invest in training of commercial teams., and develop their people to have the best leaders, why still better results are not achieved?
Usually:
The answer was always in front of them: They needed a winning car
The most probable thing is that the same thing happens to this type of companies as to the Suaber team of formula 1: They do not have a winning car, they do not have their foundations well founded and a system that works.
In other words, the 3 basic mistakes that hold many companies back from winning business strategies are:
1. Not having well-conceived organizational processes,
2. Information systems are far from being at the forefront and;
3. The commercial structure is not well designed so whatever they do they will never have the expected results, at least not permanently.
Concluding
The idea of this article is that if your company goes through a similar situation to what was discussed, before starting to implement any commercial strategy and starting to lay off people, first clean up at home, and make all the necessary adjustments so that the machinery of your formula 1 (your commercial team) does not fail and reaches the victorious goal.
As a guide and first steps, when it is a good time for you, think about whether to achieve your goals:
• do you have the right technological tools for your job ?;
• If you have these tools
- do they really work and are they effective?
- Do you use these tools continuously?
- Do you get the most out of these tools?
• Are your customer communication systems at the forefront and giving you a competitive advantage?
• Do you use new technologies to have greater productivity?
• Are you a todologist or do you have the support of other people to help you solve problems that do not correspond to your area?
Taking action
If as a leader you have a formula 1 and you know that you have the ability to have better results but whatever you do you do not achieve your business goals, then this is a good time for one of our Coaches to help you enhance your own resources, refine your skills and create an effective action plan that sets your path to success. Enter here and discover what 1-on-1 Coaching can do for you.
