For the past several weeks and months, we here at C3 Sales and Consulting have provided dozens of ‘how to’, and ‘top tip’ articles that are all available and archived with in the blog section of our website.
All of these articles have been created to help you to increase your sales; whether that being through an improvement of personal skills, or those of a team.
This week however, I want to share with you something a little different.
I want to share with you a tale of the stressed out managing director, and through my services, I was able to alleviate that stress, and help him become more relaxed in both his business and personal life.
For the purpose of the story, let’s call him Peter. When I first met Peter, he was stressed and somewhat anxious. He had ran a very successful engineering company for years.
The business had gone from strength to strength. They had a great team and customer base, and still somewhat in the distance, he was starting to think about retirement. You would think that with all of this success Peter would feel at ease and comfortable. But you would be wrong.
You see, what was stressing Peter out was that he never truly knew where his next sale was going to come from. Sure, he has a great sales team but the approach was very much a ‘hit and hope’ approach.
Sales were being made, but they were up and down with no structure of rhythm to them.
Although this meant that the bills were paid, it was very tough to understand what steps the business could take next. Peter was often anxious of two things:
- A lack of sales. Although for a couple of months this could be sustained, what would happen if sales dropped off? Or, what would happen to the business if the sales team suddenly left?
- On the flip side to this, what would happen if there was a sudden influx of sales and orders? Could his operations team handle the additional workload? Could they meet deadlines?
Peter approached me with these concerns. He couldn’t live like this any more. Sure, the business was a success, but he needed stability. And if his desires to eventually retire were to ever be met, he needed some form of structure.
I got to work quickly. Using my skills and experience, I was able to work alongside Peter and his management team to understand the business inside and out. I spent a lot of time getting to know the sales team and the products, I also spent time getting to know customer base too. With all of this knowledge, I passionately put together a bespoke sales process and forecasting system for the business.
What this meant, was that instead of a hit and hope approach to sales, the whole sales team knew exactly who to target, when to target them, and what step by step approach should be met to ensure the sales were coming through. Beyond this, I was able to support Peter with better sales forecasting, and I was able to showcase to him how a sales pipeline worked. Using this information, Peter was able to understand what sales would be coming through, when they would be coming through, and what extra workload would be generated.
Do you know what this then allowed?
This allowed Peter to understand exactly where his next sale was coming through, and also allowed him to make better business decisions on the back end of it. Peter saw team morale improve as his sales team knew what they should be doing, and even his operational team felt more comfortable because instead of having last minute pressures being added to their workloads, they were able to plan ahead.
Most importantly, Peter felt less stressed.
Now, this MD could be you, it could be your boss, or it could be someone you know. But if you know of any business owner who struggles to understand sales, or perhaps is stressed out because they find it hard to plan for their business, please do ask them to get in touch.
If I can help Peter to fine-tune his sales process and to feel at ease in business, then I can certainly do the same for you too.
