Can Sales ‘speak’ Finance?
Presenting Financial Information Very often, salespeople need to present financial data – and all too often to an audience where most people seem to have the word ‘Finance’ in their job title. An extra challenge may be that the audience comprises a few finance professionals plus people from different disciplines who may not use the... Read More
Sales Management Audit
Our Sales Management Audit involves a wide-ranging, comprehensive review of all aspects of your Sales Function. It is more common for clients to specify which areas they want us to focus on, rather than request the broad management audit, but this has been necessary for example when clients have experienced major changes in the marketplace, or... Read More
Post-Merger Integration of Sales
In mergers and acquisitions, the change management challenge for Sales is often to avoid throwing the baby out with the bath-water! We provide advice on how to retain existing profitable customers, while combining the best practices from the previous organisations with a fresh approach to Sales that will achieve the goals of the merger or... Read More
Diplomatic Negotiation Perspective
The diplomatic services of some countries have a working definition of diplomacy that excludes the word ‘negotiation’ because they don’t like the connotations of that term. They feel that at worst, the role of a negotiator is to bamboozle the enemy at their front-door while your military forces kick down their back-door! They see the... Read More
Hostage Negotiation Perspective
In this material, the meaning of the term ‘hostage negotiation’ can be broadened to embrace crisis negotiation of several types, including threatened suicide or self-harm. A separate type of scenario may be kidnap for money, where the analogy to commercial negotiation may perhaps be strongest. There are mutual lessons to be learned from the different... Read More
Negotiating for a Super-Win
We explained earlier that the RDC philosophy is centred on business ethics and a principled approach to negotiation that seeks to maximise the value of the outcomes for both parties. We have described how to build trust so that the parties can be honest about their underlying interests and seek for a ‘Win-Win’ resolution. Rather... Read More
Assess Performance and Potential of Sales People
Below the Executive level, we perform a wide range of assessments on Sales Teams and individuals. One example of a recent engagement was for a client who asked for our ‘Sales Needs Assessment Programme’ (SNAP) covering 200 Sales people in ten countries. In this, we performed some face to face role play and case studies... Read More
The Strategic Management cycle for Sales
Every one of the above focus areas and strategic management activities need to be done well so that the business is assured of meeting its sales targets. We will pick out just a few key activities to discuss in a little more detail as follows. Assurance and Contingency Plans – this area is at the heart... Read More
The Tactical Management cycle for Sales
Every one of the above processes and tactical management activities need to be done well so that salespeople are assured of meeting their targets. These processes and skills will need to be built into the detailed plans to be created for each sales territory, and into the individual daily actions and activities planned by salespeople. ... Read More
Validation of Sales Strategy
We conduct a management audit of your sales function’s goals and objectives and ensure alignment with the business strategy of the whole organisation. We ascertain the cultural values that Sales Managers must exhibit in order to work effectively in your business; and in what direction they should lead the sales function. Part of this is... Read More