Marketing & Sales Development

Strategic Development Worldwide provides a full range of dynamic consulting services and a wide array of diagnostic, training and development programs based upon the specific needs of your organization. One of the prime concerns of our clients during these competitive times has been to increase sales effectiveness, which translates to increased sales, lowered sales force turn-over and increasingly professionalized sales organizations.

Sales Effectiveness must be defined in terms of output rather than input activities. Effectiveness is best seen as something a salesperson produces from a selling situation by managing it appropriately. It is not what managers do, but what measurable achievements are accomplished within a specific period of time. We often find that sales managers think of managing their sales staff in terms of input activities (i.e.) days on the road or calls made rather than sales closed per day on the road and sales closed per call. Today's competitive business environment requires that sales organizations become more effective.

We begin the process by working with management to determine the areas of measurable sales effectiveness, some of which are:

• Quantity of Sales
• Customer Retention
• Optimization of Customer Potential
• Customer Referral Rate
• Customer induced new product sales

The second stage includes the assessment of the individual and the organization to determine current Sales Effectiveness within your typical selling situations. This involves the use of proprietary assessment instruments, and methodology developed by our firm to provide a clear picture of your individual sales persons effectiveness and style when confronted with a variety of selling situations. In short we determine how well your sales staff diagnose and respond to a variety of selling situations.

Each company has its own unique characteristics including core technology, product type, customers, competitive market position, and its management philosophies and styles. Additionally, the salesperson imports their own unique behavioral thinking styles, personality traits, and professional skills into the selling situation. The high performance sales person in any organization has developed a more effective response to their company's specific selling situation than the lower performers in the organization. Our assessment process identifies and develops a sales effectiveness model specific to these high performing individuals, allowing for more effective recruiting, training and coaching. This promotes more effective selling, reduced sales force turnover and a higher degree of professionalism within the sales organization.

The third stage involves the on-going coaching and training of your sales team in order to maximize their sales effectiveness and competence. This work can be done in groups and on an individual basis, and involves a process that really works because it is customized to your situation and based upon proven theory.

We powerfully teach your sales staff how to access where they are, where they want to be and how to get there in each selling situation they are managing. They will learn how to adapt their own behavior in response to the selling situation and how to more powerfully move the customer through the selling cycle. They will learn how to more clearly understand the selling cycle from the orientation of task ( planning, organizing, calling and follow-up), and relationships ( mutual trust, respect for ideas, and consideration of feelings).

Sales Effectiveness is easy to understand but challenging to create and sustain. It often takes outside assistance plus a proven and established model to get optimum results consistently. Of course there are many sales programs available that primarily deal with activity lists, however, our process powerfully addresses the key diagnostic, behavioral and skill issues involved in effectively managing your unique selling situations.

Organization Diagnosis

An Assessment of Key Sales Force Dynamics

Why Does Your Company Need a Sale Force Diagnosis?

The first step toward increased organization effectiveness is to identify problems that impede or block progress. Then it is possible to take steps to improve performance. Accurately identifying problems sometimes calls for independent judgment. A diagnosis by outsiders brings an objective view that insiders may not have.

Below is a sample of problems that have indicated a need for a diagnosis.

• Sales goals are not being met
• Steady decrease in sales productivity
• Decrease in profitability
• Decrease in sales & market share
• High sales force turnover
• Low morale and dissatisfaction
• Conflict between sales and production
• Lack of vision for the companies future

How Does It Work?

In undertaking a sales force diagnosis we work with organization members to discuss, evaluate, and draw conclusions regarding current problems and steps essential for dealing with them.

Interviews. Initial interviews are usually conducted with the senior executives. Subsequent interviews cover a cross-section of relevant functional areas and hierarchical levels within the sales organization. Groups as well as individuals are interviewed and sometimes surveyed.

Testing. As called for, assessment and testing is conducted. This can involve assessment of Managerial and Sales Effectiveness, Organizational Health, General Optimism as a function of Effectiveness, Managerial Values, Supervisory Training Needs Analysis and Leadership Assessment, etc. These results are correlated and fed back to the organization as appropriate. The implications here for management and sales development, organizational training, coaching and development are quite strong.

Feedback. Conclusions are fed back to top operating executives of the organization. The purpose is to provide an awareness of what is really going on within the organization. This lays the foundation for deciding what to do.

Development of Recommendations for Change. The consultants from Strategic Development Worldwide help the top executives think through the meaning of the diagnosis and suggest plans of action. Any action decided upon would have the full involvement and commitment of the organization's leaders.

This approach allows top management to see the organization in a new light. They can then undertake or redirect strategies to correct the situation.

The SDW Sales Performance Analysis is a unique and proven management tool. The system has been used world wide for over 20 year, and has assisted over 500,000 sales professionals to achieve greater performance and greater effectiveness.

A PROVEN SYSTEM THAT IDENTIFIES…

• What Makes Your Top Sales People Productive
• Why Your Less Effective Sales People Are Not Producing
• Where Sales Training is Required to Maximize Performance

BENEFITS:

• Optimizes Selection of New Sales Professionals
• Reduces Turnover and Training Costs
• Increases Overall Sales Force Performance
• Provides Management With Individualized Coaching Objectives
• Creates Sales Team Synergy
• Provides Protection Against E.E.O.C. Claims

A MANAGEMENT TOOL YOU CAN'T AFFORD TO BE WITHOUT!

The SDW Sales Performance Analysis provides you with a method for duplicating your top producers through effective recruiting and training, and pinpoints specific selection, training and management weaknesses that are resulting in reduced sales.