• Wednesday, August 10, 2011
• Guest:  Carlos Quintero, President of Sales Effectiveness, Inc. 
• Listen to show.

Today is a continuation of our series on Sales Excellence featuring Carlos Quintero, president of Sales Excellence, Inc.  We started this series about a year ago, and I encourage you to revisit the series, available online. View/ listen to the archives. 

We’ll talk today about our Business Tip of the Week and to recognize our guest, we will revisit a topic which you have responded to with many emails and tweets to the show.  Strategy for today: 

1. Survive
2. Revive
3. Thrive 

Survive

Economy and business events have shaken up virtually every business segment.  Unpredictable revenue swings, cost increased and new government regulations have shaken up the platform of operations we are used to.  Steps to take, or hopefully you have taken: 

Cut the suit to fit. 

1. If revenue is down, reduce costs to match new normal.
2. Consider paring back to your core business, and suspend investments in risky new business activities that don’t complement or expand your core.
3. Look at head count – automate what you can; outsource what you can; look at business process and amp up responsibility and job duties.  Get the most from your people, and let them know more is expected from them.
4. Look at benefit plans and scale back where you can, for as long as you must.
5. Re-price much of your vendor and supplier relationships.  They know it is necessary.
6. Negotiate for extended terms.
7. Renegotiate all contracts possible
   1. Loans – refinance
   2. Leases – renegotiate price or term or rate
   3. Long term supply contracts. 

Be able to make profits, even on reduced revenue. 

Revive 

Visit your customers – how can you be more valuable to them?

1. Over service them – do more than they expect.
2. Commit to zero defects – cut out service or product issues.
3. Reach for customer loyalty vs. customer satisfaction.
4. Outperform your competition. 

Revisit your business processes – technology is changing the landscape.  If you don’t take advantage, your competition will. 

1. Virtual accounting and back office.  Platforms available for small, medium and large companies Horizontal platforms are now effective at lowering costs, creating real time reports, reducing manpower needed to do:
   1.  Accounting
   2. Financial Reporting
   3. CRM
   4. Document Storage
   5. Analytical Planning 
2. Extend the business of selling, ordering, scheduling and fulfilling to the customer touch event.  Tablet or laptops can now (while in front of the customer):
   1.  Educate and inform the customer
   2. Compare choices for customer
   3. Estimate total costs
   4. Close the sale
   5. Finance the sale
   6. Schedule the delivery of goods
   7. Order materials or inventory
   8. Organize service support 
3. Customer satisfaction feedback
   1.  Internal or external service available
   2. Stay on top of problems
   3. Defend negative feedback 
4.  Virtual marketing available
   1.  Web based marketing
   2. Ecommerce delivery
   3. Targeted customer database
   4. Social marketing to raise presence 

Thrive 

• With regained momentum, the opportunity and strategy to grow is fertile. 
• Many of the best companies were birthed during bad times. 
• Stay essential, frivolous expenses will not work anymore. 

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly 

Congress is on vacation! 

The Bad   We are learning what congress actually did in debt compromise. 

1.  Did not cut any current spending.
2. Cut future increases in spending by $21 billion for 2012.
3. New election, new congress voids or trumps anything further out.
4. Committee set up to decide more cuts.
   1.  Chances are “stalemate”
   2. May involve tax increases
   3. If stalemated, defense cut by $500 billion
   4. Two wars, Libya and Al Qaida, then strip funding for defense.  We are vulnerable. 

The Ugly 

Stock market is telling us, too little, too late, no jobs help. 

S&P and Moody’s are telling us, no reform – downgrade. 

1.  Interest rates up
2. Dollar down
3. Inflation up, as dollar buys less 

Now the part of our show with guest, Carlos Quintero, President of Atlanta based firm, Sales Effectiveness, Inc. Sales Effectiveness focuses solely on helping Senior Executives drive excellence and accelerated growth for their sales forces. They have been in business since 1997 and have a superior track record in helping organizations build high performance sales teams.  To view Carlos’ entire bio, click here.   

1. What are Sales Analytics? 
2. Why are analytics important? 
3. What are the challenges you see in sales forces using analytics? 
4. What are the various categories of analytics you see being used? 
5. How many metrics should a company have? 
6. Give me some examples of a good set of metrics 
7. What is the trend in sales operations and analytics? 
8. What advice do you give to business owners on this topic?

View Carlos' Document: Possible Salesperson Measures