Xchanging Share Price

Knowledge Xchange and Sales Today

Knowledge Xchange and Sales Today

Profit – Investment- Knowledge Xchange

Profit

Profit is the consequence of a successful business. The lifeblood of your organization is its ability to generate this profit through sales. It may be referred to by different names – business development, client acquisition, marketing, fund raising, member awareness, etc. Whichever way you spin it, any description of a commodity traded for consideration is a sale.

However, this simple description of “sale” still falls short. At one time the process for driving sales was often viewed as one wrought with untruths and deception. Being a “sales man” was not an honorable profession. Think of how the association between salesmen and used cars is forever ingrained into the public consciousness. We have even crafted new monikers – business development executive, acquisition executive, sales engineer, etc. – yet sales is still viewed as a process where an unwitting purchaser was still most likely deceived, told untruths or manipulated into the decision by an overzealous commission-based sales man driven by one thing: to make money.

To some degree we, as sales professionals, have created the box we live in. As a profession that requires considerable resilience to continued rejection, a salesman, in Darwinian evolution, has had to develop extreme self-confidence to withstand the constant barrage. Our impenetrable armor allows the denials to bounce off like an overly cocky “player” in a singles bar. It’s a shared belief amongst many a salesman that only a few of us are actually capable of handling the emotional toll of our profession as our encounters are often met with the warmth previously reserved for Jehovah’s witnesses.

Another aspect of sales careers is the desire to survive on our individual ability to generate income. We thrive on the risk / reward of our profession, with the belief that the more diligent we are, the better we hone our craft and the more successful we will be. The allure of unlimited income potential, if only perceived, brings us (and keeps us) in the fold.

Where we as heads of sales and marketing, sales managers and front line sales professionals fall short, however, is in remembering what a sale actually represents. Many of us today categorize sales approaches: we have the consultative sale, the relationships sale, inside vs. outside sales, etc. We use these labels to distinguish what intrinsically still remains the same. Though the specific knowledge needed to succeed in these diverse roles may differ, the basic skill set needed to be effective in these positions has not changed. A sale, after all, is still a sale, despite the fancy name some B-school academician assigned to it.

This notion of specialization to create perceived artificial value in the eyes of our customers has derailed the profession. We have departed from the true meaning of a sale, which should ultimately represent one thing in the vendor – proprietor relationship: alignment.

To begin to return to the true definition of a sale, first let’s review how a sale is commonly defined.

According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, a sale is [1]:

1 : the act of selling; specifically: the transfer of ownership of and title to property from one person to another for a price

2 a: opportunity of selling or being sold: demand b: distribution by selling

3 : public disposal to the highest bidder: auction

4 : a selling of goods at bargain prices

5 plural a: operations and activities involved in promoting and selling goods or services

Although this definition has stood the test of time, so did the geocentric astronomical model until Copernicus. Today, making a sale, or purchasing a product or service is more than the transfer of goods or serves for currency. Today we must view these transactions as investments.

Investment

As salespeople, how do we begin to reconfigure sales into a true value proposition — an investment? First we must understand that not only does the organization purchasing our goods and services support our individual goal of personal wealth, it also funds our daily operations, pays our employees, drives our R&D and builds our business’s sustainability through the revenues that sales generate. If we view our customers as investors, our approach to engagement will follow suit.

We can longer view opportunities as “marks,” rather we must value each of them as we do our investors, our shareholders and our management: by recalibrating our relationships, so shall the currency of our philosophy change in how we approach our newly defined investors. No longer will we thrust upon this investor class a product or service; instead, we will demonstrate value and validate how an investment in our business will reap rewards in their own business.

The benefits our clients seek from their investments vary, of course. When we view this relationship as investor – principal, where we, as principals and purveyors of goods and services, have a fiduciary responsibility to our clients, not only will our organization benefit from enhanced internal alignment, but so will our external customer relationships. This shift in perspective will become the cornerstone in the development of improved, integrated and sustainable relationships with our investors, leading to higher returns, greater customer loyalty and reduced client turnover.

Let’s review how sales managers typically drive relationships with sales teams, and how those sales teams, in turn, interact with customers. We managers assign territories, quotas, timelines, etc. We drive sales by understanding at what stage every deal in our pipeline is. We push productsbased on perceived needs and occasionally by simple overstock. How does this method deliver on sustainable growth and continued customer loyalty? It doesn’t.

Executives at all levels in an organization must redefine objectives to reposition the sales team. By embracing the notion of our customers as investors, we will also have the front line sales teams — our first point of contact – do the same. We must alter perceptions (which is effectively reality) to show that our motivation is not to merely meet our revenue goals, but to construct a lasting relationship with our customers / investors with mutual benefits for years to come.

To understand the customer perspective, consider this: Why do we invest in stocks, bonds or real estate? Because we believe that the present value of future returns exceeds today’s purchase price. The same holds true for these transactions: the goods or services purchased provide greater value than their initial cost.

When we now view a sale through this lens, what implications to our current process can we expect? As the solutions provider we need to reconfigure our sales plan. Let’s consider the ecosystem in which most sales team find themselves: An executive somewhere higher up the food chain reviews past performance, looks at the structure of his bonus, compensation and stock options, calculates the percentage increase needed to meet those targets then delivers a quota to his sales force that meets those projections.

We, of course, recognize growth in any organization as not only fundamental to survival, but vital to remaining competitive. With growth come more than just economies of scale: it also brings dollars for research and funding for new ventures. However, a point is reached where the proverbial pie can only be cut into so many slices. It is this notion that we executives must now understand when determining our sales targets.

If we view each product or service as its own business, and we were looking for investors to launch, we would quickly conclude that though our product may have broad appeal, which is more likely false than true, we would recognize that broad appeal still does not mean universal appeal. Our investors would also realize this and base their investment in us on projected figures. As experienced executives we cannot believe that rapid continuous growth is sustainable even as we penetrate into our markets deeper and deeper. At some point we must accept that our business line has moved from the Stars stage of the Boston Consulting Group’s BCG Growth-Share

Matrix where we have strong relative market share and high growth, to the Cash Cow stage where the market has matured and growth has slowed. [2] While this is good from a cash generation perspective, it does indicate that the days of constant reliable growth are over.

When we view our customers as investors we also know that to keep them invested we must continue to show them a positive return on their initial and continued investment in our goods and services.

Knowledge Xchange

Why is this new definition so important today? What has changed so dramatically that business must shift their perspective on growth and customer acquisition? The answer is information, or more accurately, the way information is exchanged. Today, information is available readily, freely and extensively. It won’t be long before services and products of all categories receive customer reviews regarding productivity, value and success. With this newly available information, customers will learn about the value that other businesses have received from your offerings.

Businesses that view their clients as investors will see continued growth and success; those that do not will be left behind as we progress from theInformation Age to the era of Knowledge Xchange (KnoX).

This new KnoX is the shift from the web being used as a resource to find information, to the web becoming the nexus for the trade of information.

Social networks such as Tello, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs are as much about the exchange of information as they are a catalogue of information. Our next generation of consumers is quickly moving from the simple use of email to taking advantage of these networks where information is compiled and reviewed, where ideas and thoughts are shared and exchanged.

Soon, professional networks will appear where users will trade thoughts and experiences on professional goods and services. Pricing will become increasingly transparent, as will the results of those investments.

Proprietors will reach out to these growing networks for thoughts, recommendations and experiences. Those companies that begin today to rewrite their scripts and view their customers as investors vs. marks will be the ones that thrive and devour competitors who remain short sighted.

We Executives, Managers and Sales Professionals often discuss demonstrating value and delivering ROI to our customers, however, we do this with the underlying motivation of benefiting ourselves. As we reposition our offering as investments, our teams become acutely aware of the value our client relationships have. By changing our internal perception of sales from the textbook stereotype of the hunter-killer to that of the trusted partner in an enduring relationship, we deliver as promised and so gain strength and momentum in the new era of KnoX.

About the Author

www.oakandreed.com

John Lauttamus is a seasoned sales and marketing executive with a proven track record spanning 15 years in business development, consumer marketing, product marketing, b2b marketing, financial analysis, forecasting, and web / social media marketing.

As principal of Oak+Reed, he helps his clients exceed projected revenue goals by providing strategic sales, marketing, market positioning and branding direction.

John also leads creative development including web design, logo design, product/service naming, develops brand / product positioning and go-to market plans, mission statements and corporate vision.

John has created and successfully executed marketing campaigns for companies such as Johnson & Johnson, McNeil Pharmaceuticals, GEICO, Anheuser-Busch, National Guard, Texas Tourism, Discovery, and The EagleBank Bowl.

John is fluent in Spanish and attended Thunderbird School of Global Management, attaining his MBA, and The University of Mississippi, where he attained a BA in Accounting and a BBA in Managerial Finance.

John is uniquely qualified to help client’s position themselves in today’s marketplace. With the natural creativity needed to successfully lead an organizations marketing, coupled with his quantitative background, which makes him metric driven and keenly aware of how the bottom line affects companies, John understands the balancing act of business.

 

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