August 14, 2014- ISSN# 1545-2646
Sales Driver or Sales Passenger
Each week I talk with various business leaders and as part of those discussions, sales inevitably comes up. That should be of no surprise because without sales there is no need for the other functions in the business.
The interesting thing is that depending on the business owner, their business is either a sales driven company or a sales reaction company. It depends on whether there is a sales culture or some other competing culture such as customer service, product excellence etc.
Reacting to sales is not a bad problem to have when there are plenty of sales coming in the door. Unfortunately, the habits this approach creates causes too many organizations to get into cash flow problems. They are anticipating revenues based on prior reactionary sales and when they don’t happen, the expenses kept going as if the sales would just show up. This now causes cash flow issues.
In sales culture driven organizations, the mindset is always about the action of generating more sales. This is not a sales at any cost type of mindset but more of a customer centered expansion of goods and services into the customer base.
Part of this sales driven culture is that of the sales cycle and managing that string of events proactively rather than reactively. The forecast of sales is not only well understood but is the life blood of the company’s future existence. Sales reps execute their sales process which adds value to the pipeline. The pipeline is managed to close sales and each person commits to each next step in the sales cycle.
Both sales reps and management know where and when to count on the delivery of the sale. This in turn integrates with the other functions in the organization so inventory can be managed, labor can be managed, cash flow can be managed and so on.
This week take a look at your sales pipeline and forecast. Do you actively manage this process or react to sales when the rep brings in the order?
Do you have projected sales, committed sales and actual sales that you review and evaluate through out the month? Do you trend how effective your team is at forecasting their success? Can you spot trends in declines so that you can make the necessary financial adjustments before they impact cash flow?
Wondering what sales tracking you are missing? Give JKL Associates a call at (313) 527-7945
Questions or comments – email us at partners@jklassociates.com or call our Office at (313) 527-7945
Copyright – JKL Associates 2014
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