How to conduct a strategic audit of the sales system? (part 1)
The problem of marketing and sales audit is that the approaches and technologies for its implementation are not described.
More precisely, they are described, but there are so many different variations and so many nuances that it is not clear to whom to believe and what technology to apply in one’s company.
We singled out questions that are inherently universal, any company is looking for answers to them, whatever it does and whatever clients it works with.
Please consider this pyramid:
')
This is a pyramid of company development levels.
This pyramid contains 3 levels, as you can see.
In the matter of audit, it is very important and plays a huge role.
Why is she so important?
The answer is simple, let's reason.
Any company in its development passes all three data levels.
Strategy level answers the question - where are we going?
In other words, what are the global goals of the company, development plans, what is the company to strive for in the long term, what values ​​and approaches in the company's work, how it positions itself in the market.
The level of tactics answers the question - how exactly do we go?
In other words, the goal that the company has put on the level of strategy because you need to achieve.
And you can come to it in completely different ways. It is possible in a straight line, you can winding paths, you can by plane, you can by car, but you can walk.
The task of the tactical level is to find the answer to this question.
The level of operational actions answers the question - what exactly do we need to do in order to follow the path that is defined in tactics and achieve the goal that is defined in the strategy.
From here comes a single, but very significant conclusion.
Cost of error:
• at the level of operational actions = 1,
• at the level of tactics = 10,
• and at the strategy level = 100 !!!
Those. To err in some concrete actions is not so terrible and painful as to err in strategy and to choose the wrong path.
Let's get out of operating activities and conduct a strategic audit.
The questions that we now give you will allow you to think about the strategy and determine your long-term goal.
Questions for the audit:
1. Who are we?
a) The best (leaders, we have the best competencies)
b) Most experienced (in some direction, in some niche)
c) The most efficient (our processes and services are better than those of our competitors)
d) Cheapest (our main advantage is that we are just cheaper than everyone else)
Answering these questions is necessary from two positions:
1) Who are we now?
2) What do we want to become?
You have to choose for yourself only one of the four options.
You can not meet all of these criteria, unless you are a monopolist and you have no competitors.
You have to understand one simple and important thought: choosing one of the options you make is a very global and serious choice that will affect:
a) The organizational structure of your company
b) The staff that will work for you
c) Channels and methods of sales
d) Employee Motivation
e) Corporate culture
f) Company business processes
Why you ask?
It's simple, let's look at an example.
For example, you have chosen a leadership strategy.
Then, your company should work with the best specialists in your industry, your clients should be the best companies, companies leading in your industry, your organizational structure should be structured so that you can afford to work with the best companies and close their needs. volume and at the right time.
An IT company with a staff of 10 people will never be able to automate Sberbank, no matter how it would like. Completely different scale.
2. What do we sell?
a) Product
b) Product + service
c) Product + service + knowledge
Let us examine the example of the insurance industry.
• Product = CTP policy.
• Product + service = MTPL policy + emergency commissioner.
• Product + service + knowledge = MTPL policy + emergency commissioner + risk management (managing your risks)
And so you can decompose absolutely any field of activity.
It is important to answer this question in the same way from two positions:
1) What are we selling now?
2) What do we want to sell?
Again, this strategically affects a huge number of things in your business.
From the answer to this question is formed:
1) Product matrix and price lists
2) The organizational structure of the company (which departments and specialists are needed)
If we sell only the product, then these are only people, and if we also provide services, then we need completely different specialists.
3) The system of motivation (to whom and how we will pay, who and how we will motivate, stimulate, reward, grow in our company)
4) Business processes of employee interaction within the company
After all, one thing to sell the policy CTP. For this it is enough to have an island in the business center.
And it’s completely different to sell the whole range of products and services of an insurance company.
There is already an island you can not manage. It will be a completely different company.
3. Who are our competitors?
1) Straight
2) For the same budget
3) Innovators
4) Do it yourself
Also consider all the options for examples.
Direct competitors are companies that do exactly the same thing you do and provide exactly the same range of products and services.
Such competitors need to know in person, thoroughly examine them and never forget about them.
These companies, as well as you call your customers and go to their meetings.
As a rule, most companies stop competing at this point and consider that they are competing exclusively with similar companies. Unfortunately, not everything is so simple. Let's analyze further.
Competitors for the same budget - this is quite an interesting type of competitors.
These are companies that are fighting with you for about the same budget that a client has.
Example: a client sets himself the task of increasing sales by 30%.
As a result, he has plenty of options for how to do it:
• Advertise on all billboards in the city.
• Invest in online advertising
• Make a new website
• Conduct corporate training for the sales department
• Hire a sales manager
• Invite consultants
• Implement a CRM system
• Cut staff, etc. etc.
What we finally see here. In this list of perech of services that provide completely different companies. Some are engaged in advertising, others make websites, others provide recruitment services, others deal with training services, etc.
And all of these companies claim your client’s budget. And they will all say that it is their services that will enable them to achieve the goal set by the client.
Therefore, it is very important to know and understand in advance with whom you are competing for the same budget and to study these companies.
Innovators are another no less interesting type of competitors.
It does not exist in all companies. It is associated with innovation, with new products or services that were not previously on the market.
And here the problem is the following - only 2-5% of all people are supporters of innovation and immediately support them. All the others, if you offer them something new, then, with which they are not yet familiar and have not had experience of use, they will most likely say:
• Why should I buy it now, that tomorrow it will not be?
• Or maybe tomorrow it will cost significantly more?
• We have lived well and will continue to live without it until today, why should I buy it?
The hands - the kind of competition is especially relevant for those who work in the IT market and are engaged in the implementation of software.
This is a situation where a client has his own resources in order to do exactly the same thing that you propose, he has a whole department of employees who do it.
Example, you call the company to discuss a project for the implementation of example 1C (1C: Management of a manufacturing enterprise, a complex, powerful product for large companies). And everything would be fine, the client knows this product, he likes it, he is ready to implement it, but only on his own, without your help, because he has 20 programmers in the staff (hired employees) who will perfectly complete all the necessary work.
And this kind of competition is relevant not only for the IT market. It is relevant to many markets.
Just think a little and you will understand whether your clients can do what you offer them.
Perhaps you don’t even know about it, and the client very rarely tells about it himself, but he may well have people in the staff who solve all those tasks that you propose to solve.
To this kind of competition you need to be prepared in advance and understand how to overcome it.
This should be laid at the level of strategy, in the positioning of your company, in approaches and technologies - these are very important issues, having missed and not thought through which, you are a priori losing the competition.
4. Feedback from customers
An important element of the audit is at the level of the company's strategy.
In order to work through this element you need to do two simple things.
Choose your best, satisfied and loyal customers and ask them this question:
“Why did you choose us?”
Select customers for whom you once fought, but lost, and they went to the other and ask them this question:
“What should we do next time (what should we be like), so that you can stop choosing and comparing and come to us right away?”
Believe me, having done this kind of work and collected feedback from two categories of clients (the best and those you lost), you will learn so much of everything new that you didn’t even guess.
And all this will be worth its weight in gold, because who, if not a client, can tell you the truth and tell you exactly how and on the basis of what he chooses.
5. Customer classification
The next element of the audit is the task of classifying the client base.
And again everything is quite simple and a simple and logical goal is pursued.
Task: to conduct "ABC-analysis"
"ABC analysis" is a way to classify the client base and divide it into 3 components:
Category "A": your top customers who bring you 75% of the money
Category "B": middling, 20% of the money
Category “C”: small customers who have a small average bill, low frequent purchases (maybe they are one-time and they don’t return to you once more), 5% of the money
What conclusions need to be made after the classification?
Clients of category "A" are clients thanks to whom your business receives the lion's share of income. These are clients that you need to know in person and you need to work with them in a special way.
And now answer yourself honestly the question: “Which of your managers works with clients of category“ A ”?”
And now to the next question: “Does the same manager work with a client of category“ B ”and“ C ”?”
If you answered “yes” to the second question - this is an occasion to think about the fact that you are making a mistake and walk on the blade of a knife.
Why?
Exactly because it is impossible to put customers of all three categories in one row.
A priori, clients of category “A” require from a manager who works with them much more qualifications and skills than clients of categories “B” and “C”.
If God forbid, a client of category “A” will call with any important issue, but at this time your manager spends his time trying to serve a client of category “C” and you are very much at risk of losing a client of category “A”.
Such clients should have a dedicated manager, all their questions should be resolved in the first priority.
For example, a client of category "A" per year brings you $ 100,000, and a client of category "C" - $ 5,000.
It is completely obvious that the same manager cannot work with this and that client.
A novice can handle a category “C” client. It is enough to conduct training, give him sales scripts, (speech modules), explain the sequence of steps to work with the client (sales funnel) and he will be able to sell.
The situation with a category “A” client is completely different. Here all this will not be enough.
Here we need experience, intuition, the ability to conduct complex negotiations, to properly prepare for them.
With a category “A” client, sales can go on for several months, while with a category “C” client, anything can happen in a week.
Conclusion: having carried out the “ABC-analysis” you can immediately decide on who among your managers works with and correctly arrange them.
In addition, you just get important and valuable information about how much customers bring you money.
Perhaps you didn’t evaluate any client, but in fact he is a strong middling (category B), and you could on the contrary overestimate someone and make too much effort to work with him, while losing the more important client.
6. The place of sales in the company?
Two important questions need to be answered in this audit unit.
“What is the place of sales in your company?”
“The sales plan is whose plan? Companies? Or a sales rep? ”
You have to honestly answer it and ask this question to all employees from all divisions of the company.
As a result, you can get the following answers:
• Sales department - there are some idlers sitting in that room, drinking coffee all day and sort of selling something.
The sales plan is a sales plan, this does not concern us (we are specialists, engineers, professionals, we all have officially serious faces, we do serious things, and not your buy-sell).
• The sales department is a conductor. This is a key department in the work of the entire company, which manages all other departments.
The word conductor fits very well here. The sales department can assign the task to an accountant, technical specialist, logistics, and anyone. The sales department is at the forefront, it communicates with customers and knows what they want.
All other divisions of the company understand this and respect the sales department. All the others understand that if there is no sales, then all their skills of highly qualified specialists are not needed by anyone, because nothing is sold, therefore, to deliver, program, produce, etc. just nothing.
Most likely you will receive answers from the first option.
And this is an occasion to think.
If in your company today the sales department does not solve anything and does not mean anything to other divisions, then tomorrow just as well you will not mean anything to your customers, because they will not forgive you for this.
Business must be customer oriented.
The sales department is your point of contact with the customer and it is impossible not to evaluate this and not to listen to these guys who are on the front line.
More precisely, they are described, but there are so many different variations and so many nuances that it is not clear to whom to believe and what technology to apply in one’s company.
We singled out questions that are inherently universal, any company is looking for answers to them, whatever it does and whatever clients it works with.
Please consider this pyramid:
')
This is a pyramid of company development levels.
This pyramid contains 3 levels, as you can see.
In the matter of audit, it is very important and plays a huge role.
Why is she so important?
The answer is simple, let's reason.
Any company in its development passes all three data levels.
Strategy level answers the question - where are we going?
In other words, what are the global goals of the company, development plans, what is the company to strive for in the long term, what values ​​and approaches in the company's work, how it positions itself in the market.
The level of tactics answers the question - how exactly do we go?
In other words, the goal that the company has put on the level of strategy because you need to achieve.
And you can come to it in completely different ways. It is possible in a straight line, you can winding paths, you can by plane, you can by car, but you can walk.
The task of the tactical level is to find the answer to this question.
The level of operational actions answers the question - what exactly do we need to do in order to follow the path that is defined in tactics and achieve the goal that is defined in the strategy.
From here comes a single, but very significant conclusion.
Cost of error:
• at the level of operational actions = 1,
• at the level of tactics = 10,
• and at the strategy level = 100 !!!
Those. To err in some concrete actions is not so terrible and painful as to err in strategy and to choose the wrong path.
Let's get out of operating activities and conduct a strategic audit.
The questions that we now give you will allow you to think about the strategy and determine your long-term goal.
Questions for the audit:
1. Who are we?
a) The best (leaders, we have the best competencies)
b) Most experienced (in some direction, in some niche)
c) The most efficient (our processes and services are better than those of our competitors)
d) Cheapest (our main advantage is that we are just cheaper than everyone else)
Answering these questions is necessary from two positions:
1) Who are we now?
2) What do we want to become?
You have to choose for yourself only one of the four options.
You can not meet all of these criteria, unless you are a monopolist and you have no competitors.
You have to understand one simple and important thought: choosing one of the options you make is a very global and serious choice that will affect:
a) The organizational structure of your company
b) The staff that will work for you
c) Channels and methods of sales
d) Employee Motivation
e) Corporate culture
f) Company business processes
Why you ask?
It's simple, let's look at an example.
For example, you have chosen a leadership strategy.
Then, your company should work with the best specialists in your industry, your clients should be the best companies, companies leading in your industry, your organizational structure should be structured so that you can afford to work with the best companies and close their needs. volume and at the right time.
An IT company with a staff of 10 people will never be able to automate Sberbank, no matter how it would like. Completely different scale.
2. What do we sell?
a) Product
b) Product + service
c) Product + service + knowledge
Let us examine the example of the insurance industry.
• Product = CTP policy.
• Product + service = MTPL policy + emergency commissioner.
• Product + service + knowledge = MTPL policy + emergency commissioner + risk management (managing your risks)
And so you can decompose absolutely any field of activity.
It is important to answer this question in the same way from two positions:
1) What are we selling now?
2) What do we want to sell?
Again, this strategically affects a huge number of things in your business.
From the answer to this question is formed:
1) Product matrix and price lists
2) The organizational structure of the company (which departments and specialists are needed)
If we sell only the product, then these are only people, and if we also provide services, then we need completely different specialists.
3) The system of motivation (to whom and how we will pay, who and how we will motivate, stimulate, reward, grow in our company)
4) Business processes of employee interaction within the company
After all, one thing to sell the policy CTP. For this it is enough to have an island in the business center.
And it’s completely different to sell the whole range of products and services of an insurance company.
There is already an island you can not manage. It will be a completely different company.
3. Who are our competitors?
1) Straight
2) For the same budget
3) Innovators
4) Do it yourself
Also consider all the options for examples.
Direct competitors are companies that do exactly the same thing you do and provide exactly the same range of products and services.
Such competitors need to know in person, thoroughly examine them and never forget about them.
These companies, as well as you call your customers and go to their meetings.
As a rule, most companies stop competing at this point and consider that they are competing exclusively with similar companies. Unfortunately, not everything is so simple. Let's analyze further.
Competitors for the same budget - this is quite an interesting type of competitors.
These are companies that are fighting with you for about the same budget that a client has.
Example: a client sets himself the task of increasing sales by 30%.
As a result, he has plenty of options for how to do it:
• Advertise on all billboards in the city.
• Invest in online advertising
• Make a new website
• Conduct corporate training for the sales department
• Hire a sales manager
• Invite consultants
• Implement a CRM system
• Cut staff, etc. etc.
What we finally see here. In this list of perech of services that provide completely different companies. Some are engaged in advertising, others make websites, others provide recruitment services, others deal with training services, etc.
And all of these companies claim your client’s budget. And they will all say that it is their services that will enable them to achieve the goal set by the client.
Therefore, it is very important to know and understand in advance with whom you are competing for the same budget and to study these companies.
Innovators are another no less interesting type of competitors.
It does not exist in all companies. It is associated with innovation, with new products or services that were not previously on the market.
And here the problem is the following - only 2-5% of all people are supporters of innovation and immediately support them. All the others, if you offer them something new, then, with which they are not yet familiar and have not had experience of use, they will most likely say:
• Why should I buy it now, that tomorrow it will not be?
• Or maybe tomorrow it will cost significantly more?
• We have lived well and will continue to live without it until today, why should I buy it?
The hands - the kind of competition is especially relevant for those who work in the IT market and are engaged in the implementation of software.
This is a situation where a client has his own resources in order to do exactly the same thing that you propose, he has a whole department of employees who do it.
Example, you call the company to discuss a project for the implementation of example 1C (1C: Management of a manufacturing enterprise, a complex, powerful product for large companies). And everything would be fine, the client knows this product, he likes it, he is ready to implement it, but only on his own, without your help, because he has 20 programmers in the staff (hired employees) who will perfectly complete all the necessary work.
And this kind of competition is relevant not only for the IT market. It is relevant to many markets.
Just think a little and you will understand whether your clients can do what you offer them.
Perhaps you don’t even know about it, and the client very rarely tells about it himself, but he may well have people in the staff who solve all those tasks that you propose to solve.
To this kind of competition you need to be prepared in advance and understand how to overcome it.
This should be laid at the level of strategy, in the positioning of your company, in approaches and technologies - these are very important issues, having missed and not thought through which, you are a priori losing the competition.
4. Feedback from customers
An important element of the audit is at the level of the company's strategy.
In order to work through this element you need to do two simple things.
Choose your best, satisfied and loyal customers and ask them this question:
“Why did you choose us?”
Select customers for whom you once fought, but lost, and they went to the other and ask them this question:
“What should we do next time (what should we be like), so that you can stop choosing and comparing and come to us right away?”
Believe me, having done this kind of work and collected feedback from two categories of clients (the best and those you lost), you will learn so much of everything new that you didn’t even guess.
And all this will be worth its weight in gold, because who, if not a client, can tell you the truth and tell you exactly how and on the basis of what he chooses.
5. Customer classification
The next element of the audit is the task of classifying the client base.
And again everything is quite simple and a simple and logical goal is pursued.
Task: to conduct "ABC-analysis"
"ABC analysis" is a way to classify the client base and divide it into 3 components:
Category "A": your top customers who bring you 75% of the money
Category "B": middling, 20% of the money
Category “C”: small customers who have a small average bill, low frequent purchases (maybe they are one-time and they don’t return to you once more), 5% of the money
What conclusions need to be made after the classification?
Clients of category "A" are clients thanks to whom your business receives the lion's share of income. These are clients that you need to know in person and you need to work with them in a special way.
And now answer yourself honestly the question: “Which of your managers works with clients of category“ A ”?”
And now to the next question: “Does the same manager work with a client of category“ B ”and“ C ”?”
If you answered “yes” to the second question - this is an occasion to think about the fact that you are making a mistake and walk on the blade of a knife.
Why?
Exactly because it is impossible to put customers of all three categories in one row.
A priori, clients of category “A” require from a manager who works with them much more qualifications and skills than clients of categories “B” and “C”.
If God forbid, a client of category “A” will call with any important issue, but at this time your manager spends his time trying to serve a client of category “C” and you are very much at risk of losing a client of category “A”.
Such clients should have a dedicated manager, all their questions should be resolved in the first priority.
For example, a client of category "A" per year brings you $ 100,000, and a client of category "C" - $ 5,000.
It is completely obvious that the same manager cannot work with this and that client.
A novice can handle a category “C” client. It is enough to conduct training, give him sales scripts, (speech modules), explain the sequence of steps to work with the client (sales funnel) and he will be able to sell.
The situation with a category “A” client is completely different. Here all this will not be enough.
Here we need experience, intuition, the ability to conduct complex negotiations, to properly prepare for them.
With a category “A” client, sales can go on for several months, while with a category “C” client, anything can happen in a week.
Conclusion: having carried out the “ABC-analysis” you can immediately decide on who among your managers works with and correctly arrange them.
In addition, you just get important and valuable information about how much customers bring you money.
Perhaps you didn’t evaluate any client, but in fact he is a strong middling (category B), and you could on the contrary overestimate someone and make too much effort to work with him, while losing the more important client.
6. The place of sales in the company?
Two important questions need to be answered in this audit unit.
“What is the place of sales in your company?”
“The sales plan is whose plan? Companies? Or a sales rep? ”
You have to honestly answer it and ask this question to all employees from all divisions of the company.
As a result, you can get the following answers:
• Sales department - there are some idlers sitting in that room, drinking coffee all day and sort of selling something.
The sales plan is a sales plan, this does not concern us (we are specialists, engineers, professionals, we all have officially serious faces, we do serious things, and not your buy-sell).
• The sales department is a conductor. This is a key department in the work of the entire company, which manages all other departments.
The word conductor fits very well here. The sales department can assign the task to an accountant, technical specialist, logistics, and anyone. The sales department is at the forefront, it communicates with customers and knows what they want.
All other divisions of the company understand this and respect the sales department. All the others understand that if there is no sales, then all their skills of highly qualified specialists are not needed by anyone, because nothing is sold, therefore, to deliver, program, produce, etc. just nothing.
Most likely you will receive answers from the first option.
And this is an occasion to think.
If in your company today the sales department does not solve anything and does not mean anything to other divisions, then tomorrow just as well you will not mean anything to your customers, because they will not forgive you for this.
Business must be customer oriented.
The sales department is your point of contact with the customer and it is impossible not to evaluate this and not to listen to these guys who are on the front line.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/298026/
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