As a business owner or management team member, have you often wondered why there tend to be peaks and valleys when focusing on growth and scale?
Are there things a team can do to create sales success that is more predictable and sustainable?
Finally, is there a page you can tear out of the playbook of ultra-large businesses that can apply to small or medium-sized businesses to allow for growing properly and scaling the business?
As it turns out there is: a term known as sales enablement. A concept deployed by much larger corporations that can absolutely pay dividends, create a more predictable growth curve and create “systems” that create repeatable results.
Sales enablement is simply the investment and implementation of strategy, process, structure, tools, people, and management. The original plan is often that as a business grows, the team’s intent iw to implement, document, and capture all the components within the recipe for greatness. But, as the business began to grow, the available time decreases while demand continues to increase.
We all know the expression “the road to a poor result was paved with good intentions”. This, in combination with the following assumption, can really create challenges: the recipe that got me to this size must be the same recipe to get me to the next milestone. The common lament from business owners and executive team is we are losing our ability to work on the business based on the demands of working in the business.
Sound familiar?
What simple self-assessment or business diagnostic can you deploy to determine if your business has reached the point of need with deeper sales enablement?
Have an honest discussion or group debate about the following.
•Our sales process, systems, and messaging are set up as “tight” as a top franchise business?
•We are 100% clear on our unique value/selling propositions?
•The most recent feedback from customers helped us update our USP’s?
•We have a high number of leads, and our conversion rate of these leads is higher than normal?
•The management team possesses quality data points and dashboards to make “in game decisions”?
•Our use of key leading indicators has created key lagging indicators to help us manage the business. (Note: Do not count revenue as a lagging indicator)
•We are making full use of our CRM
•Forecasting has become much easier for our team/business
•This is the absolute best you have felt about the pipeline and timeframes that drive forecasting
•We have the “right people on the bus” to manage, coach, and direct business in the next season
Shift to the following scenario or question—"as a team or owner what would you do with the time that did not have to go into business development, sales, or creating stronger sales enablement?"
As I ask this question, I always get a laundry list of items and responses – this is another strong indicator of the opportunity to scale your business.
Need help walking through your responses above? Do not delay too long to make changes in preparation for the next pivot point to scale and grow further.
Let the team at TruStrive help you identify the strengths or weaknesses needed to drive performance. Contact our friends from TruStrive at 864-915-0171 or email Bob Stahlsmith at robert@trustriveconsulting.com.
