IMPROVE YOUR SALES MODEL

OBJECTIVE SALES MODEL ANALYSIS CAN PUMP UP YOUR REVENUE

At the most fundamental level, your sales model might be described as how your revenue is made. Many variables contribute to the quality of your model, though most companies don't put a great deal of strategic thought into how those pieces work together. Because they are so busy with the now, many companies can't even give much strategic consideration to optimizing the individual parts. This very common practice can cost your company on both ends: inefficient waste AND capped upside potential.

Often a sales model is established informally back when the business realized its very first sales. It is rare that the subsequent evolution perfectly meshes with the business as it grew.

More often than not, there are many less-than-optimal entrenched parts supported by "we've always done it that way" traditions. Sales inefficiencies abound- some not always readily obvious to company insiders- while others are painfully tolerated by a sales staff reluctant- even afraid- to bring attention to them. End result...

Your costs are higher than they need to be while your revenue is lower than it CAN be. An unoptimized model impacts both your top & bottom lines.

In a business that has grown in ways that somewhat-to-significantly differ from where it started, the sales model is almost always ripe for optimization. When sales are lower than expected or when sales that seem like they should be easily won are overly difficult to actually get closed, a thorough review of the sales model can yield meaningful improvements in revenue growth.

There are many benefits to objective optimization. For example, if you happen to be driving your own company towards an IPO or a cash-out target (a business sale), getting your model optimized now is a great way to enhance the perceived value your prospective buyers or investors will see. Pumping up perceived value will get you a higher price... a richer "happily ever after" or much more lucrative IPO.

WHAT'S INVOLVED IN OPTIMIZING A SALES MODEL FOR GROWTH & MARGIN EXPANSION?

One of our more novel benefits is our core team experience in ALL of the growth-side aspects of business. We are narrowly focused on only the business variables that fuel revenue & profits...

As such, we are especially talented at being able to examine the growth side of YOUR business end-to-end, identifying the specific areas that could enhance your revenue.

As outside consultants, we do this without the biases, politics, psychology, etc, always prevalent with company insiders and thus partially contributes to why your sales model is not already optimized. This allows us to see your company with objective clarity, free of the influence of internal spin. This unhindered view can be the biggest key to successfully optimizing a sales model.

An expert end-to-end analysis means we examine ALL of the variables that influence your sales results, exploring topics like:

• Are you targeting the right market(s)?
• Are you ignoring or not noticing a new, accessible market(s)?
• Are you making the most of current opportunity?
• What is the quality of your value proposition?
• What is your competitors doing better than your company?
• How does your company self-image contrast with how your customers see you?
• What is the QUALITY of your lead sources? Relevancy?

• How can your lead stream be qualified more effectively?
• What are the strategic trends impacting your business now and likely to impact it in the near future?
• What do your salespeople need to sell more?
• What new technologies could facilitate greater revenue?
• What are the obstacles to selling? How can they best be overcome?
• What actionable changes can yield more selling time for salespeople?
• How connected or disconnected are company decision-makers and customers?
• Would buying the right company(s) be helpful to enhancing your sales model?
• Could entering the hot mobile app marketing space help the company amp up revenue? Or, is your app making the most of the opportunity?
• Are you genuinely innovating and then fluidly executing on needed changes... or is there too much focus on maintaining the status quo or only modest, incremental changes?
• When you think about your company vs. your competitors, are you leading, blended into the pack or trailing? If we asked your customers this question, would THEY agree with your answer? What about your prospects?
• Etc. There are many more but this should give you a fair sense of general explorations.

Can you develop answers to these kinds of questions internally? Sure you can, but that's where bias & politics can skew results. For example...

Many companies "focus on the positives" so hard they actually come to believe some of their spin... or are afraid to consider any counterpoint, even at their own peril.

We've worked with many companies that steadfastly believe that their products were superior in every way to their competitor's products... that their marketing approaches were the ONLY way to market, etc. If all that was true, why do they even have competitors? Why don't they own ALL of the market share for their industry?

Internal PR can be great at firing up the team... but an objective, OPEN mind is key to fully seeing good growth opportunities or clearly identifying a problem (the very first step to solving any problem). If you have any doubt you can do it (or do it fully), that's one of the very best reasons to let us help you.

You would not be alone in this. It's a massive problem for most companies... perhaps the biggest reason the consulting industry exists.

SALES MODEL EXPERTS WILL SEE KEY ISSUES YOU MISS

Outside consultants like BI haven't been biased by corporate spin, nor are we facilitators of the collective ego. Very simply: if your house is on fire, you should not want to hear how nice your yard looks. That's the WRONG time for marketing or PR redirection.

If your sales model is not optimized, corporate ego, bias, politics, etc, will almost certainly skew the view... and miss many of the meaningful opportunities to grow your revenue & profit. Pretending it is optimized doesn't make it so. Saying it is over and over doesn't make it so either. Objectivity is key.

Objective eyes see things as they ACTUALLY ARE. Every business NEEDS some reality.

To do the job well, we interact with your people in the various growth departments. There are particular benefits in working with front-line employees closest to customers, as they often have some of the most actionable insights about how to grease the wheels of your sales engine.

It is also helpful to objectively develop an outside-looking-in view of your business from customer & competitor standpoints. It is consistently beneficial to go right to the source of revenue for the most tangible of insights and there is always much to be learned- and potentially absorbed- from competitor brilliance... because your competitors are working at least as hard to take market share from your company. Our collective brilliance model is an excellent way to do BOTH very well.

By strategically identifying all of the growth-impact variables, we can help you recognize many opportunities for improving your sales model. The actionable recommendations we provide can then be screened, prioritized and implemented by you and your team... or WE can implement them for you. Most recommendations can be tested on a small scale, then rolled out mainstream as they demonstrate their profitable lifts.

Big Innovations can be your unbiased, external resource for helping your company optimize your sales model towards maximum productivity. Pairing some true objectivity with your insiders can bring out the best of both.

Even a little success within an unoptimized model can yield enormous returns in the short and long-term. Those returns are usually measured in cash revenue growth and cost savings: the fundamental recipe for profit-margin expansion.

There's new cash to be harvested! Contact us for a FREE CONSULTATION. We would love to help you grow your revenue to record levels!