This article is written by Mark Allen Roberts, CEO and Founder of OTB Solution sand first appeared in Soar to Success Magazine.
If you could only do one thing to improve your sales revenue and profits, what would it be?
In this article I will share how capturing and leveraging the current voice of your customers is that “one thing.”
When your team understands your customers – how they buy and what they need to buy today – you will experience the following:
- Increased sales
- Increased profits
- Increased market share
- Improved sales close rate percentages
- (Oh, and much better board meetings!) What do you need to know?
Think about all the changes businesses have gone through in the last 12 months. How can we assume how we did business a year ago will still apply today?
When was the last time you captured the voice of your customers?
The most powerful thing sales leaders can do are equipping sales teams with a repeatable sales process, sales training, and sales tools to hit their numbers based on how buyers buy today. Think about these questions:
- What do you need to know?
- Why do customers buy from you today?
- Why don’t customers buy from you today?
- What is your buyer’s buying process today?
- What buying criteria must your buyers have today?
Emphasis is placed on the word “today.”
We serve dynamic markets that are always shifting, and we need to adjust to those shifts or realize stalled or declining sales.
How do we capture current customer voice and market truth?
We contact our top 100, 200 or even 400 customers and we conduct one on one interviews.
We ask open-ended questions to gain actionable insights and then we must apply them and when we do, sales and profits increase.
It can’t be that simple (I hear some of you saying). Yep, it is…
I still feel some doubters out there…Below are some companies I have helped leverage the voice of their customers and the results they experienced:
- A plastics company that made mechanical security devices grew more than $38 million in 18 months.
- An adaptive automotive vehicle manufacturer realized a $50 million sales increase over six years and realized a 6 percent increase in gross profits.
Understanding your customers today is that powerful “one thing” that will position your team for profitable future success.
If you would like to capture the voice of your customers today and gain actionable insights, please reach out to IMEC to schedule a call.
Read the original article.
ICYMI: Get the recordings and resources for a deep dive into virtual selling:
SALES DEEP DIVE: Improving Virtual Sales Skills Training Series for Illinois Manufacturers, led by Mark Allen Roberts, Founder and CEO of OTB Solutions.
