How to Catch a Crocodile

: by Emma Clarke aged 9

As everyone knows,
crocodiles are large fearsome creatures so if you want to catch one you have to follow the rules really carefully.

If you want to catch a crocodile the first thing you have to do is to go where the crocodiles are.
(We know a lot of Sales and Marketing people who haven’t worked that one out yet)

Crocodiles as we all know live down at the swamp, so if you want to catch one you have to go down to the swamp,
but before you set out you must make sure you take the right tools.

What you need to take with you if you want to catch a crocodile is:

• a blanket a pair of binoculars,
• a pair of tweezers
• and a match box.
  

So, making sure that you have remembered your tools, you set off down to the swamp.

When you get there you go down to the edge of the swamp and you spread your blanket out on the ground.

You take your tools and you carefully lay them out, then you lay down and go to sleep.

Eventually the big old crocodile will come by and poke his head up out of the swamp.
What will he see?

He will see you lying there asleep on the blanket!

“What’s going on here” the crocodile will think “I know what’s going on here, sleeping is what’s going on here”
and with that the big old crocodile will haul himself out of the swamp and lie down beside you on the blanket
and because you are sleeping he will go to sleep to.

(This technique is better than diving into the swamp with a net and a bowie knife)
[which many salespeople use to Close Deals!]

But because you went to sleep first you will wake up first , (this is the INSIGHT)
and there beside you on the blanket is this great big fearsome crocodile
and you think: “How can I deal with this?”

 

So you take your binoculars and you turn them round
and you look at the crocodile through the binoculars backwards
so that reduces him to a more manageable size.

Then you take the tweezers and you put him in the matchbox!  Simple!

In the case of Eating an Elephant, then this is BEST done in bite-sized chunks, which may be kept in a match box!

So you see nothing is impossible

and with the right approach it is possible to simplify the hardest task and make it seem easy!

• The moral for Salespeople?  Take this nine year-olds advice:
• Go where the Customers are.
• Bring the RIGHT tools.
• ADAPT to their situation
• Bring INSIGHTS which enable you to “reverse the binoculars”
  and VALUE to act as “tweezers” to put them in the Box!

N.B. I have to thank Emma for her insight; we should all learn how to think like 9 year olds if we want to Sell!

I also MUST acknowledge Dave Brock’s Great posts on Sales Fundamentals

http://partnersinexcellenceblog.com/principles-of-sales-part-1-interactions-between-people/

for putting me in the frame of mind
to see the TRUTH which Emma’s insights presented.

 

Sales Forecasting Carefully, or beating Target?

 

 

Sara Catz President and CFO of Oracle reports:

http://www.morningstar.com/earnings/earnings-call-transcript.aspx?t=ORCL&pindex=2

“Now, to the guidance, and I want to remind you that last Q2 new license and cloud revenue increased 18% in constant currency. So this will be a very, very tough comparison. Though our pipelines and potential transactions for the quarter look really very exciting, our sales leaders remain very careful about what they are forecasting to us.”

The phrase that catches my eye is

“our sales leaders remain very careful about what they are forecasting to us.”

“Sales leaders, very careful, forecasting”

The word ‘semantics’, has become associated with ‘imagined’ differences, we hear the expression

“It’s just semantics”.

However, if I apply double-indexing semantics to Sara Catz’s words,
a depth of meaning appears which should be of interest to ALL Salespeople,
but specifically to the Sales Managers and Salespeople in Oracle.

 

• “Sales Leaders”,

Catz is putting the responsibility, and accountability, for Sales Forecasting squarely on the shoulders of Sales Leaders.

• “Very Careful”,

last year, Catz attributed a ‘missed forecast’ to Sales, further she attributed it to the recruitment, on-boarding and under-performance of many thousands of new Sales people, who did not perform as “Forecast”. Hence, she is NOT looking for Forecasting to “remain” [optimistic], but is in fact signalling that “careful” means “conservative” forecasts.

• “Forecasting”,

in the context used is also “targeting” as it is
performance compared with last Quarter (Q2),
and has inherent risk, as expressed by Catz, in her use of “Constant Currency”,
when her Global Market is has a Volatile Currency uncertainty.

Catz is addressing the Investment and Analyst Community,
her audience expects to hear certain messages,
Risk Management, Growth, Returns,
so she inserts “safety” through “Very Careful”.

 

 

 

 

 

The stock performance was good after her report,
so her message, to her audience, was on song.

 

 

 

 

I am curious about the EXECUTION of her message INSIDE Oracle.

“Sales leaders, very careful, forecasting”

We have over the last 40 years, repeatedly looked at Sales Forecasting.

WHO owns the forecast?

HOW should it be done?

WHAT is the forecast used for?

The consensus from meta-analysis is that Forecasting should be owned at the level closest to the forecast event.
And, I am sure that Forecasting ‘starts’ at the Oracle Sales Executive level.
Should Sales Executives forecast “Very Carefully”?

In Sales, a very careful Forecaster is known as a “Sandbagger”.
They only forecast Rain, when it has already started raining!

The opposite  of a “very careful” forecaster is a very ‘careless’ forecaster, in Sales we call them “Dreamers”.

Every Lead is already a Sale!

Sometimes they are cynically optimistic, they present “Huge” pipelines, stuffed with opportunities which never happen.

The belief that a ‘Big’ pipeline protects poor performance, this is ‘reckless’ behaviour!

“Careful”, cautious, suspicious, precise, judicious, cautious or shrewd;
these are just some of the ‘semantic’ differences using the word “Careful”.

But when you add “Very” then the meanings can bounce from:
‘Actual’ if she used it as an adjective, to ‘Extremely’ if her use was an adverb!

Let’s take the desired case scenario: Catz’s words urge the Oracle Sales force from
Top [Leaders] to Bottom [Sales Executives] to forecast accurately, to be precise, not dreaming nor sandbagging.

Let’s imagine that by so doing, Oracle delivers a good set of results, much as the Forecast. Success.

Or, was it?

Let’s take a poor case scenario:
Catz’s words urge the Sales Leadership to be “conservative”,
they believe that it is better to be accurate than bold.

Meeting Forecast, becomes more important than exceeding Target!

Care to ensure that what you forecast actually happens, then your forecast becomes the “reality”.

The illusion of “See, I told you so” has never been Sales Success,
“better than expected”, “Upside”, “BOLD”, have always been hallmarks in Sales, Corporate and Sporting success.

I have discussed Sales Leadership as a function of their “Maturity”, through the lens of Forecasting and Targeting

http://brianmaciver.blogspot.com.es/2011/01/stretch-sales-targets.html

ORACLE’s results, and its stock performance, are dependent on Good Forecasting,
but they are equally dependent on PERFORMANCE in the Market and likely future performance.

 

It’s about Expectation AND perceived Performance.

It’s about how well you did against how well you ‘might’ have done!

Managing Expectations is OK, but Managing Maximum Performance is more important!

I believe that Catz and her Sales leadership will have to communicate a clear message to their Sales force about what “our sales leaders remain very careful about what they are forecasting to us” really MEANS.

The Sales Leadership will need to turn this into HOW we want Sales Executives to behave,
as neither dreamers nor Sandbaggers, but bold and right!

Big Data, Big Numbers are made up from individuals and their actions,
getting your Sales force to do what is productive, not just careful, is in these days of BIG, quite a challenge!

Let’s just review how tough any forecasting is,

never mind ‘very careful’ forecasting!

http://brianmaciver.blogspot.com.es/2010/10/sales-forecasts-are-just-estimates.html

 

.

Putting the Challenger Sale to Work (Five)

 

A USP is NOT
a Challenger Insight

 

The CEB research clearly shows that Challenger Insights work.

However, few Salespeople are actually using them!

 

Let´s review briefly, what USP´s are:

“The Unique Selling Proposition (a.k.a. Unique Selling Point, or USP) is a marketing concept
that was first proposed as a theory to understand a pattern among successful advertising campaigns
of the early 1940s. It states that such campaigns made unique propositions to the customer and
that this convinced them to switch brands.

Wikipedia

Marketing produces USP´s by the gazillion:

Faster, bigger, smaller, easier, cheaper, and on and on!

HOWEVER, do they work?

  USP:

The Gas ‘free’ car

 

 

We have known for years, in Sales, that USP´s DO NOT SELL.

Rackham’s Research published as SPIN Selling devotes a chapter to it (Ch.9)

“The Myth and Magic” of the Initial Benefit Statement
and the USP in “Opening the Sale” is just another rod on Sale’s back!

“It’s the fastest on the Market!” offers the novice Salesperson.

“We do NOT need more SPEED, we need more reliability,
and faster usually means LESS RELIABILITY!” Retorts the cynical Customer.

This really is stepping off on the wrong foot,
from push “benefit” to Customer Objection in less than 10 seconds!

“We do not want your USP of speed;
we believe that might damage the reliability that we really need.”

The brochures promote SPEED, the adverts promote SPEED,
and the Call-centre is calling trying to book appointments for salespeople to talk about SPEED.
It is another failed Marketing Campaign, but Sales is going to get the blame.

“They didn't sell the USP: SPEED!” laments the CMO.

 

Opening the Sale refresher
http://brianmaciver.blogspot.com.es/2012/02/three-great-selling-skills-that-really.html

 

How do we construct these Challenger Insights?

From the MARKET, not MARKETING!

Get together with some customers, product specialists and ….

OK some marketing people
(but have an equal number of Salespeople present).

DO NOT let Marketing seize the White Board
or write-up the minutes of the meeting.

Have a Customer Engagement;

see their world through their eyes.

Ask Customers to design your next product,
or to modify your existing products.

Find out where “Speed”, size, or cost etc. is on their priority list.

From the meeting develop and test a variety of “insights”,
this is the beginning of Challenger Insights. (And the end of the USP! fiasco)

 

.

Ignoring the Sales Forecast and missing Targets

 

The first Monday of the Month is when we “review” last month’s Sales Performance at the weekly Sales Review. It’s a bigger than normal audience with “guests” from Marketing, Tech Support and Finance. We were honoured today by the attendance of the CFO and the CMO, the meeting was chaired by the CEO.

Why such an illustrious audience?

Because we have missed two consecutive Month’s Sales Targets and
we are NOT on track to hit the quarter’s Target!
This gets the attention of the Investors and the Board.
There was a smell of fear in the room.

They say wolves sense the fear of their prey and that’s when they start howling!

What the wolverines in the room didn’t know was the Sales VP and I had spent three days preparing for the encounter. We knew it was going wrong three weeks ago.

The early signs were “weak signals” an unusual Discounting Campaign from our prime Competitor announced in December, launched on Jan 1, was beginning to bite.

Despite Sales giving Both Finance and Marketing early warning, the signals were ignored.

Marketing decided they were NOT going to respond, Sales were told to SELL VALUE not discount.
Along with the Price Discounts, the Competitor offered great financial terms,
90 day payment terms with installation and setup charges delayed for 12 months.

Their offer was keen pricing and easy payment terms,
both very attractive in these “Frugal” times.

At the First Monday Monthly Meeting in February we had Presented Marketing and Finance with a list of 14 identified “at risk” Sales Forecast opportunities. They had stonewalled and not responded, we had escalated this to the CEO as a Valentine present of a visit with the CEO to an “at risk” Prospect.

“I like your Product, functionally its better, we have a great relationship,
BUT I can’t justify the extra cost. Comeback when you can compete financially!”

We lost the order.

The Sales VP and I had reviewed 6 lost opportunities during February, and a further 14 which were forecast for February close which were being delayed or postponed. The Competitor’s Disruptive Pricing had been a well executed Marketing Campaign, into a Product/Market with reduced budget and a drive for Cost Reduction.

So, “Who lost the Sale?”

Sales had brought early warning of the Competitive Threat to the table in December. Marketing and Finance had ignored them as “weak signals”. Sales had brought “proof” in February, Marketing and finance wanted to “wait and see”. The CEO had first-hand experience, a real time “Battlefield Intelligence”, but he had not reacted.

 

We closed the Presentation with the January and February “WINS” despite the competitive Disruptive Pricing. Sales had a 100% success where that Competitor was NOT present, Sales had only lost one time in five (20%) when the Competitive “Offer” was present.

 

Finally we offered the meeting this thought:

Consider the case of Bertrand Russell's Inductivist Turkey

“The turkey found that, on his first morning at the turkey farm, that he was fed at 9 a.m. Being a good inductivist turkey he did not jump to conclusions. He waited until he collected a large number of observations that he was fed at 9 a.m. and made these observations under a wide range of circumstances, on Wednesdays, on Thursdays, on cold days, on warm days.

Each day he added another observation statement to his list. Finally he was satisfied that he had collected a number of observation statements
to inductively infer that 
“I am always fed at 9 a.m.''.
However on the morning of Christmas eve he was not fed
but instead had his throat cut.''

You cannot predict the future from inductive reasoning on past data,
a key lesson for Turkeys, Marketing and Finance.

Now, stop being Turkeys!

 

Here are TWO excellent blogs on why Forecasting does NOT work:

http://wp.me/p1pSwe-as

http://awareci.com/2012/03/05/analysing-weak-signals-for-competitive-intelligence/

 

Learn why the “Competitive PRICE Campaign” was so successful?  

http://brianmaciver.blogspot.com.es/2012/09/selling-against-value-with-price.html

If you want to sell VALUE, then you had better know what Value Is!

Value is in the “Eye of the Customer”,

Whether we Sales and

Marketing believe it or not.

 

 

Customers assign Values to the attributes of our product or service, every Customer assigns different VALUE.

Anyone, who expresses their belief through “Gut Feel” or worse still “Experience” which Product or Service attributes are most important or Values which they ascribe are almost certainly WRONG.

If you want to Sell VALUE then you must first DISCOVER it.

 

YOU CANNOT CREATE VALUE

 

Nor, can your Sales Managers, nor your Marketing Guru, ONLY Customers perceive Value.

And, what your Customer perceives as Value
and how much Value they perceive must be DISCOVERED by you to offer back to them.

Crucially, Value is always expressed in the Customers own words –
hence it can never be written in a Marketing Brochure or Sales Playbook.
Leave the playbooks where they belong – in the playground!

Value, Real VALUE as Customer’s perceive it is first discovered,
and then it is developed by the Salesperson AND the Customer.

This interaction by Sales and Customer is called:

VALUE CONSTRUCTION

Initially, Value Construction is both soft and subjective research in the Customer’s own world, their REALITY. Using one-to-one or one-to-few meetings which identify as many attributes and ideas as possible. These Attributes are “Constructs” which having been sorted, combined as a synthesis produce a Customer Sourced VALUE PROPOSITION.

A frequent Marketing mistake is to take old Value Propositions from existing Customers and PUSH them as Value Statements to New Customers.

DON’T DO IT,
it simply does not work.

Value ‘Reviews’ with Lost Sales and Current Customers
find “their” Value NOT “True” Value,
which can only be found with the actual Customer.

Experience has given Salespeople the realisation,
that Requirement, Expectation and Want all have different Values.

Customer’s Expectations change, Value is NOT a predetermined significance.

The more difficult it is for a Customer to EVALUATE a Product/Service before purchase,
then the more important EXPLICIT VALUE becomes,
the more important Value Construction becomes!

BMAC Consultants offer Value Construction work shops

as part of their Customer Engagement Process.

How do you lose market share, with the best product and best price?

 

It’s easy, give Marketing control over Customer Relationships.

I have just finished a long assessment for Big IT, they told me to find a problem with Sales.

I did, they were losing deals to a ‘softer’ product and the customer was paying the same or even more.

When I made my initial report, they asked me to recommend a “Sales Training”. I could have said anything. But, I replied that I knew what was wrong, but we didn’t know what caused the problem.

They agreed reluctantly to fund some more Sales Consultancy, but they really wanted “Sales Training”, a good two day event that would ‘energise’ the sales force and bring the lost business back!

 

 

My role as a Sales Consultant is to eliminate mistakes.

That is it. Simple!

Find the mistake, then eliminate it.

At BMAC we call it “error detection and error recovery”.
(At least one of us used to design, test and repair Hard Disk drives).

If YOU are not doing something wrong (or not doing something right) then your business would be booming!

At big IT, we did the usual lost business reviews,
with some remarkable and consistent results across a wide range of
Salespeople, Customers, Customer Segments and Geography.

· Did we lose on Price – NO?

· Did we lose on Product – NO?

 

We drilled down, what was the price difference, little or none.

What was the product difference little or none.

Several (sincere) Lost Customers, even admitted that they had bought more expensively and
they believed the product that they bought although good enough may not be as good as Big IT’s.

So WHY did we lose? We asked. It came down to RELATIONSHIPS.

Over the last three years Marketing has taken over ‘Customer Relationships’. Marketing were responding to incoming queries and contacting “quiet” Customers. Sales were told to focus on ‘Closing deals’.

“Show the Prospect that we have the best Product and the Best price”.

Marketing had installed, at great expense, a new CRM. It collated web landing, Social Media searches, recorded incoming and out-going telephone contacts and had hounded Sales for their “Black Contact Books” to be put in the system. The initial results were great; the sales ‘lag time’ had dropped from entry in the pipeline to Order from 7 months to 4 months. Sales were only working ‘qualified’ leads. Marketing was holding ‘pre-qualified’ leads and “nurturing” them.

So, what was wrong? Where is the error?

The Customers had interpreted Marketing’s new CRM approach as:
“We are Not Interested.”

 

 

 

 

The Customer wanted Sales Engagement!

So, they got it from the “interested” Competition.

 

Interesting?

Cost saving or shaving costs?

 

I don’t want to blame “Porter”, although his promotion of the Lowest Cost Provider has confused and caused a few problems over the years.  The idea is blindingly simple, and once known is obvious, the Lowest Cost Provider wins. 

If you have the lowest costs you can sell at Market Price for more Profit or you can sell below Market Price and win market share grow your volume and make more Profit.   Great!

However when you turn the company over to the Accountants, take care.

Financial Engineering was another FAD that I survived.

But, only just!

Enter the Cost Accountants and let the dance begin.

Ketchup has the key ingredient of Tomatoes.

Our Cost Accountants showed how we could reduce costs by reducing Tomatoes in our Ketchup. We put 10% less Tomatoes on our Ketchup and changed to a lower cost if lower quality Tomatoes. Total saving was 20%. No complaints, so apparently the consumer didn’t notice.

 

‘Flushed’ with success, the Cost Accountants were back with more proposals “Packaging, Storage and transportation” cost savings. We changed from a bottle size of 500 grams to 1000 grams; Marketing not only supported the change but insisted we use 1200 grams to enable a 20% extra free campaign. Our Consumers seemed to accept the changes, but our Distributers, Wholesalers and Retailers grumbled about ‘problems’ in the background.

 

To achieve all of the changes, involved some costs, but these were justified by the Cost Accountants Graphs, Charts and Tables all of which agreed that break-even, cost recovery and profits would flow shortly. Marketing agreed and talked of Product “consolidation”, improved Margins, Market share capture and increased Profits. In Sales we just raised our eyebrows.

After a set of disappointing Sales results, the Cost Accountants cut a further 15% of Tomatoes used in our Ketchup, we now bought our Key ingredient on the open Market at a “Tomatoes Commodity Auction”; it came from any part of the world and was always the cheapest they could find.

During a Product Management review the Cost Accountants refused to allow a new Self-seal dispenser to be used as it put 4 cents on the cost line. But, it was being advertised heavily on TV by our Competitor.

 

Our next two quarters Sales results were terrible.

Big and loyal customers were only placing maintenance orders, or cancelling. Or, they were trying to return stock they described as ‘non-spec’. In Sales we knew what was wrong, but nobody listened.

So, Sales organised a Customer Engagement Event (paid for by Marketing)
and brought our Executives, our Distributors and our Consumers together Face-to-face:

“You can’t taste the Tomatoes!”;
“the bottles are too big for their fridge”;
“We can’t shelf the product!”;
“The Box is too heavy to lift!”

In summary “We don’t like your Product, anymore!”

 

 

This Parable really took place in Information Technology;
it was not “Ketchup”.

 

The moral of the story is:
to “Listen to your Customer”

and put tasty and plentiful ‘Tomatoes’
in your ‘Ketchup’.

 

 

 

Heinz® Tomato Ketchup, America's Favorite Ketchup®,

is made with only the firmest, juiciest, freshest tomatoes.

 

 

Heinz make, and have always made, a truly great product!

Sales forecasting and the “likelihood to win” - A ‘probability’ score.

To really understand
Sales ‘forecasting’  or Weather ‘forecasting’

you need to understand ‘Game Theory’.

 

In particular the “Game” which is called
“The Largest Number Game”,
sometimes it is called the “Luring Lottery”.

You can look it up on Google.

It starts with a ‘premise’, that every one contesting has an equal chance of winning. Then people can vary their behaviour through the use of Rational and the Irrational behaviours in an attempt to
“Increase the odds” of them winning.

Sales forecasting is a “Game”, in the absolute sense of Game Theory.

1. Some Players believe that their “Activity”, increases the likelihood of winning.
2. Some Players base their ‘Strategy’ on enhanced “Functionality” and hope to win with a better product.
3. Yet other Players trust in their “Relationships” with ‘Key Players’ in the Account,
   who are given name tags like “Coach”, “Fox”, “Ally” or “Enemy” and just plain “Insider”.
4. A large group of Players base their likelihood of winning on the “Financial” offer,
   this can be TCO, ROI, or Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) based.
   A popular way of phrasing this is to make a “Value Proposition” which will be literally:
   

   “Make them an offer that they can’t refuse!”

So, what do we know about Sales forecasting?

Well, surveys and research shows it to be pretty ineffective.
The likelihood of the Sales “forecast” for any individual deal being accurate is about the same as
the weather forecast for rain in the Desert or sunshine in Manchester. Sometimes they get it right!
What about “Collective” or “Aggregate” forecasting? 
Well, even if you do sell aggregates or collectives, they are not much use!

Like the lottery, the more “tickets” that you buy then the more likely you are to win.

Does this apply to Sales?
The more deals you try to close the more likely you are to close ‘some’?

No? Well no, not really.
It doesn’t work that way.

We know this because of the Sales People and their Sales Managers who worry about Activity, Functionality, Financial offers and Relationships. If these are not ‘right’, then your likelihood of success is diminished.
We didn’t even include the Competitors;
if there are THREE Competitors then TWO of the Sales forecasts are going to be wrong by definition!
We live in a Complex world, ‘forecasting’, especially Sales Forecasting could be characterised as:
“Calculated Chaos” or “Controlled Disorder”. In fact, Sales Forecasts are needed to give a semblance of Control; and Control is needed so that Planning can be ‘fulfilled’.

The truth is Forecasting has not progressed much since Greece 2,500 years ago.
Where the Oracles at Delphi, (now known to be intoxicated by the ‘Volcanic’ fumes)
made predictions.
We still believe that prophecy, that is given by “talented seers”, even if removed from the hurly burly can foretell coming events.

 

 

Magic!

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is really produced is ‘pseudo-information’ about relationships, function, finance and activity, which is then processed through ‘intuition’ and ‘calculation’ to generate a number.

The oxymoron springs to mind:

“A long range weather forecast should be obtained before leaving,
  as weather conditions are extremely unpredictable!”

My belief is that Sales Forecasting, especially long range forecasting is a manifestation of anxiety-relieving superstitious behaviours.

 

Sales forecast reviews are no more than “magical rites” to make a chaotic world seem stable. These rites are practiced by the Executive Management Tribe to induce us (sales people) to take action, at least when the ‘Omens’ are favourable.

The use and abuse of sales forecasting simply preserves a Status Quo.

Weather Forecasters talk of unexpected “Turbulence”, and Sales VP’s call it “Downturns”.

I have previously Blogged about the Forecasting method which I use that,
given all the truths above, it is as useful as any, and a lot better than most “systems”.

 

http://brianmaciver.blogspot.com/2010/07/sales-forecasts-its-numb3rs-game.html

 

No doubt,
many people with ‘systems’ and ‘solutions’ will disagree with me.

But, before you buy,

ask them to bet their House and Pension on it,

before you bet your Company on it!

.

The problem of Sales and Marketing Alignment

 

I always smile privately while reading Sales-Marketing or Marketing-Sales Alignment Problems Blogs and Reports.

An exception
is the great advice given by:

http://blog.eloqua.com/sales-alignment/

However, Forrester, a respected Research and Publishing House. The author has a Marketing background, but he lacks that ‘Grunt’ experience. Having been a ‘Grunt’ that worked and educated himself to General Management, I know how essential that experience was, and I know how important to have perspective on the “Problem”.

The ‘shocking’ conclusion is:

“Sales and Marketing Alignment starts at the Customer”,

forgive me but I feel as though a Consultant has just borrowed my watch,

told me the time, billed me $500 and then kept my watch!



The Problem is in Marketing, they can’t keep up.

Marketing cannot keep up with Social, Technological, Economic, Political or Competitive change!
Sales, at the ‘front-end’ attempts to use out of date marketing content, are directed to inappropriate leads, and most importantly are blamed for failure and then discredited for their success. I long for the return of Sales and Marketing Directors, Marketing Communications, PR, Customer Events,
Golf balls and Umbrella give-away!
I would trade both my SFA and CRM for them, and settle for just MS Outlook.



Instead, I have to suffer the indignity of the CMO,
we might as well have had Sales report to the CFO, 
as at least in Finance they understood the Financial Offer!  
Marketing are there to serve the Sales-force, not the other way round!

Marketing Deliverables are the Sales-force requirements to SELL,
not a ‘price list’ with a product brochure and an inoperable website.

Then, God forbid, a plethora of Sales ‘Disablement’ content, SFA and CRM software, FAD training programs, Market Focus meetings and the fatal blow a “sales strategy” based on a (wrongly labelled) Boston Matrix,
a SWOT analysis that left out the Key Competitor and was based on the wrong Market segment
and a no longer sold Product.

Within 5 minutes of meeting a CMO, I can tell if they have any comprehension of Selling or not.  If they don’t think much of Salespeople and if they believe that Customers are naïve, then they are unlikely to align.


I have been much more measured in my assessment of their Marketing and CMO skills, waiting a full 18 months,
to see what they achieve.
In ITC my expectation is 35% year-on-year at the top line.
This is rarely achieved by CMO’s unaligned to Sales and Customers!

 

What is often achieved is the complete disengagement from both Sales and Customers;
to the point that the CMO believes that “they are in the ‘wrong market’.”

When CMO’s directly manage Sales, as “Sales” Management this has been disastrous,
with the loss of Market share, Key Employees, and inconsistent Sales Strategy of both Product and Position.

 

The outcome is OVERT Marketing - Sales - Customer misalignment.


I have reached a different conclusion, than Forester, Sales and Marketing misalignment is the CEO’s fault!

Sales and Marketing misalignment
is completely the CEO’s fault.

The structure of a ‘disintegrated’ Sales and Marketing Department is wrong, it doesn’t work. 
It’s not about ‘alignment’; it’s about “Integration around the Customer”.
Sales, Marketing and Service integration,
which delivers Customer Acquisition, Retention, Development and Substitution the FOUR Sales Strategies!

 

My advice to 'misaligned' CEO’s is  this month spend
at least 20 hours with Customers LISTENING, not talking.

Then do the same thing with the Sales and Marketing Departments,
Fire the CMO and any other Marketing person with a title that doesn’t have the word “Customer” in it.
Fire all Marketing people who do not spend at least 10 hours per month with different Customers.
Fire all Salespeople who don’t spend 40 hours per month eyeball to eyeball with different Customers.

More on integration at http://brianmaciver.blogspot.com/2010/09/sales-and-marketing-integration.html

Hold a series of Meetings with the Integrated Sales and Marketing Department,
ensure they know and have agreed the Ideal Customer Profile (ideally based on real customers),
they have agreed the definition of a Sales Ready Lead,
as well as an agreed handover and hand-back process for Sales [un]Ready Leads.

 

Good Luck!

.

Failing during the down turn.

I wrote of my dear friend who is succeeding in the down turn, http://bit.ly/gDW2lD and he continues to thrive 15% Y on Y growth, from a changing product mix and a growing market. His Cash disciplines and customer focus continue to pay-off.
However, we play golf with another Businessman. He, and his two daughters, runs a Machine shop, Precision Engineering and Custom Chromium Plating. 18 months ago he thought the downturn would only last a year. He had the cash, so he simply bunkered down.
He kept his employees, employed.
He gave extended credit to his customers.
And, he waited!

Now he is running out of Cash, and Cash counts.

It is not too late, he still has a core business, but his material suppliers want cash up front, and not all of his customers pay, many pay late.

 

He asked me to help sell.

But, the sale to cash cycle is 7 months and he no longer has 7 months of Cash.

Bank loans? Mortgage? I had to tell him, that the way he currently operates, in his real market, he will lose his home as well as his business.

Madness, is doing the same thing and expecting different results.

How do you recover?

Cash Control is number one, both cash spend and cash collection.

He has to size the workforce to the business, and he has to stop being his Customer’s Bank. NOW.

A quick product/Market scan showed his best Customers, in Cash terms are in France, moderate Margins but good payers.
I’ve sent HIM on a sales call.
All Customers 10,000 € in arrears are now on credit stop pending payment. No shipments until the account is cleared, and future “deals” are 30% on order, 30% on manufacturing start and 40% on completion. This represents his business cycle of Material purchase, Worker hourly rate, and Margin.

I have been handling Difficult Customers, and keeping “the family” away from them.
I am, with some success, offering 10% Cash Back for less than 30 day payments,
and I do mean CASH.

The ‘will not pay’ are not getting any shipments,
the 'cannot pay' I am looking at on a case-by-case basis.

This is not “hard headed”,
they should have been doing this anyway,
but now they have to do it.

It’s a good business, they are good people,
I hope we can save their business.
Then I can tell them about Flat worlds,
Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and Selling in 2011.
Right now it’s more basic than that.

Is Sales Enablement really ‘Disabling’ Sales?

I have expressed concern over the use of Sales Force Automation (SFA), which are de-skilling salespeople. Today, I want to express deep concern over a Non-Sales ‘conspiracy’ to disable salespeople by making Salespeople use “sales enablement”.

The practice of Sales Enablement developed by Non-salespeople is simple:

Selling is an activity, like walking.

Selling like walking requires no skill, have a route planned then go.

Sales Enablement is “routes” prepared previously by Non-Salespeople to make Salespeople sell more often and sell more effectively.

BMAC Consultants have just finished an audit of “Sales Enablement” for a blue chip, Hi Tech Company. My initial analysis was straightforward. Sales results before the adoption of Sales Enablement, compared to Sales results after the adoption of Sales Enablement. Since the claimed benefit of Sales Enablement was to sell more and to sell faster. Clear Order intake and Revenue improvement were the expected results.

The actual result was a performance dip, about -12 % on average.

Sales sold 12% less after being ‘enabled’.

I asked for a third group, the control group, which had not adopted Enablement.
There was not one I was told, Enablement is compulsory. It is our new way of working!
I conducted semi-structured interviews with more than 40 sales staff, salespeople and sales management. I found a group of people who had ignored Sales Enablement. They were, in the main, Top Performers, with a few average performers. Their Sales figures had improved slightly or remained the same. I interviewed at length several Top Performers who had experienced performance dip after adopting sales enablement. “Difficult to use”, “not fit for purpose”, and “cumbersome” were the criticisms, while “good in specific situations”, “saved me time” and “it really helped me” were the compliments.

1. Content Creation

a. Customer Intelligence: this was often story board based, based on previous “wins”
The Sales consensus was it didn’t work
b. Product Content: Sales complained about a lack of Product Training, instead they were being giving mini aide memoirs and Product stories.  The Sales consensus was Buyers now knew as much or more about products than Sales knew.
c. Vertical Marketing Content: There was universal appreciation of this. There was particular praise for events which had Customers talk about Key issues and Market Sector drivers in Customer Engagement Workshops
d. Solution Content: There was universal criticism of this. Out of Date materials, irrelevant materials, Issues with Customer Confidentiality (unapproved Case studies) and simply not working or useless content.

Buyers had also stated these were not fit for purpose especially as
RTT (Response to Tender) or RFI (Request for Information) responses.

2. Content Management: is poor or very poor; everyone, yet no one, was responsible, it had become a potpourri. Initially Top Marketing Management had been responsible, but the ownership had dropped to Marketing Operations Executives. The current content owners, were inexperienced, had had little or no Customer contact and were being used for their PC skills (Data Base Management) Storage not ‘Content’ creation, development or distribution.

3. Content Governance: this was the most worrying area. Senior Management had made substantial investment in Sales Enablement; they expected to see two things; usage of the new systems and sales results. Sales managers were enforcing usage with ‘Enablement Police’ ensuring compliance. The use of materials was being checked during sales calls, the use of Knowledge Data bases were being reported automatically by the system with details on access frequency by individual salespeople, by groups and as a whole. IT is driving sales!
Sales ‘Propositions’ were being checked for content and “Standardization” against ‘winning’ models. The whole area of governance was being abused. Some salespeople were going to extreme s in appearing to use the system, while in fact defeating the checks and measures. Other salespeople were in complete compliance, but were seeing their sales results dropping; this dissonance was causing a great deal of stress.

4. Content Delivery: This was an area of innovation. Many Corporate Presentations had been remodelled into Video, Storyboards, White boarding, Podcasts and state of the art Interactive Websites etc. Attempts are being made to use social media, Facebook, Blogs and Twitter and there was a willingness to explore all of this on the part of salespeople. Sales major complaint was lack of Training and no Coaching on these innovations. Buyers had also complained about some of these innovations when inappropriately used, and had rated poor content delivery as a major factor in Lost Business Reviews.

Conclusions

If you really want to ENABLE your salespeople, then listen to them.

• Customer Engagement workshops with Sales, Marketing, and IT in conversation together with Customers is the most productive source of Sales Enablement Material. What Content do Customers value? How do Buyers want in delivered, where and when do Buyers want it.
• Sales Enablement appears to work best when it is specific, build an Ideal Customer Profile then work through a Competitive strategy.
• If you value Selling Time, a repeated criticism by Buyers of Salespeople is that they do not have time! Consider reintroducing some of the Sales Administration Support that was ‘Cost Cut’ in order to pay for Sales Enablement.
• The cheapest way of increasing selling time and gaining sales results is Sales Admin. If you are short of expense, then fire the Senior Marketing Manager who introduced, then abandoned, Sales Enablement.

BMAC Consultants audit Sales Enablement and make recommendations putting enablement to work. We also have a unique Customer Engagement Workshop process that puts the Buyer’s Voice right to your ear!
Contact brian.maciver@googlemail.com

The biggest self-deception in Business

 

The biggest self-deception in Business today is............................

 

 

That Sales People have any leading role in their Client’s Buying Process!

 

 

Buying 2.0 and the ever-growing network of greater Client savvy,
means Buyers do not NEED Sales.

Salespeople now only have a walk on part.
If their part is “scripted”, then they are not needed at all.

How long the Salesperson stays centre stage and
keeps the Client’s attention is a function of Sales IMPROVISATION and Buyer Activation.

The art of selling in 2013 is based on Creativity, Imagination and Insight.

Clients rarely tell Salespeople what they are ‘really’ thinking.
Buyers know they are being sold to,
so they tend to believe more about what Competitors say about each other’s products,
than what Salespeople say about their own product.

There is no place for Selling by repetition, or being an information point.

The days of just Communicating Value, [talking brochures] are over!

Customers want customization.

 

The success factors in selling today

• Understanding Buyer’s Needs, What, How and Why.

• How Sales Strategy Must Adapt to Buyer 2.0

Just before, you fire the Sales force and give the money to Marketing.
Don’t do it, because, Marketing is just as out of tune with Customers as Sales! 

Marketing ask for more and more money,
but can’t show other than anecdotal evidence of Return on Investment.
(Return on Marketing spend).

Every sales success is ‘claimed’ as a Marketing “win”. Yet, ask Buyers for opinions on time wasting websites, unfulfilled inquiries, hopeless “Corporate” presentations and one size fits ‘no-one’ or over-priced products. 

If you closed Marketing today, you would not notice any effect on Revenue.
In fact, if you replaced Marketing by a Customer User Group,
or Buyer Forum you would see both Cost savings AND Revenue growth.

 

What do you have to do?

• Give Salespeople Product Knowledge and Customer Business Knowledge -
  train them to offer insights.
• Get sales people to ask questions lots of questions until they can describe their Buyer’s needs accurately and comprehensively.
  This is what I want, this is how I will use it, and this is why I want it.
  So, that Salespeople can Customise [Tailor, if you prefer]

Selling is an art and a science.
You only manage the science;
you develop, adapt and refine the art.

Sales and Marketing Integration.

Having consulted for the Last 20 years, at more than 100 organisations.  From Mega Corps. to Small Owner/Manager Business, in sectors ranging through Energy, Telco’s and Airlines to Food Growers and Retailers, Furniture Manufacturers and House Builders.  It still amazes me the number of Poor Performers due to disintegrated Sales and Marketing. Good Product, Good Market, and Good Channel but they do not perform!

I have over the years developed ‘categories’ for the Sales and Marketing relationship:

Divorced, they have taken new partners like R&D or Product Production or Customer Service.
They do not talk, they try never to meet and they blame one another for the poor performance.
This cannot work.

Separated, still living at the same address, but they do not talk.
When they accidently meet then it is conflict or conflict resolution, NEVER collaboration.
They are going to divorce.

Married, but take each other for granted. Regular meetings (this month’s agenda is last month’s minutes). They use similar language ‘leads’, ‘pipeline’, ‘Value Propositions’ and ‘Unique Selling Points’ – but have completely different understanding as to what the words mean!
They avoid disputes by rules and guidelines.

 

Newly Married, enjoy joint planning,
flexible boundaries and joint events.
Their talk is of Products, Promotions, Pricing,
Sales Channels and Systems.
It is working through their own hard work.

Fully Integrated Sales and Marketing:
Shared Language & Training
Regular Meetings, Joint Sales Visits, Shared System,
Joint Performance Measurement & Joint Rewards –
mutual responsibility for success.

 

 

Fully integrated Sales and Marketing WORKS and it doesn’t seem to matter if it is Sales led or Marketing driven, one leader or two.

 

It is always Customer Centric, it is a Set of Behaviours,
an Attitude and Shared Values.

It ROCKS! Now look at your Sales and Marketing, what is their status?

BMAC runs ‘Market Workshops’ to integrate Sales and Marketing,
successful behaviours, using a combined Sales and Marketing System,
Joint Performance Measurement from Enquiry to Close. 
Learn how to create the right attitude by sharing right values.

Is Sales Force Automation Broken?

The weak link of SFA and CRM,

is to accurately

represent REALITY,

the actual ‘on the ground’

Sales situation.

The evidence is that
Sales Force Automation (SFA) and
Client Relationship Management (CRM) place too much STRESS on Salespeople,
by producing a ‘crisis of information’.

 

 

 

 

This Data Storage “Fortress” has become so complex it needs sophisticated software
to access, read, display, interpret and manipulate the Sales Data.
Hence, the output read and accepted by Managers,
bears no relationship to the input presented by Salespeople.

The crisis comes from the overwhelming input and output of unrelated Data,
without apparent application. 

The problem BMAC set out to overcome
by analysis and diagnosis was the following dissonance.

• The principle Inputs  are   Qualitative.

• The principle Outputs are Quantitative.

The evidence for this is that the outputs produced at
a Management Level are both Numerical and TIME based.

A ‘Sales Forecast’ is the amount of expected Revenue,
from which Customers, by which date!

However, the inputs are the subjective view of the Salesperson.

The Salesperson describes and categorises
their own Activity on a best-fit basis, often from a drop down list. 

The Salesperson then second-guess their Client’s view
for revenue Value of potential business and likely Close dates.
Then, most improbably of all, they guess
their own likelihood of success as a Percentage!

All of this subjective information is ‘rose tinted’ by the salesperson’s desire to ‘look good’.
This is done by presenting a strong pipeline, from a portfolio of well attended accounts.

Giving the impression of a well managed and well worked territory
and therefore a strong likelihood of future sales success!

This whole process is so inherently unstable, such that the Sales Manager 
takes a  ‘view’ nominally subtracting 20%-40% from Sales Data. 

This ‘modified view’ is then further modified, up or down,
by a ‘C Level correction’ based on Historical Trends, or Business Plan Forecast!

SFA and CRM have led to a lack of ‘socialisation’, that is real discussion of the actual status of the Sales forecast.  This has a severe negative effect on the ability of the Sales Organisation to Learn, for peer sharing or replication and rollout. 

The measured impact of SFA and CRM, as currently used,
has been found to LOWER Sales Revenue Generating Activity,
and has REDUCED Sales Productivity. 

The claimed benefit of ‘Sales Performance Improvement’ through SFA and CRM relies on anecdotal evidence, with little correlation to Sales Revenue Improvement.

There is at least the same amount of anecdotal evidence that SFA and CRM is ‘padded’ or manipulated by sales people with exaggerated pipelines, early close dates to show good account ‘husbandry’.

The view that SFA/CRM ‘drive’ Sales by encouraging Sales to ‘drive’ Buyers to the ‘Close’ on a specific date for specific revenue amounts, is FALSE.
 
It is as deceptive as believing the Sun rotates around the Earth.

It denies the fact that Sales revolves around the Buyer,
and that Sales are subject the Buyer’s LOCAL conditions.

SFA especially fails to account for Buyer Contingencies:
BUYER Environmental Data is ignored, often it is disallowed!

• Great difficulty is experienced by the Salesperson reporting
  a Reversal of the Sales Stage or Phase.
• Sales Velocity is presented as fixed speed, and
• Sales Acceleration (or Deceleration) is not treated as a variable,
  but used as a constant or ignored.

 

To use an analogy from Coal Mining, SFA fails to take account of ‘local disturbance’.

 

In Mining, ‘local disturbances’ can be “rising floor” or “falling roof”. 

Where for geological reasons the Mine floor alters or the roof collapses.
These are both phenomena outside of the miner’s control!
Huge varieties of unfavourable and changing environmental conditions happen at the coalface; most of which are impossible to predict. Even those which could be predictable conditions, most are impossible to alter. 

In mining terms these are described as
‘bad conditions’ and are
treated differently from ‘bad work’. 

‘Bad Work’ are errors of judgement or activity and are attributable to the Miner.

Both ‘Bad Conditions’ or ‘Bad Work’ will lead to much additional,
but unproductive, work to get back on stream. 

The interaction of BOTH ‘Bad Conditions’ AND ‘Bad Work’ can be catastrophic.

Recognition ‘at the coalface’ in Sales situations,
demands ‘Structured Customer FACING Time’ by Sales Managers!

This time is specifically planned to examine and determine “Local Disturbance”
i.e, ‘Bad Conditions’.  Additionally, time spent by the Sale Manager with the Salesperson, in the Customer environment, enables diagnoses of ‘Bad Work’
performed by the Sales person. 
It is worth giving a clear example of each:

• ‘Bad Conditions’,
  

  the Customer has decided to postpone the RFP, ITT, or Request for Quotations. 
  The Project is on hold.  The Delay causes Sales Forecasting problems.
  The  Sales Person is wrongly criticised for ‘lack of account control’.
  Normal SFA or CRM input “pending”
  
• ‘Bad Work’,
  the Salesperson has failed to respond appropriately (i.e. they were late)
  to the Buyer’s RFP, ITT, or Request for Quotations. 
  The Project proceeds without us. 
  The Salesperson avoids the consequence of ‘Bad Work’. 
  Normal SFA or CRM input “lost on price”.

The problem we set out to overcome by analysis and diagnosis was the following dissonance.

• The principle  inputs  are Qualitative.
• The Principle outputs are Quantitative.

In Sales we have come from an Executive Decision Making and Planning basis of experience, knowledge and skill.  This was replaced by charts, spread sheets, ratios, graphs and calendars ‘paper clipped’ by software into The ‘Monthly’ Report or even, The ‘Weekly’ Report. 

These reports are then analysed for fault, or explained away,
but always without validation, hence without judgement. 

Opinion becomes Fact!

The solution is, as you may expect, is both difficult and slow,
it requires Leadership, Inspiration and a Systematic Approach based upon
evidence and validation, not anecdotal vindication. 

At BMAC we have conducted extensive research using validated models for:
Sales Performance, Sales Velocity, Sales Acceleration to Validate Quantitative Input. 

BMAC then developed a proprietary model for Buying Behaviour and Sales Process,
which enables the effective functioning of both Sales Force Automation (SFA) and
Client Relationship Management (CRM).

Sales Management is out of date.

Well, in fact Management is out of date, not just Sales Management.

Automobiles are based on same the Internal Combustion engine for the last 70 years. Cars are redesigned, restyled; saloon, station wagon and SUV, but all are based on the same 70-year-old technology, simply adapted but not evolving. It is Genesis not Exodus. It is the same in Management, new bodywork but the same 'engine' for 70 years.

In 2010 Sales is constrained, not by their ability to adapt to new technology, nor the speed of uptake of FAD Sales Training, but Sales are constrained by Sales Management! For it is Sales Management, which Plans, Allocates accounts with Account Managers, Organises territories, sets Strategy, and accepts Product/Markets, Motivates and Rewards. If Sales is unsuccessful then look to Sales Management, do not swap out sales people, start at the top – swap the Sales Director, the Sales VP or the CSO.

A 21^st century sales force is identified by one unique trait. Not the smart phone, or SFA software, in fact it is neither technology nor the speed at which technology is implemented. It is about Decision Making. 21^st century Sales is about WHO makes decisions, WHERE decisions are made, WHEN decisions are taken, WHAT can be decided and HOW decisions are made. Why is this trait so important? 21^st Century Sales in 21^st Century Firms make decisions FASTER than their Competitors, the decision is right more often than their competitors are, and they implement their decisions faster than their Competitors do.

Having an I-Phone and an I-Pad, as well as Sat. Nav. in the car, but then having a Sales force Automation Package decide who you speak to is NOT 21^st century selling, its ROBOTIC. It is the Marketing Assistant's dream, no need for a Sales department!

Get up to speed in 2010; use the wisdom of the crowd.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds

Master of Business Administration why MBA’s count

Before doing my MBA, I thought MBA's were 'integrated' accountants, who were working in Line Departments, Sales, Marketing, R&D or Production.
They always were good with numbers and they always had a four-quadrant slide in their presentations!

When I decided to do my MBA, thanks to a lot of support from my boss and lots of encouragement from my University Tutor, I still thought it was about numbers. You cannot do an MBA without Finance and Numbers, but an MBA is not about Finance or Numbers. MBA means you understand what the numbers mean. All MBAs can interpret the numbers, but a good MBA can change them!

The real learning during an MBA is how to interpret information and what and how to think. The MBA four-quadrant models are 'standard operating procedures' that let you communicate quickly and easily with non-MBAs. All those 2x2 models, porters five forces, creative thinking tricks and financial ratios are there to help explain what is happening and how you can change the future. The future is where it gets scary, that is why you need to have imagination, and imagination is now firmly part of the MBA curriculum.

I heartily recommend doing an MBA to all Sales Executives,
you will find more opportunities, you will be more helpful to your Clients and you will sell more too.

Succeeding in the downturn

 

I had a round of Golf with my friend the sweet manufacturer last weekend.

He has grown his business 14% in the last year.

He has opened a new production line, bringing his new factory to 40% capacity. He has bought over two million Euros worth of new plant on very favourable terms, €500K in cash, and the remainder paid on a profit share over 5 years.

In the middle of a downturn, with competitors downsizing or going bust,
he is thriving. Why?

We could look at his qualities as a man, 63, who works an energetic 60 hour week, plays Tennis and Golf, Sails and Fishes, has a very full social and family life. He supports good causes, and does charitable work.
In all these aspects, he is NOT unusual.

He is a huge enthusiast for his Product.

He employs his brother a renowned research Chemist, now retired, to design new flavours and new scents for his confectionery. He has pioneered eco sweets using Bio alternatives to sugar. He literally travels the globe (with his golf clubs) looking for product and market ideas, but continues to be a foundation employer in his hometown population 30,000.

 

His enthusiasm is contagious; he successfully promotes his products by exhibiting at four key European Confectionary shows. He gets between 100-400 inquiries at each exhibition. Each one receives a prompt follow-up, he categorises these into

(A.) Current Product-Current Market,

(B.) Current Product-New Market

(C.) New Product-Current Market

(D.) New Product-New Market

He expects his sales people and sales agents to have success with every 'A' lead.

He personally nurtures the B leads, looking for a local agent to take his product to market, in Russia and the entire eastern bloc, in China and in South America. He chooses Sales Agents very carefully; he has 40 years experience, first in regions of Spain, then France and Italy, then the UK through the rest of Europe.

"What makes a good Sales Agent?" I asked him. "Results!" he responded.
"Sales Agents must be Cash positive, active and successful.
If they can't be all three then it doesn't work out".

He has had agents loyal to him for 30 or more years, some are the children, and soon the grandchildren of his original agents! Nevertheless, if you go cash negative, or become inactive and unsuccessful he will visit you, agree a recovery plan in a maximum of three months. If you do not recover, he fires you and recruits a new agent.

'C' leads he handles himself, what size is the opportunity, sometimes bringing the new product to market, or sourcing it from another manufacturer and branding it as his own. His concern here is always what value it brings, to the Customer, to the Business.

Finally 'D' leads, he leaves strictly to his Marketing Department.

"When I handled them, I kept getting into new businesses, usually without a business plan!
Now the marketing people have to come to me with a fully “costed” business plan.

So, usually we do not get into new businesses!"

 

 

 

 

 

What is the basis of his success?

Customer focus and Customer service, Market focus especially Market pricing,
Product focus for quality, scaled manufacturing and an intense focus on Selling.
"If I cannot or do not sell it, how can I expect my Sales People or Sales Agents to sell it?

Why is my friend enjoying success in hard times?

Sales Success and Cash Management, simple.

Why not contact BMAC and talk about your success?