Once the leads are flowing, sales is often the next bottleneck for growth and profit. Sales problems are among the most lucrative problems you can be solving, because even small improvements pay us extremely well for the time invested.
How I help clients change their sales game
Sales problems have a bigger impact on your business than just a lower conversion rate. Most sales problems stem from a fundamental lack of confidence in what you offer. The impact I have on my clients goes beyond technique and leaves them excited about sales and falling back in love with their own products.
The kind of things we do
- Document your current informal, casual, or haphazard sales process.
- Improve your sales process (once documented this is much easier).
- Hands on help with sales materials (quotes, proposals, sales scripts).
- Work with you on no-brainer value propositions and positioning to make selling simpler.
- Give you tools to oversee and manage salespeople to hit their sales targets.
- Teach you selling techniques that make sales conversations easier.
Sales coaching wins
Recent examples of sales tasks completed with clients.
Business Development
- Business Development Plan: The purpose of sales activity is not just “more sales”. Sometimes we need a certain type of sales. I recently helped design a series of campaigns with a HR firm to sell more of a high-margin, recurring revenue product that will help achieve a specific profit and cashflow goal, rather than just “more business”.
- Onboarding: The instructions we give to an incoming salesperson are critical to setting them up for success. I am working with a manufacturing client on a brief that includes a clear statement of goals, a guide to high-profit customers, and an expectation of reporting to allow the CEO to assess the effectiveness in 1-2 months instead of 6.
Product and Brand Positioning
- Market positioning: Over several weeks we have now clearly positioned my client (a tech company) as the #1 in their industry, based on key benefits that competitors can’t offer. This positioning has now simplified sales presentations, their new website, and the naming of service offerings themselves, and the CEO’s confidence in their product has surged.
- Brand messaging: Translation of a highly technical service into layperson language that anyone can understand, has led immediately to a six figure contract from my client’s first conference. Simple language is key because there are always decision makers in the buying process who are not technical experts.
- Sales Coaching: A consultant I work with was spending a long time preparing for sales calls, because she did not have a repeatable approach to selling. We recently completed training on how to run a sales call. The process I teach gives a logical order to a sales conversation, and includes the framing needed to sell high-ticket packages.
- Product Menu: A client in the early stage of her business has been struggling with sales conversations because her offerings were still under development. We formalised a “product menu”, which helped her get out of the product development phase, finalised pricing, and gave her and her clients clarity on how she can help them.
- Sales Cheat Sheet: The owner of a bookkeeping company felt she wasn’t handling objections well, and had zero confidence in her team to handle them either. We produced a “cheat sheet” to close that gap. It included: 1) A summary of the company’s positioning; 2) The 3 most common objections (price-related) and a short response to each to reframe the conversation. The result was a dramatic boost in confidence, and the first steps to handing over the sales function to her staff, to allow her to be the CEO. The impact on sales conversions is expected to be above $100,000 based on the last 12 months of sales data.
- Competition Analysis: An ecommerce business owner had identified 5 major competitors to her product, but struggled to articulate the difference between her products and the competition. I ordered her to purchase her competitor’s products immediately! She was taken aback, but how are we going to tell people how our product is superior when we don’t know ourselves?
Proposals, Quotes, Tenders
- Proposal templates: We must never ask someone to give us money unless we’re giving them back something far more valuable, and we need to tell that story in your proposal. A recent review of proposals for a professional services firm has resulted in a rewrite of all proposal templates, and an expected $100,000+ boost to sales via higher conversion rate in 2024.
- Tender Strategy: A tender-winning strategy was executed for a young cleaning company, leveraging a written application, phone conversations, and in-person meetings. We even had the guys carry in their environmentally-friendly products into the meeting – it was quite a show.
“Dave was instrumental in our biggest contract win to date (over 5x the size of our next largest job). His bullet-proof tender strategy, advice, and writing contribution was the key reason we were successful.”
Important Emails (for fun and profit)
- Clutch Email: In a recent coaching session we composed and sent a five-line email to a non-responsive buyer that closed a $100,000 business sale by the end of the day.
Want Dave on your team?
Dave will not rest until you have fallen in love with your own product, and until everyone on your team can articulate why no other product or service competes with yours. If you’re interested in having Dave on your team, see below for details on how we can work together.
Monster Map
You are 5 weeks away from a dramatic shift in confidence
This is where all my clients start. A 5-week business review where you and I together identify the fastest surest path to your goal, and the snakes and ladders we need to see to get you there.
Advisory
You are 12 months away from your goal if it's non-negotiable
1-1 Business Advisory is essentially the “all-in” version of business coaching, with access to your coach 365 days a year. It’s for when you decide to make your income or lifestyle goal a non-negotiable.