- Year after year, numbers and expectations of the sales organization had increased tremendously. There was little sales input, just a number provided by the executive management team, “We need to generate this much revenue this year.”
- Year after year, they had missed the numbers. They had grown sales year over year, but even that growth was slowing down.
- Products were getting old, they were less competitive, but the sales people were doing all they could to compete and win. They had majority share in their target markets, but they were struggling. They worked hard in defending the positions they had established in major accounts. The conversion costs for these customers to some of the newer competitors were, for the time being, restricting customer defections.
- But their new customer acquisition had fallen precipitously. New competitors were offering higher performance solutions at slightly lower price points, so they were winning the majority of new deals.
- The sales team had been “getting by” basically by defending their current positions, growing their existing customers, and cross selling the rest of the product lines as much as possible.
- Identify your target customers/sweet spot.
- Develop and execute strategies that maximize your share of customers and market. Remember, I feel it is your “God-given right to 100% share of customer and 100% share of market.”
- Growing revenue is driven by finding new customers and markets in which to sell your current products and services, introducing new products and services to sell to your current customers, or a combination of the two.
- Rinse and Repeat.