articles by xbridgers
The Seven Most Overlooked Ways to Improve the Efficiency of Your Sales Force
by Brad Liebmann, Managing Director, Xbridge Ltd
Business Money, February 2004
Our organisation works with over 50 UK commercial sales forces. Very few employ the strategies below. The lenders that do employ them enjoy some of the UK's highest sales conversion ratios. They are the lenders your sales force most fears.
- Capture and use every lead. There are two types of potential customers: current opportunities and future opportunities. For some products (e.g., commercial mortgages) most direct enquiries are from future potential customers. Most lenders lack effective systems for cultivating valuable potential future customers, meaning the lead will have to be reacquired later at a cost (unless your competitor does it first).
- Use machines to screen. Effective salespeople are expensive. Use their time efficiently by deploying them on higher value, current opportunities. Where possible, employ software (or lower paid employees using an automated process) to screen each lead before it is handled by a highly paid sales professional.
- Always have an alternative solution. Few lenders effectively cross sell. Many small business finance customers seek financial products that are unattainable or inappropriate. Software-based algorithms for ascertaining the best solution are often superior (and almost always more cost effective) than humans.
- Measure your strengths. Every salesperson has strong ideas about what his organisation likes to underwrite. Many of these impressions are not based upon facts but misconceptions. The best sales organisations measure and analyse their competitive underwriting strengths frequently and communicate these throughout the organisation and to introducers.
- Measure your weaknesses. Most organisations track closed leads. Few efficiently track and analyse leads they do not close. Knowing your competitive weaknesses enables an organisation to better focus resources on its strengths. Much of your sales and marketing resources are now likely focused on courting potential customers you will never close. Measure, analyse, and then re-align your sales processes.
- Centralise monitoring and feedback. You can't manage what you don't know. Few lenders have systems capable of properly monitoring a lead accurately through to close. Those lacking such systems normally have significant inefficiencies in their sales processes. Worse: they are not aware of these structural inefficiencies.
- Use the online channel to prototype changes. The online channel enables exact measurement of the effectiveness of every change in process. The channel is also the hardest to get right. Once you have your sales process optimised for hard-to-please online customers, you will be pleased to find that the process improvements are normally transferable to other channels. Sales conversion rates in your more traditional channels will also rise.
These seven strategies are effective across all commercial finance products - from highly commoditised, rate-sensitive products to those that are highly complex. Other overlooked strategies are equally important for specific products. They are used by some of your most effective competitors.
How many do you employ?
Brad Liebmann is Founder and Managing Director of Xbridge Ltd, the UK's leading online commercial lending strategy and software specialist.