Office Technology – From a Need to a Necessary Evil!
It’s nothing new by saying that the Office Technology industry is in flux. Our mature industry started in its infancy from a “want” to a “need” and has now moved to “necessity.” Almost a “necessary evil,” to some. Because of this, the shinnyness of the sale is harder to see. Today’s sales rep typically is hunting for lease expirations, which inevitably leads to the dreaded price-driven conversation, followed by arm-wrestling the terms and conditions of the contract. You then add in several competitors and you have a recipe for profit-destruction.
It has been reported that 50% of US dealers have grown from 2017 to 2018. Here is a shortlist that contributes to their growth.
8 reasons why these dealers are growing today:
1. Talent
Your team is always as weak as the weakest link. Hiring talent is a must. Sourcing quality candidates and having a great hiring process to weed out the undesirables will net you a strong team.
2. Company’s Culture
When adding more people to your company, it is inevitable that culture shifts. At one time, when 10 – 15 employees felt like an authentic family culture, then you grow your company to 25 – 50 or more employees, that culture changes. It is essential to create a plan to foster and develop the initial spirit as your numbers grow. Keep in mind that your company’s culture is what brought your people and clients to your company, and it is so important not to lose that.
3. Knowledge Management
When growing, it is naturally challenging to capture all the working knowledge in the minds of yesteryear employees. This is a common struggle to train or educate new-hires, creating gaps in their learning affecting their career. Over the years, some employees inherit an amount of responsibility or power, simply because of what they know and not necessarily what they do. To grow, be disciplined about documenting processes, procedures, and best practices. Then share them with the company. (idea – have department heads responsible for updating their portion of the documents semi-annual)
4. Employee Development
Typically, we focus on the here and now or there isn’t enough time for it. We all know the benefit of employee development. Yet at times, we let “lame” excuses get in the way of growing employees. Having a long-term plan to develop and maintain employee-skills are essential to the individual and company overall performance.
Learn More About Building A Sales Bench with BDRs
5. Customer Happiness
As your company grows and you bring on new business, it is vital to remain focused on existing customer happiness. Top dealers are using and tracking their customer’s net promoter score and customer retention. This score gives you a great indicator of whether your business is scaling appropriately and growing.
6. Cash Flow
It is easy to overlook how much money is coming in and balancing it with money you spend to grow. “Cash or available credit is like oxygen: you don’t notice it 99.9 percent of the time, but when absent, it’s the only thing you notice.” – Warren Buffet
7. Build a Sales Funnel
Yes, this seems obvious to our dealer owners that embrace sales. However, the growing dealers are taking the sales-funnel to the next level. They’ve identified the client’s buying-process and mirrored it to their selling process. Incorporating each stage of what the buyer’s process is and coaching sales-reps to this process.
8. Incorporating Persona to sell
To better position what you are selling to meet your customers’ and prospects’ challenges, you need to understand who they are. Building personas help make it easier for you to tailor your message or content to specific needs or concerns of different groups.
A team of Leaders for change
It isn’t easy to change. It takes a team of leaders to plan it out and communicate these changes effectively.
If you are looking at this list of items, wondering where to start, lean on your internal resources to begin the process. You may be surprised how excited those resources will be to get involved in such an important task
There are no hard and fast rules to these 8 items, you don’t have to be afraid to play around with some these methods, in the beginning. See what works best for you and your company.
Over time, you will learn what works and what doesn’t.
~John Partenio