How to outsource your salespeople, that is the Phone number library question of the day. Optimists, pessimists, the information on economic developments is contradictory today; bankruptcies of supposedly unshakeable companies, mergers and their inexorable layoff plans, industrial relocations, various gurus who foresee an improvement in the economic situation, sometimes strong, sometimes weak, for the beginning or end of 2004, the beginnings of a recovery in the United States, Japan or Germany as the press testifies ("The signs of recovery are multiplying" L'Usine Nouvelle of October 29, 2003) Faced with these uncertainties, an obligation for all manufacturers: SELL WELL!
"SELLING WELL" means finding deals at the right price and making as many as possible at the right price in a market which, beyond the economic situation, is characterised by an increase in supply and a decrease in demand with its irrefutable consequence: a downward trend in prices.
To respond to this new situation, commercial organizations and sales techniques are, for the most part, inherited from the 70s! It is time to evolve, we still have to DARE! This has been done for manufacturing and administrative processes; the latest productivity gains are certainly to be found in the sales function.
Look and analyze without preconceptions:
the form of the quotes: do they really make people want to buy from you? However, they are the image of your know-how,
the substance of the quotes: does each piece of information provided help the customer or prospect to make a decision in your favor: the number of “quotes” without currency (euros, pounds or dollars?) and containing incomprehensible references is greater than one might think!
monitoring these offers: the rate of follow-ups is often low or even non-existent!
What's the point of looking for new business?
Let's already capture those we know about.
"You understand, Sir, we manufacture technical products that don't sell like socks, soaps or peanuts... For us, it's very SPECIFIC!"*
Even if the answers to the question "What makes your products special so that they cannot be sold like other products?" are multiple and vague, this should not be a pretext for inaction or for not questioning certain practices.