Do Your Sales & Marketing Dollars Work for You?

Six Ways to Tell if You’re Getting Your Money’s Worth:

Despite many experts who insist that “Sales and Marketing are different,” why aren’t they just as accountable as Finance is for accurate results and Production is for working products? When good products and services are well marketed and sold smart, profitable growth happens. But when they are not, it’s a disaster. For example:

A distributor negligently promises to sell a manufacturer’s new product line to her current buyers without learning that different employees at the customer make these decisions
A manufacturer says that his research shows buyers consumers want new improved products. Their outside rep company agrees to get paid on commission and invests months of selling only to learn that the research was never done.
An ad agency develops a campaign to reposition a services firm based on bad historical sales data only to have it flop and fight to get paid.

Despite “everyone’s” best efforts, why do 95% of new products and services fail, and why do so few manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers and services firms feel that their sales and marketing arms got their job done?

When was success impossible and when is a sales and marketing leader deficient? How and when can a business leader know that their sales and marketing leadership simply didn’t do the job or even try? Here are six key responsibilities any P & L leader should demand are completed and done well.

Understand, agree on and communicate your firm’s Best and Highest Use and product/service features, benefits and advantages. Provide your firm’s Best and Highest Use to your partner in writing and demand they do the same for you
Define, quantify and target a niche of buyers assuming reasonable market penetration of a sizable, addressable market. Expect and confirm you can identify at least 100 prospects for each buyer you must close.
Devise a simple growth strategy reflecting a clear understanding of your buyer’s behavior. Ensure you agree on exactly who your buyers are and the simple process you know they will follow to buy from you.
Develop and execute thoughtful, practical and cost-effective sales and marketing tactics. Have measurable programs for finding, keeping and growing your customers.
Build and your through a practical budget and timeframe for implementation by accountable individuals. Budget and adhere to hard costs of finding, keeping and growing your customers.
Stay disciplined to capture and analyze feedback of your results. No program ever goes as planned, but failure to respond to market feedback equals failure.

Will taking these steps ensure that your sales and marketing programs work for you and your partner? No, but if these steps aren’t taken, its failure was a function of negligence in addition to incompetence. Need help telling the difference between negligence and a good effort that can be fixed? Contact me at 412-973-2080 or at abirol@andybirol.com for more of my help.