Friday 27 February 2015

Sales Outsourcing – The Bitter Business

In Ireland, sales outsourcing or Sales-As-A-Service should be considered as it can offer multiple benefits to a start-up or growing business. Companies can boost its sales functions, accelerate sales and build the business faster by contracting in an interim sales manager or director for outsourced selling, business development or lead generation.
sales-outsourcing
Outsourcing is nothing new as many Irish small businesses already outsource their PR, advertising, marketing or finance functions. In fact a number of recent studies have shown that mid-market companies that are using sales outsourcing can have a competitive advantage over companies that have all these sales functions in house. Lean, agile, high growth companies are now taking a different approach; they are finding sales partners with the experience to cost effectively and efficiently drive their sales strategy.
Building a sales team is not easy or cheap
Recruitment costs and time makes building a sales team no easy task. An outsourced sales partner fit in to take the same company approach to selling while also investing time in getting to know the business. An experienced sales outsourcing company can then provide the sales and marketing skills necessary to go out and win customers. The benefits to a business are instant access to an experienced sale professional who will short circuit the time to find the right markets, customers, messages, and media for exposure. An outsourced sales partner hits the ground running faster, cutting down on the ramp up time to target prospects and new customers.
The sales outsource partner should have the ability to refine or quickly implement the company’s sales strategy. When a company needs revenue, to test or define a target marketing, outsourcing some sales functions is a way to get sales resources fast without any long term commitment.
A major benefit to a budget constrained or small business is that sales outsourcing cuts out a lot of the risk. The investment of time and money into hiring a full time sales person can lead to a company holding on to a person even when they are not delivering on the sales, whereas the agreement with an outsourced sales partner can usually be terminated within 30 days’ notice.
To read the full article on-line, please visit us at Sales Outsourcing – The Bitter Business

Thursday 26 February 2015

Business Strategy Template

Download this business strategy template guide to assist in business planning for a start-up business or implementing a business strategy.  A business strategy is a template for business success.

The success of a business strategy depends on the resources (financial, people, time) available to the business.

5 Step Planning Process
  • Imagine – what products or services
  • Dissect – data and customer feedback
  • Expand – market research and tasks
  • Analyse – results, information, investment
  • Sell – customer acquisition, marketing, sales


Business Strategy Template – The Bitter Business

Tuesday 24 February 2015

Content Marketing Plan – The Bitter Business

As social media grows, the use of content marketing both as a social selling tool and as an audience engagement tool to acquire and retain customers has now taken centre stage within the marketing strategy. The great news is apart from time to preparing the content, content marketing is mostly free but there are some lessons to be heeded. Free publishing platforms like WordPress or Medium, and free content and link promotion on Scoop.it, LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook amongst others make content marketing a go to tactic for any business.
Also listed below is some helpful resource lists covering “content marketing guide” “content marketing tips” “content marketing promotion” and “content marketing publishing platforms”.
content-marketing

Content Marketing is not Blogging

To ensure content market delivers, a business has to start out with the end in mind, what keywords are you targeting, is your content for industry education or brand promotion.  Content articles need to be one thousand plus words and the content needs to be relevant and well written.
The use of content Marketing requires creating and sharing meaningful content (white papers, market research, industry insights, market articles) to attract and convert traffic into prospects, prospects into customers, and customers into repeat purchasers. The content a business needs to share should be closely related to what it sells; or more pointedly, words that will educate an audience, market segment or industry so they get to know, like, and be  influenced enough to do business with your company.
Content marketing is not a one off event, it is an ongoing marketing and sales process that is scheduled, resourced and integrated into the company’s marketing strategy. A company’s content marketing goals should be to own the media space coverage for the topics selected or target keywords chosen.
The full article can be found at Content Marketing Plan – The Bitter Business

Free Business Tools

Download free business plan templates and marketing plan templates to help a business formulate a business plan or marketing strategy.






Free Business Tools – The Bitter Business

Tuesday 17 February 2015

Sales Leadership – The Bitter Business

Sales leadership is about getting the balance right between “Activity based management” and “Results based management”. Strong sales leaders empower their sales managers and sales reps to succeed using results based management. This means that Sales VPs or senior management sets the results and vision; they then empower the sales management and sales teams to execute the agreed sales tactics.

Leaders lead and managers manage, this is why sales management is more focused on day-to-day sales execution and coaching the sales teams to sell more effectively. Sales leadership focuses on the data coupled with business mission to map out plans that gets buy-in and commitment from all the sales to the point where the sales team(s) WANTS to follow the sales leader and believe in the vision and strategic direction that the sales leader has communicated.
The effort and dedication to earn the title “sales leader” is high, and the business acumen along with business skills sales leaders must master require time and learning.
The path to sales leadership is no easy walk, and not every sales manager will join the ranks of company sales leader (usually a director or VP title. Why? Well research suggests that the average lifespan of VP sales is about 24 months. Why the short career? Today’s tough business market means the CEO has to deliver growth and change. If the sales leader does not manage the change, the CEO changes sales management.
See the full text of the article on The Bitter Business

Sales Leadership – The Bitter Business

Monday 16 February 2015

Business Mentor

To make a business mentoring partnership work, both parties relish in leaving the ego outside the door. They are there to chat, explore, discuss, educate and enjoy the time away to think. One big mistake many new or growing businesses make is to “cocoon” themselves where they forgot to reach out when things are not working.

To help find a business mentor, maybe the guide below might help.
  • What do you need mentoring on?  Decide what aspects of the business or skillset a business mentor can help with?  A retired CEO of a large company probably isn’t a good mentor for growth hacking a business on a small budget. So have an objective whether it is for sales, marketing, management, finance etc.
  • Listen and Learn. A business mentor will always seek to understand before being understood. So if a business mentors listens is the business willing to learn?. Business mentors are passionate about helping a businessperson or company who loves to learn and grow. It also means that a good business mentor understands that on-one in business takes every bit of advice blindly, so build the relationship by being honest and open if advice is not practicably.
  • Time – quality over quantity. Both sides need to invest quality time with focused sessions where the real business issues are aired and discussed in confidence. Ensure the time you need and the time the business mentor can give matches each other’s expectations.
  • Driving the discussion. The businessperson or owner drives the discussion and agenda, the business mentor is there to listen, respond and offer up feedback. Business mentoring is at its most effective when the entrepreneur sets the agenda and requests specific insights while also getting broader or deeper insights from the mentor.
  • Business mentor or business coach. The value of a business mentor is to tell it as it is not what a business might want to hear. A business coach or consultant is paid to focus on helping the business or person with specific actions or skills like selling, marketing, business development or presentation skills. Business mentoring is to advise on specific situations or business strategy issues. So sometimes a business needs a mentor, sometimes they need a business coach.
Do take the time to seek out a business mentor, someone who will genuinely care about the business and the person. A business mentor whose motivation is to see business success, business growth and the person flourish. A business mentor who brings passion, emotional involvement and real concern for the business are the keys to real business mentoring success.
Lastly, business mentoring is not a flippant decision for either the business person or mentor. The experience has to be a learning path for both sides. However, the fundamental reason for business mentoring is everyone needs a helping hand, no matter who the person or business. Business mentoring is about building relationships, they can’t clear all the obstacles a business or start-up faces, but a good mentor can certainly show a better route to get to where the person or business needs to get to.
Author Note:  If you would like to chat about business mentoring or have a business idea or plan, I am always interested in meeting. Feel free to contact me. Brian.


Business Mentoring – The Bitter Business

Thursday 12 February 2015

Sales Key Performance Indicators for Success

“KPI’s – Measurements of sales activities that are vital gears in the success of a sales engine”

What does the term Sales KPI’s mean?
When sales leadership discuss the term KPI it is not always understood by the sales team or sometimes even management itself. To be defined as a Key Performance Indicator within the team it must be:
  • KEY to the future success of the organisation. A KEY is a measure, one of the plates management want to spin. An example could be “how many direct contacts and connections a company has with buyers in a market segment”
  • The KEY is then related back to the sales team PERFORMANCE where it is measured, monitored, quantified and can be understood by all the members of the sales and marketing teams. Linking a KEY to PERFORMANCE could be benchmarking when a sales person connects (phone call, LinkedIn, meeting) and influences (with great content) to an executive level decision maker in a customer segment.
  • Then this KP (Key Performance) will be used as an INDICATOR; where this information will be analysed to model future sales results or sales plans. So in this example, sales management might want to track the amount of time the sales teams spend social selling, the size of their LinkedIn/CRM database, the number of calls and the amount of time they spend influencing executive level decision makers in their accounts, and then set some SMART sales expectations there that can be measured, maybe the prospect to lead ratio, or lead to proposal ratio.
So when sales leadership discuss Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s), the sales team know to focus on indicators as part of their sales role – the team and management will use KPI’s as signposts along the way to focus everyone to spend time on activities that need doing in order for everyone to be successful now and in the future. KPI’s is one of the best ways to keep a sales strategy on track. Planning and laying the foundations are future success leads to great sales outcomes.
Read the full article here

Key Performance Indicators for Sales Success – The Bitter Business

Monday 9 February 2015

Sales Strategy

The key Sales Strategy Questions.

Asking and answering a series of sales strategy questions will help a business identify and take advantage of the best opportunities to sell better and more often. Also Sales leaders who acknowledge the new selling reality need to know how to answer questions like:
  • Does the business have a market development lead strategy (selling more of same product to same/new customers) or a product development strategy (selling new products to same/new customers)?
  • Who is the business selling to? Does it know which market segments have the best growth rates?
  • What is the most effective means of reaching target customers and what is the cost in taking this route?
  • How does marketing and sales share the workload and collaborate?
  • How does the business equip the sellers (direct, indirect, partners) with the right content, expertise and skills to navigate the customers’ buying journey and then differentiate the business value proposition?
  • Does the business collect and analyse data to forecast which products customers are likely to buy or trends developing?
  • What is the most effective sales and distribution model?
“To compete in today’s customer educated world, companies got to have something different. The product must higher quality, easier to use, more convenient to buy, or a better fit than the competition.”
Full article can be read on-line at The Bitter Business  Sales Strategy Plan

Wednesday 4 February 2015

Social Media Marketing for Sales

Social media marketing within digital marketing and inbound marketing tactics has become an important gear in the sales and demand generation engine. The sales and marketing engine needs fuel (supply of traffic or prospects) which the engine turns into visitors and leads where sales converts to customers.
social-media-marketing
The use of social media and lead generation are the gears which powers the engine. The bigger the social media gear size the harder the marketing gear works. And the harder the marketing gear works, the faster and more productive the sales machine will work to generate revenue.
Social media (blog, content marketing, and articles) is the gear that gets the marketing and sales engine working. Social media pulls in the traffic and prospects and converts them to visitors or leads. When driving a car, we push the pedal to the metal in the highest gear to get to a destination faster. The same logic applies to inbound marketing and lead generation. A business needs to work the biggest gear, social media, to ensure a constant supply of visitors, leads and buyers to power the business growth.
Social media also impacts SEO and long tail keywords. So if social media is the gear, then content marketing and blogging platforms like WordPress, Medium, Svbtle, Postach, Ghost, LinkedIn Pulse, Storify, Tumblr, Blogger, Buzzfeed etc. and the traffic they can generate is the fuel that turns the social media gear.
To put the potential impact of social media into perspective, here is some insightful statistics’ on buyer decisions.
Read the full article on The Bitter Business website  Social Media Marketing – Powering Sales – The Bitter Business

Tuesday 3 February 2015

Sales leadership – The Bitter Business

Sales leadership articles and information. Managing a sales team today requires talent and a knowledge of the changing dynamics in buyer-supplier relations.

For articles from the main Bitter Business website, visit us at

sales leadership – The Bitter Business

for some insightful and hopefully educational sales related articles.

Monday 2 February 2015

Customer Service Tips

Customer service has as much a part to play in customer acquisition or business growth as sales.  Customer service and how it is delivered must evolve alongside the adoption of social media and technology by consumers and business. Customer service is no longer an “after the event” function, it now impacts sales, business growth even product development.  We live in a digital world of connected people and devices. Today the world is talking about new technologies such as the internet of everything, products connected to the home, technologies and apps to improve everyday life.


A company’s business prospects or potential customers are as new as these technologies. They are curious and now use different ways to research a brand or company before interacting with it; they are constantly gathering information from social networks and digital media to make informed decisions.
The sales and customer service channels are being rewritten, the buyer journey has been revolutionised like never before. Here are eight things a business should know to help acquire customers and grow a business.
You can read the full on-line article on customer service tips to get business growth here

Customer Service Tips for Business Growth – The Bitter Business