Growing revenue

By Steven Vantongelen, Managing Partner, Sales Performance International – Southern Europe

Never before have sales and marketing organisations struggled so mightily to maintain revenue growth than they do today. More than €4 billion is being spent annually on sales force development, even though sales results are still not satisfactory. By Steven Vantongelen, Managing Partner, Sales Performance International – Southern Europe

According to industry experts, less than 60 percent of sales executives make quota annually, while 90 percent of those in sales cannot position or effectively sell the value of their offerings. A whopping 73 percent of most company’s marketing materials go unused, less than 40 percent of all sales leads result in a meeting and nearly 90 percent of people employed in the sales field cannot make an effective sales call.

The failure of sales organisations to achieve consistent sales growth is even more striking given the fact that a study showed that the top priority of 83 percent of CEOs is growing revenues rather than cutting costs. These CEOs also want to be more flexible in keeping up with changing customer needs.

The answer to addressing abysmal sales statistics rests with fundamental organisational changes that can shift a corporate culture away from being product or service-focused to one that is “solution-centric”. This philosophy is outlined in our most recent book, “The Solution-Centric Organisation,” published in 2006.

In our book, we review many of commonly deployed fixes to revenue shortfalls, discussing why each can only contribute to short-term improvements, if any improvements at all.

Firing the CEO, cleaning house with the sales force or switching to “pseudo-solution selling” with pre-packaged services is not the answer. Making a successful transformation to a solution-centric organisation is, as it addresses the systemic aspects of connecting your company with the real problems and the real needs of your customers. It will ultimately have a profound and lasting impact on revenue and growth.

From our first class of Solution Selling trainees, nearly two decades ago, to over 600,000 Solution Selling graduates, it has been an honour to assist you. We hope that in the coming year you will consider us an extension of your own team for sales process, methodology, and skills improvement.

Solution Selling is a registered trademark of Sales Performance International 2007.

Find out more: www.spisales.com / www.solutionselling.com