CUSTOMER PRIORITIZATION

CUSTOMER
PRIORITIZATION

Are you fishing in a swimming pool?

Growing your top-line by prioritizing the right customers

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

CUSTOMER
PRIORITIZATION

Are you fishing in a swimming pool?

Growing your top-line by prioritizing the right customers

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

Many companies generally fail to see the forest for the trees, but the growth potential is often right in front of them. We get stuck in old habits and we just do things as we always have, e.g. most people have had the same morning routines for ages; the same goes for companies and their customers. If we do what we always have, we will get the same result.

Salespeople tend to focus on the customers they already know and therefore companies often do not focus on customers that are most attractive. With clear customer prioritization, companies will get a better understanding that can answer the following simple questions:

• Where do we get the most value for money in our customer and prospect database?

• How can we make optimal use of our sales force in order to spend sufficient time with customers and prospects with the largest potential?

A senior sales representative at a global manufacturing company once told me, that he had more than eight hundred dealers he had to visit and that they were all equally important. During our conversation, he told me it was extremely hard to reach his target. He was talking about a reduced territory and fewer customers. Furthermore, he had not visited a single prospect for a decade. I was surprised by his story and asked him how he prioritized his customers. I do not disagree that customers are equally important, but there is not time to serve all equally. So, is there a workaround?

Of course, but let us understand why first.

HOW ARE THINGS EVOLVING AND WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Every organization must do it, no matter if it is a large global corporation or a local grocery shop on the corner. It is no secret that some customers are more profitable than others. Being aware of these differences will allow companies to have different approaches to different segments. Customers have different needs and that is why customer segmentation is a necessity and it can help companies:

• Stay more focused on the customers’ needs

• Improve competitiveness, i.e. knowing where to be and not to be

• Improve their capability to expand the business organically by increasing share-of-wallet (SOW)

• Increase customer retention due to better customer service

• Optimize price by maximizing selling value rather than price.

CUSTOMER PRIORITIZATION IN A NUTSHELL

A company should decide which customers and prospects it wants to spend most efforts with. In a perfect world, a company should be able to give the same service to all their customers but that is not possible. There is just not enough time to support all customers equally, due to time, money and resources. The focus must be on the most attractive existing and potential customers.

Customer prioritization is about assessing which customers and prospects to work with for the upcoming period. That can change rapidly, so it is better to review the customer prioritization frequently. A rule of thumb is every quarter, but it depends on the industry and the products. Always keep some free time to run after great opportunities. On one hand, you want to stick to your plan and on the other, you want to be flexible.

STEP BY STEP

RANKING AND CLASSIFYING CUSTOMERS

CUSTOMER PRIORITIZATION FRAMEWORK

The framework contains two axis; existing sales and sales potential. Existing sales measures the attractiveness of all customers based on historical sales with your company. This means existing customers with large historical sales are prioritized. Sales potential measures the attractiveness of all customers in the market based on their sales potential to your company. This means customers with the largest sales potential are being prioritized.

GO FOR GROWTH

A global market leader in the industrial manufacturing industry was facing years of recession and cost-cutting programs. A new sales-focused CEO was appointed to increase the top-line. The board gave top management a clear objective: Go for growth. A commercial excellence team was established, a new CRM system was selected and lots of investments in the front-end was made. A commercial diagnosis was made, and their main objective was to focus on customer opportunities, i.e. how the company would benefit from focusing sales efforts around high potential customers and prospects.

A commercial excellence program was established, and the project included 40+ markets and should be rolled out in close collaboration with the local markets. The company decided to start with prioritizing its customers as it required relatively little effort and the upside was large. The main elements in the first wave included:

• Shifting from a territory-focus approach to a customer-focus approach

• Shifting from ad-hoc planning to active planning (rolling three weeks)

• Shifting from few or no prospects to 20 percent prospects of the portfolio

• Shifting from no visit targets to realistic visit target

• Shifting from dual customer ownership to single customer ownership

• Shifting from the ‘all customers are equally important’ approach to prioritizing customers and prospects based on their highest sales potential.

The approach was a combination of top-down and bottom-up. Data analysis combined with local knowledge was the recipe for success. The local salespeople were highly engaged in choosing the customers and prospects they wanted to work with going forward, as well as validating new potential prospects and setting realistic visit targets. The methods used were local kickoffs, ridealongs, and finally one to one meetings. The focus was always on the salespeople and how they could work smarter, not necessarily harder.

The company had an overall single-digit growth the year after the program, some markets had double-digit growth. Other effects of the program were increased time spent with prospects from zero to 20 percent, increased sales to both existing customer and prospects with a double-digit factor, and increased share-of-wallet with existing customers.

PITFALLS TO AVOID

• Avoid having a moving target, i.e. changing your customer lists too often or even not following them. Your customer list is supposed to be your compass, at least for a while.

• Utilizing only the top-down approach will not and will never fly. Always involve the salespeople. Many of them have extended knowledge about their market and industry.

THE LAST WORDS

• Involvement. Always involve the salespeople and their superiors in this exercise. They must own it and live with it. With no ownership in the process, it will most likely fail.

• Set visit targets. Otherwise, it is hard to measure success.

• Update your customer lists regularly. Avoid having customers lists carved in stone. Salespeople are flexible by nature and should be able to adjust their list.

• Spend time with prospects today because they could become your best customer in the future and you never know when your competitors make mistakes.

• Always keep the 80-20 principle in mind. 20 percent of your customers normally account for 80 percent of your sales; hence you should spend more time with the 20 percent.

PITFALLS TO AVOID

You will not catch any fish in a swimming pool. If you do not prioritize your customers properly, the likelihood of losing market share is impending. Customers and prospects should be selected based on historical sales and untapped sales potential. Try not to overcomplicate this as it is not rocket science, really. If you do not have a fancy CRM system, you can always use a good old spreadsheet. Just remember to measure, otherwise you risk getting back to square one again.

If you want to learn more and see some examples of how to do a proper customer prioritization in practice, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

If you want to learn more and see some examples of how to do a proper customer prioritization in practice, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

About us

We are a team of independent professionals from diverse backgrounds who want to make consulting simple. We have extensive experience from strategy- and technology consulting firms, start-ups, and corporations, where we have solved problems in 50+ countries – from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. We are the architects of your growth.

CUSTOMER SEGMENTATION

CUSTOMER SEGMENTATION

Segment customers to reach the most relevant ones for your services

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

CUSTOMER SEGMENTATION

Segment customers to reach the most
relevant ones for your services

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

Customer segmentation is necessary when communicating with your target audience. By segmenting consumers, it will be easier to reach the most ideal visitors who are more likely to become leads. By reaching a specific group of people, marketers can design messages specifically for that group. This communication will help build relationships and build messages that resonate.

Customer Segmentation requires managers to:

• Divide the market into meaningful and measurable segments according to customers’ needs, their past behaviors or their demographic profiles.

• Determine the profit potential of each segment by analyzing the revenue and cost impacts of serving each segment.

• Target segments according to their profit potential and the company’s ability to serve them in a proprietary way.

• Invest resources to tailor product, service, marketing and distribution programs to match the needs of each target segment.

• Measure the performance of each segment and adjust the segmentation approach over time as market conditions change decision making throughout the organization.

CUSTOMER SEGMENTATION

There are several ways to segment customers to reach the most relevant ones for your services. Some of the branches of segmentation include geographical, demographic, behavioral and psychographic segmentation.

GEOGRAPHIC

GEOGRAPHIC
With geographical segmentation, you can segment a campaign’s target audience by where they are located, whether it is a single street or an entire country. This is particularly helpful for small businesses like a new café that only wants to reach customers in the city they are located in.

DEMOGRAPHIC B2C

DEMOGRAPHIC B2C
Another helpful segmentation is the demographic one where you can segment your consumers based on their characteristics like age, gender, income, education, and occupation. Demographic segmentation is even more efficient when targeting multiple segments at once. Combining various customer segmentation criteria has the potential to reach a very targeted niche market and drive sales while maximizing the value of every marketing dollar spent.

DEMOGRAPHIC B2B

DEMOGRAPHIC B2B
Demographic segmentation can also be used B2B markets. Here, the segments consist of industry, time working at the company and company size. When marketing towards companies it’s common to segment by industry and then further segment by role at the company.

PSYCHOGRAPHIC

PSYCHOGRAPHIC
Psychographic segmentation is a lot less obvious since the segments consist of personality, lifestyle, social class, and values. To implement this segmentation, you really must get to know your customers and what makes them tick. Defining one or several personas is key when planning your marketing towards a specific group.

BEHAVIORAL

BEHAVIORAL
The behavioral segment is dividing consumers into groups such as their liking, knowledge, loyalties and purchase pattern. This means that you can send one message to your loyal customers and a different message to prospects.

COMPANIES USE CUSTOMER
SEGMENTATION TO:

  • Prioritize new product development efforts
  • Develop customized marketing programs
  • Choose specific product features
  • Establish appropriate service options
  • Design an optimal distribution strategy
  • Determine appropriate product pricing

By using several segmentations together, you will create the maximum impact. Customer segmentation is beneficial for all types of businesses, start-ups, and global industries since it will help you reach the customers you want to have a relationship with. Segmentation is the most successful when the message is tailored towards the right audience.

HANEI’S APPROACH

Hanei’s approach begins with having a good understanding of what result our client’s wish to achieve. When we know what we are trying to accomplish our objective will be clear. When the path is obvious, we can identify the customers and segments that are the most relevant for your company and make more of a profit than your competitors. By tying targeted segments and customer insights to economic understanding we drive revenue growth for our clients. Identifying segmentation objectives and focusing on economics, makes us able to work with companies to design and implement segmentation strategies that are custom-made for their needs.

If you want to learn more about customer segmentation don’t hesitate to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

If you want to learn more about customer segmentation don’t hesitate to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

About us

We are a team of independent professionals from diverse backgrounds who want to make consulting simple. We have extensive experience from strategy- and technology consulting firms, start-ups, and corporations, where we have solved problems in 50+ countries – from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. We are the architects of your growth.

MIND THE GAP

MIND THE GAP

Managing culturally diverse teams

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

MIND THE GAP

Managing culturally diverse teams

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

When we understand our own cultural preferences and the preferences of our team members it will become easier and more efficient to work in culturally diverse teams. As project managers, we need to identify our differences and know how to mind the gap culturally.

For multinational companies, it has become the standard to work in, and manage, teams that consist of members spread over different time zones and nationalities. This means that a project can run 24/7 and the top talents from the company’s different regions can be gathered in the same team, but it also means that potential challenges also increase for the project manager.

Some of the main challenges of cross-cultural project management:

• Managing meetings and project deadlines across multiple time zones
• Accounting for cultural biases and different communication and work preferences
• Getting clear agreement across boundaries
• Building a team culture with a temporary, globally dispersed project team

By understanding the cultural preferences of ourselves and our team members, identifying gaps and how to bridge those gaps, it will become easier and more efficient to work in these teams.

OUR DIFFERENCES

Besides our personality and personal preferences, we are also part of groups that shape or opinions, values, and beliefs which are a part of our culture. For instance, Danes and Indians differ in cultural dimensions. These dimensions lead to a great starting point in understanding differences in work and communication styles across the globe.

Hierarchical vs. egalitarian
In some cultures, the status of a person is emphasized. In countries like India, France and Brazil hierarchy is important and knowing where your place in it is in relation to the person you are interacting with. For a project manager, this could mean that you would need support from a higher-ranking manager, than yourself, and be more leading in your decision making. On the other hand, in egalitarian cultures like Denmark, they find it harder with people that rely on their status too much since people are more equal in the workspace. An egalitarian project manager can be perceived as a weak and lacking authority in other cultures.

Direct vs. indirect communication
In countries like Denmark and Germany, it is the norm to be direct and give constructive criticism in the moment. In indirect cultures, this could come off as rude, impolite and disrespectful to the receiver’s reputation. Consider what medium to use when giving input to team members that are less direct in their communication.

Monochronic vs. polychronic
In polychronic cultures like India and Indonesia time is relative and fluid, which means they work on many different things at the same time. This also means that they have a looser interpretation for meeting timelines and deadlines.  Monochronic cultures like the U.S.A. and Denmark regard time as a linear and definitive. This shows in their preference for punctuality, back-to-back meetings and no time wasted.

Task vs. relationship
Task-oriented cultures like Denmark and Germany prefer to get straight to work, leaving little time to get to know the team members. The idea is that you will all get to know each other through the work process. In relationship-oriented countries, like China and France, they tend to leave space before work begins to get to know each other’s backgrounds.

How we perceive trust to be gained also differs from culture. In Northern Europe, they tend to give trust, until proven otherwise. But in most cultures around the world, they believe that trust is gained.

cultural diff

INTEGRATE CULTURAL AWARENESS INTO YOUR PROJECT MANAGEMENT

• Project team and organization
Map and consider the cultures of your team. Seek feedback from your key internal project stakeholders to ensure all needs are being met.

• Motivating the team towards a common goal
A well-formulated project purpose will serve as a uniting force. A common goal will help you to overcome individual differences.

• Communication management
Examine stakeholders, like costumers and end-users, to decide if you need to approach them with different strategies in your communication.

• Managing your project plan
If you have a team with monochronic and polychronic cultures, spend extra time on clarifying what you expect from each person.

• Risk management
Examine if there is someone in the team that approaches risk differently. Use frameworks and descriptions to set expectations regarding risks.

Managing culturally diverse teams can be challenging, identifying and understanding these gaps can make it easier to lead your team.

If you want to learn more about cultural gaps and how to manage them, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

If you want to learn more about cultural gaps and how to manage them, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

About us

We are a team of independent professionals from diverse backgrounds who want to make consulting simple. We have extensive experience from strategy- and technology consulting firms, start-ups, and corporations, where we have solved problems in 50+ countries – from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. We are the architects of your growth.

CHANGE MANAGEMENT

CHANGE
MANAGEMENT

Changing the strategy and conversation about change

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

CHANGE
MANAGEMENT

Changing the strategy and conversation about change

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

How do we work with and plan for change when everything is constantly changing around us?

The key components of organizational change are effect and impact. If the organization doesn´t reflect on the new ways of organizing they will continue to struggle to obtain the desired effect and impact of change.

It´s common knowledge that over 70% of all change projects fail to achieve the impact desired from what was described in the business plan. This is partly due to management’s inability to provide clarity and engagement throughout the process. Project managers solve the challenges with designing another workflow which includes change management and change communication. These initiatives are targeted toward the people of the project to help the organization adapt to changes faster and better.

CHANGE IS CHANGING

Some of the essential activities needed in organizations to create a change are divided into four categories: Change strategy, leading change, engaging stakeholders, and sustainability.

CHANGE STRATEGY
Often the people at the top of the organization set the scene for the change from the beginning of the change process by defining the impact of the change and assessing how the change will affect the company. Afterward they involve the management who oversees implementing the change on the employees who are then expected to change the way they work. The top-level management needs to make room and involve next level management and employees in the communication in how the change should work from the beginning, thus making the chance for a successful change increase.

By involving the right employees and leaders early in the process, the organization gets a more precise view of how the change will impact them. Everyone involved in the change process needs to be aware that change is changing. The identified key parameters might change and turn out to be something else. The impact is therefore not a one-time identification. The impact case is not only about identifying the business impact, but also the behavioral changes that need to happen.

LEADING CHANGE
A focus area in change is changing the conversation about change because what the leaders are talking about, determines the culture and priorities of all employees. Leaders must also consider that the truth about change management is that employees listen to what resonates with them and what they are personally worried about throughout the change.

Leaders are critical in building support for new initiatives. This is especially the case for first-line management as they are close to the employees and set the tone in daily operations. The entire leadership structure and their shared understanding of the importance of the change to happen are crucial to how likely it is for the change to be a success and bring along the desired effect and impact.

Identify the pros and cons of today´s situation and the future situation. Identify the right platform and the desired vision. Ask yourself and your employees these four questions:

1. What are we doing today that works?
2. What will be challenging on our journey towards our desired future?
3. What is sufficiently good todya about the way we work?
4. What will be better in our desired future?

With these four questions the management should start a dialogue with their employees to get a greater understanding of different perspectives on the change. Leaders will be able to adapt and lead the change in a more agile way with faster feedback.

ENGAGING STAKEHOLDERS
To achieve a successful change process is engaging the right people at the right time.

Addressing the people that will be affected by the change like the employees or end-users of a new system, and the people in power to affect the change.

Involving and engaging stakeholders can be the most time-consuming part of a project. From a structural approach, we would use a three-step approach of first identifying stakeholders, prioritizing them, and finally deciding on actions to engage them and building it into our project plan. This helps us understand who the stakeholders in the change process are and what is at stake for them.

In an agile approach, we would engage the stakeholders through the lens of their relations and interconnectivity, i.e. tap into their network to utilize the information circulation that exists in that organization.

SUSTAINABILITY
From a structural approach we must identify new skills and competence the employees, leaders, and stakeholders must learn to navigate in connection with the new changes. Identify learning objectives with senior leaders and key stakeholders and link them to the impact case. Design, build, and execute training.

From an agile approach we build training programs through simulations. This way teaches people how the change impacts their manual tasks and ways of working. However, this understanding will not be achieved in one day’s training. The understanding will be achieved when you design the training around your employees’ feedback, co-create, and letting them simulate and test the new solutions and ensure continuous knowledge of how to work in their changing environment. This collective understanding of the new ways leads to a strive to continuously make the work process even better.

CHANGE
COMMUNICATION

Getting the organization onboard when implementing a new strategy, system, or process continues to be difficult for management due to poor communication.

Most change intends to improve or optimize the organization’s everyday operations. The challenge is that more than 70% of change initiatives fail to meet their original intent.

Part of the challenge is that executives often consider themselves to do better in their communication strategy than they are. A well-designed communication strategy that prepares and engages the organization in the change from the start is more likely to succeed. For change to be successful, it requires vocal and engaged personal who take ownership for the success of the change. Management needs to provide a clear picture of the perspective and purpose of change. Otherwise, the employees will do a lot of guesswork and speculation. Facts, figures, and plans are important in change communication as it lays the foundation for understanding the change rationally.

Do you have the organization onboard?

7 STEPS TO CHANGE COMMUNICATION

  1. Understand the organization and the people who must change
    • Understand how the organization feels about the change
    • Identify obstacles or resistance to the change
    • Identify communication needs in relation to the change
  2. Create a common language about the change
    • Set a clear direction by establishing a common language about future change
    • Frame the project in a rational and emotionally appealing story
    • Articulate the how, what and why behind the strategic aspirations
  3. Identify segments and develop key messages
    • Develop the segments based on the most relevant parameters
    • Develop the right messages for the right segments
  4. Plan how to communicate with impact
    • Define principles for the communication
    • Plan how to introduce the communication to the organization
    • Identify what channels to utilize
  5. Launch communication
    • Introduce the core story and put it in the center of all communication activities
    • Introduce communication through the organization
    • Apply a multi-channel approach
  6. Evaluate Impact
    • Track how the organization is accepting the change
    • Define barriers and opportunities
  7. Reinforce
    • Adjust the communications plan as the project mature with new inputs
    • Launch new initiatives targeted for specific segments

DO WE NEED TO USE THE SAME FORMAT?

A global manufacturing company implemented a new CRM system in its Asian sales companies and faced an unexpected challenge regarding how system training. One sales company wanted to do like all previous sales companies, which was classroom training using Power-Point, another sales company wanted to use a good old binder with printed detailed training material, and a third sales company wanted to use video tutorials. A relevant question to ask is why. The answer is quite simple. We are different and have different preferences and perspectives. Most companies fail here as they will go ahead with the “one-size-fits-all”- approach. It is important to understand the purpose here.


The main purpose is to onboard the sales companies and get them to use the new CRM system. Which way of training is most suitable for sales- and customer service people? It doesn’t matter as long as they adapt to new ways of working. All roads lead to Rome so focus on the result rather than the process. Flexibility and the 80/20 principle are most often the best ways forward.

SO WHAT?

We know that 70% of all change initiatives fail due to the executive’s inability to provide and communicate a clear picture of the change project. By changing your strategy on how to go about the change and involving managers and employees to get insight your chances for success will increase.

Communication is key. You need to understand the organization and the people who must change. Create a common language and ground so that everyone is onboard on what change needs to occur. Leaders must be a driving force of how the change is communicated and have an ongoing conversation involving everyone´s thoughts.

By doing this you will get everyone in the organization on board and experience a successful change project.

If you want to learn more about Change Management, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

If you want to learn more about Change Management, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

About us

We are a team of independent professionals from diverse backgrounds who want to make consulting simple. We have extensive experience from strategy- and technology consulting firms, start-ups, and corporations, where we have solved problems in 50+ countries – from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. We are the architects of your growth.

SALES MANAGEMENT

SALES
MANAGEMENT

Is your sales manager a firefighter?

What is a sales manager’s role, really?

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

SALES
MANAGEMENT

Is your sales manager a firefighter?

What is a sales manager’s role, really?

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

”Okay, let’s do it like this. Next week you should do the following…”, interrupts the Sales Manager to his sales rep. Many Sales Managers are impatient and think they have all the answers. What will happen is that you will have a sales team being reactive and will wait for your commands. Companies spend thousands of dollars on new CRM systems, sales training programs, commercial excellence programs, and motivational speakers with one single purpose: growing the top-line. Investing in the frontline is great but do you have to overspend to achieve great results?

The sales manager is always on demand by the sales reps who want them to solve their problems, sales reps’ customers who want to shake hands with someone more senior, the organization who wants updates about the department’s forecast, access to reps and data. Sales managers look like firefighters, always putting out fires all day long instead of being with their team.

Always being on-demand and doing administrational work means that they have no time to do their real job which is to spend time with their sales team coaching and helping them win more deals. The sales manager needs to plan their time and resist the urge to answer every phone call and e-mail. If a person knows they have a set time with you, they tend to email and call less frequently. Silence the fire truck, plan for thinking, managing, and coaching.

The sales managers shouldn’t be fulltime firefighters, they should be full-time managers and coaches.

CHANGING
LEADERSHIP
BEHAVIOR

The key to success is to avoid over-complicating sales tools and processes, and to identify and focus on just a couple of behavioral changes that could help speed up your sales. Do you have the ambition to improve your top-line? Then, you are not alone. Many spend a lot of time and resources contemplating and trying to find reasonable ways to achieve this goal. This results in countless initiatives with no real results. While these initiatives may provide some benefits to the commercial frontline, they are often short-lived. Another month or two later, new initiatives are introduced – and the cycle starts all over.

No matter the industry, sales method, or CRM system, there is one thing that works every time:

Changing the behavior of the sales leadership team. If you want to change behavior within the organization, you need to change the conversation that you are having.

5 STEPS TO CHANGING SALES LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOR:

  1. Ask yourself what you want to change. This is often one of the four elements:
    • Increase the number of opportunities
    • Improve your win rate
    • Increase the average order size
    • Decrease your sales cycle time
  2. Work with your sales leadership team
    to change the communication between sales leaders and sales reps to help define the guiding/coaching elements that a sales leader should provide.
  3. Formalize the dialogues and ensure that they take place in an organized way.
  4. Support your sales leaders in being comfortable with the new dialogue, giving them room to improve and share their experience.
  5. Stick to the new way of working.

In addition to generating strong business results, focusing on your sales leaders and following the five steps is advantageous in other ways:

  • It allows sales leaders to become true leaders of sales. To guide and coach their team to success.
  • Sales become less of a one-man show and more of a team effort which increase employee engagement.
  • The process itself ensure ownership in the sales force as it is based on cocreation and utilizing practices that already exist within the organization.

Focusing on your sales leaders is not the only way to improve top-line performance, but it is an effective way to generate rapid top-line impact.

A SALES MANAGER’S CHALLENGE

A sales manager at a publicly traded media company was presented with the difficult challenge to manage a new team with people that were underperforming, coming in late to the office, and not respecting the organization’s “ways of working”. The team had the highest sick leave compared to other sales teams.

The sales manager’s challenge was to resolve the issues in the team and create a team culture that was sustainable. While at the same time have the pressure from the organization to increase sales. The sales manager had to get to know each person in the team and learn what motivates them individually, what were their goals? Why did they underperform?

The first task was to get to know each member of the team to establish what each person needed in order to perform each day and guide them so that they could reach their individual- and team goals. Adapt to each of her team members and ask a lot of questions so that they could voice their opinion, which then was used to coach the members. As a sales manager, she needed to find out why a sales representative was underperforming and had an open dialogue about what the issue was, make an agreement with the person and follow up to check if the agreement was being fulfilled.

The sales manager was also tasked with being a role model for the team, showing them that she was a good sales representative herself by picking up the phone and showing them how it should be done. Displaying that she knew what she was talking about. When the sales manager got to know her team, they were also getting to know her, building their trust for her as a leader. At the same time, she had to manage the team, making sure that they reach their daily targets.

Building up a team takes time, and the end goal was to have a team with honest people who respect each other. Because every team member affects each other, i.e. if one team member is sick everyone else must work even harder to reach the daily goal. This resulted in the organization’s lowest sick leave because the people respected each other and the team culture and a double-digit sales growth. If a person didn’t respect the culture by being negative towards the
team, gossiping, or mistreating someone they would be removed from the team.  This way the sales manager ended up with a strong team that respected and worked harder for each other and themselves.

TOP 4 HABITS FOR BEING A GOOD SALES MANAGER/COACH:

  • Motivate your sales representatives
  • Know your budgets, goals, and your own criteria for being successful. Put in a strategy to reach the goal
  • Be a role model- Pick up the phone and show them how to do it
  • Challenge the team to competitions. Build on a good team through teambuilding exercises

PITFALLS TO AVOID

      • Get rid of sales representatives who destroy the team. People who blame others, gossip and criticize everything, can be damaging to the team. Make sure to get the right candidates in your team, so you can create the culture that you want
      • Don’t lead with fear. Don’t forget that you are managing people
      • Don’t hide results from salespeople, it is their job. This is their focus and goal. Be transparent
      • Don’t give salespeople too much administration. They like to connect and have interaction

SO WHAT?

It is a problem when the sales manager finds themselves always being on demand for the entire organization instead of focusing on coaching and managing their team and making sure that their sales representatives can do their job independently. A good sales manager knows how to adapt to different types of people and find what motivates them. At the same time, you need to be objective and set a framework that need to be followed. You must communicate clear goals that needs to be reached.

A lot of companies are interested in growing their top-line but fail because they launch too many initiatives or fail to communicate clearly to the people that need to change their ways of working. If you want to get results that last, you need to change the conversation you are having about the change.

Ask yourself what you want to change. Work with your team to change the communication and develop clear guidelines for what the sales leaders need to communicate to the sales representatives. Formalize the dialogue and support your sales leaders in the new dialogue. And make sure to stick to the new way of working.

If you want to learn more about Sales Management, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

If you want to learn more about Sales Management, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

About us

We are a team of independent professionals from diverse backgrounds who want to make consulting simple. We have extensive experience from strategy- and technology consulting firms, start-ups, and corporations, where we have solved problems in 50+ countries – from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. We are the architects of your growth.

SALES GROWTH

SALES
GROWTH

Can a mathematical formula help your company to grow?

How to work smarter, not harder.

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

SALES
GROWTH

Can a mathematical formula help your company to grow?

How to work smarter, not harder.

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

There is a mathematical formula for growth with four points for organic growth:

1. Number of opportunities created

2. Win rate

3. Average order/contract size

4. Retention rate

The number of opportunities created x Win rate (in %) x Average order size constitutes the revenue generated in any period on top of recurring business. The retention rate is a measure of the company’s ability to keep customers on board after their first purchase. Any percent-increase or -decrease in any of the four drivers directly influences the growth rate.

If your retention rate remains constant, but you improve the number of opportunities created, win rate, and Average order/ Contract size by just 5% each, your new sales growth is close to 16%. If at the same time, you increase the retention rate by 5 -10%, you will be looking at growth rates way beyond the market- or industry average.

growth, and money

FROM THEORY TO REAL-LIFE GROWTH

Every day, salespeople go to work and repeat their routines as they did yesterday and the day before, which results in the same outcome as always.
Once commercial habits have been established, additional growth with the same organizational setup and the same products becomes difficult.

Key to transforming result is simple:

  • Find out which new routines will produce a better result
  • Design a visual and engaging meeting concept that will help people change their routines
  • Support commercial managers in installing this meeting concept with a vigorous coaching routine to drive new methods
  • Follow up on relevant KPIs for the four growth levers and your sales staff’s satisfaction with each encounter with their manager.

If you combine these four points with the involvement of your sales leaders, better results are a likely outcome that we call Commercial Acceleration.

CREATE BUSINESS VALUE WITH CUSTOMER DATA

A survey conducted by Forbes with European companies shows that significant data adoption reached 53% in 2017, from 17% in 2015. The early adopters being telecommunications and financial sectors in the lead. Three out of four companies say that they are working towards being more data-driven and will invest more in data technologies, like data warehousing, dashboards, and self-service end-user tools.

Transforming data into actionable insight

The focus has been on collecting and structuring data in dashboard solutions and systems to measure development and effects in customer touchpoints. What is missing is the ability to transform data into actionable insights that support the strategy and create business value. While some organizations struggle, others succeed. What can we learn from successful datadriven companies?

  1. Have a clear strategic direction
    The company strategy and business prioritizations must be instructive for the data work and derivative actions. Too many companies work with all in-house data, spending massive amounts of resources on gathering and structuring data without a strategic purpose. Focus on selected data based on the strategic objective. Spend time on solution design that connects the knowledge from the data to clear actions that can be executed in the strategy.
  2. Work across teams
    The data is usually spread across the organization’s different departments: in marketing, sales, analysis, CRM, etc. Connect the data. Get different people from different disciplines involved in the process and start creating a new and common language. Changing organizational dialogue is the best starting point for building successful strategic actions.
  3. Accurate data leads to the right insights
    Companies with massive data sources often think that they do not need more. But what they do not consider is the quality of the data. Understanding the underlying customer motivations, emotions, and contextual particularities calls for more in-depth human behavioral knowledge that can only be revealed through qualitative data. Only about 5% of data is relevant, and in combination with insights, you can create a valuable solution.

CHANGE THE WAY WE SELL AND CREATE VALUE IN CUSTOMER INTERACTION

It is crucial to have a global combination of sales processes and behaviors, which require a global behavioral change in the entire sales organization and the engagement of the local sales managers and the development of their coaching abilities.


There are two elements to creating sustainable change in sales.


• There must be processes and tools in place that promote and encourage desired behavior

• Sales managers must change the conversation they are having with their salespeople so that they reflect the conversation they want them to have with their customers.

IMPLEMENTING A GLOBAL SALES METHODOLOGY

When implementing a new sales method, process, or tool, it can be tempting to apply a “one size fits all” solution. However, this can bring on resistance since the local management and employees might feel that they were not involved in the decision making about their daily job. To avoid this, include sales management from the beginning of the process.

Five checkpoints:

1. Create a global unity, engagement, and ownership

2. Co-create across cultures

3. Agree on minimum standards and a few non-negotiable tools

4. Make the change journey a social responsibility

5. Train the trainer

CHANGING SALES LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOR

There are a lot of benefits to leadership coaching, such as higher motivation,  higher goal attainment, and reduced churn. 42% of sales managers’ effectiveness is due to coaching activities with the sales reps. Their success is also dependent on the relationship the sales leader has with their sales reps.

  1. Coaching does not have to be a one-on-one interaction
    Coaching is often focused on developing individual skills by getting the sales rep to reflect on their behavior while interacting with a customer. However, coaching can be more impactful in a group setting where everyone gets to share their experience and know-how.
  2. Balancing action plans with guiding questions
    In cultures where the relationship between leaders and reps are more personal, coaching conversations come naturally, and it is also easy to not commit to what is being said. In these cultures, it is best to use coaching scripts and define plans that need to be agreed on. In cultures where there is a clear differentiation between leader and reps, a more directive management style can make it harder to establish a valuable coaching session. In these cultures, they need a coaching tool such as a preparation sheet that helps the managers prepare relevant questions and change their leadership style.
  3. Focus on developing strengths
    Sales managers should be able to influence the sales rep to overcome the obstacles that prevent them from changing their behavior.
  4. Coaching behavior must be real
    Clear guidelines on how sales leaders coach their sales reps are a must. However, the instructions must leave room for the leader to present the guidelines in their way. The coaching must seem authentic for it to be received successfully.

By mixing global change ambition with local autonomy, global sales transformation can be successful, which results in a common objective, a common language, responsible sales management, and improved customer experience. And, subsequently, growth.

SO WHAT?

Some companies are stuck in a negative routine, doing the same process repeatedly, and always getting the same sales results, which means that they need to rethink their habits to increase their sales growth.

Companies also need the right strategy and collect quality data that reveal how humans behave, to create valuable solutions.

If something is not working, it is time to change the company and rework its current policies and global sales teams. Find what needs to change for your sales to grow.

Sales growth can happen by small incremental adjustments and does not need to be more complicated than that.

If you want to learn more about how to increase your companies sales growth, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

If you want to learn more about how to increase your companies sales growth, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

About us

We are a team of independent professionals from diverse backgrounds who want to make consulting simple. We have extensive experience from strategy- and technology consulting firms, start-ups, and corporations, where we have solved problems in 50+ countries – from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. We are the architects of your growth.

COMMERCIAL EXCELLENCE

COMMERCIAL
EXCELLENCE

How to grow sales by combining art and science

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

COMMERCIAL
EXCELLENCE

How to grow sales by combining art and science

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

Many companies spend between 5% to 15% of revenue on sales. The way you develop and use that investment makes a significant difference in both top-line growth and bottom-line performance. Getting it right is very important. Commercial Excellence is becoming about a sales strategy based on hard facts. Sales strategies are usually based on intuition with sales representatives as “artists”.

The sales process was characterized by:
• Relationship-based selling
• Persuasiveness
• Product know-how
• Incentivized by volume, with top sellers making unit

The new fact-based approach is more science than art:
• Channels are actively managed and steered by profitability and cost-to-serve consideration
• Salesforce effectiveness guided by several targets such as volume, profit, and customer satisfaction
• Pricing is based on customer value and microsegments. Specific training and retention programs are in place, especially in emerging markets.

5 KEYS TO BECOMING COMMERCIALLY EXCELLENT

So how do organizations drive successful commercial excellence? There are five key components to accomplishing this. Identifying the right opportunities, match them with the right people, deliver customer pitch, be consistent, and building the right operating model.

  1. Identifying the right opportunities
    Many companies tend to focus on where the business is now, what segments, and customers are generating revenue. The key is to go where the opportunities are going in the future. The most successful companies can map out and identify opportunities and then align their go-tomarket strategy.
  2. Match the opportunities with the right people
    Three things to consider when matching the right people to the right opportunities are the routes to market you use, the sale planning process, and skills assessment to make sure that the people know to win the deals.
  3. Deliver customer pitch
    Make sure that the sales representatives deliver the right pitch. Here is where you apply science and process. Firstly, you need to segment the customer base so that you have the insight into what the different segments need. Secondly, your sales representatives should have the skill to listen for opportunities in what the customers’ needs. Thirdly, support your sales team with analytics, what product to buy, and segment tools so that the sellers have a clear understanding of what they are pitching.Next, marketing and sales should be working together since marketing can provide collateral for the proposal, lead generation, and demand generation. Lastly, there is the account planning that is important for pitching the right thing to the right people. By following these steps, it can result in your company reposition in the marketplace.
  4. Be consistent
    Sales teams are often spread across the country and in different departments, but you still need a central sales operation that drives initiatives and changes. The companies that have the best performing commercial excellence invest in sales operations with the capability to enforce commercial excellence throughout the sales team, with one sales ops person for each sales representative. The sales operation handles customer insights, identifying opportunities, sales strategy, and planning. But also, sales technology, sales capability building, compensation design, and delivery.
  5. Build the right operating model
    To drive commercial excellence in your company, you need to identify the right opportunities at the right time, with the right people, and deliver the correct pitch. To generate consistency and effectiveness, you need to be able to execute the sales operations. The best model is where you have a central organization that develops strategy and guidelines, planning, and leads the performance management, with regions doing the indepth operational planning, and executing.The second area is around roles and responsibilities across geographies, products, and segments. Once you have planned, you can make quarterly decisions.Lastly, sales forecasting; many companies fall into situations where they have multiple groups forecasting the demand for their products and services, and it can get confusing when several people do the forecasting. It is better to have one person who is going to forecast in a sales operating model.

SO WHAT?

Commercial Excellence is not a one-off miracle maker.

You, too, can become commercially excellent by merely identifying the right opportunities, match them with the right people, deliver the right customer pitch, be consistent, and building the right operating model.

We believe the value lies in our clients’ organizations and their people. We aim to unlock this by combining art and science, where art is people and science are proven methods. We combine guts and data.

If you want to learn more about Commercial Excellence and how it can increase revenue, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

If you want to learn more about Commercial Excellence and how it can increase revenue, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

About us

We are a team of independent professionals from diverse backgrounds who want to make consulting simple. We have extensive experience from strategy- and technology consulting firms, start-ups, and corporations, where we have solved problems in 50+ countries – from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. We are the architects of your growth.

SALES INCENTIVES

SALES
INCENTIVES

Should you use the carrot or the stick?

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

SALES
INCENTIVES

Should you use the carrot or the stick?

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

Today’s sales representatives have a more challenging task ahead of themselves since customers already have a lot of information before even meeting a sales representative. They also must persuade more people in a customer organization and sell more complicated products. This results in a longer buying cycle than before, which makes it harder to predict demands that can be utilized to set goals.

Because of this, companies have made changes in their organization to achieve growth by using digital channels, adding roles that are specialized towards one thing, and adapting to team-based selling. Another difference is the development of compensation models that continue to motivate sales representatives to sell efficiently. The sales representatives should not be told what to do, but instead, want to behave in a manner that benefits the company’s go-to-market strategy. Adjusting the compensation models by altering commissions, salaries, bonuses, and quotas can be a driver for sales growth, and it has a more significant impact on sales than investment in the advertisement.

A sales incentive is a reward that sales representatives receive when they reach their sales goals. The sale incentive does not have to be only in the form of money. It can also be an experience such as event tickets or a product in the form of a smartwatch or an expensive coffee maker. It is a matter of finding out what would motivate your sales team.

FIVE TYPES OF NEW SALES INCENTIVES

  1. Role-specific
    Companies need to identify what types of roles they need in their organization so that they can decide what kind of compensation model they should implement. As the world is getting more and more digital, we are moving away from products and towards services. These services can be digital platforms that require an ongoing relationship with the customer, which means that the sales representatives need to have the know-how and expertise about what it is they are selling, i.e., be specialist sellers. Companies may also need customer-care experts and advisory sales representatives that are experts in an industry so that they can guide the customer to the right product before entering a buying cycle. The sales representatives and specialists are the once at the front line acquiring the customers and have the highest impact on revenue. They get rewarded with classic incentives such as quotas or commission when they meet their sales targets. Customer care and advisory sales representatives, on the other hand, get rewarded based on how the entire team performs and feedback from sales representatives on how much support they received in a sales process. The incentive could be a bonus plan.
  2. Split
    Often several sales representatives are working together on the same deal. For there to be no conflict sales managers, need to set up clear guidelines on who has what role and how each person will be credited for their work. One solution could be to give each sales representative double rewards to motivate them to work together. This is only a short-term solution since it is not economically the best solution for the organization to give double payment. Another solution is to split the revenue equally between the sales representatives.
  3. Presales
    Customers today tend to do their research before deciding what product to purchase. This results in a longer buying cycle, which can make the sales representatives lose motivation. To counter this, a compensation model where sales representatives can collect commission when they reach temporary progress in long deals is needed to keep the motivation up both short- and long-term. When the deal is then finally closed, the compensation can be a big bonus. Another solution is to give the sales representatives both short- and long-term cycles so that they are consistently rewarded. Sales representatives can also be focused on only long-term cycles but have a higher base pay so that they are not dependent on commissions.
  4. Omnichannel
    Customers are moving more towards purchasing online, and for sales representatives to not become obsolete, companies are working on making online sales an asset and not a threat. One solution has been to reward sales representatives that have been consultative to the customer early in the buying cycle. Companies have also been able to link purchases with customers’ prior engagement in sales webinars.
  5. Advanced analytics
    Since customers are making their purchase online and doing their research, it has become more difficult for companies to identify customers’ demands and use it to set goals and quotas for the sales team. Instead, companies are turning to analytics and data and creating an algorithm that provides an accurate picture of customer demand, sales projection, and quota, which in turn is used to set goals for the team.

When companies decide on a new sale-incentives model, it should be based on the company’s sales strategy and support goals in its go-to-market strategy. For sales incentives models to succeed, the company needs to collect data about the entire sales process so that the sales team has information that provides clarity.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT MODEL

When companies decide on a new sale-incentives model, it should be based on the company’s sales strategy and support goals in its go-to-market strategy. For sales incentives models to succeed, the company needs to collect data about the entire sales process so that the sales team has information that provides clarity.

SO
WHAT

It is essential for sales representatives to stay motivated since they have a significant impact on sales growth. Sales managers need to know their team and what motivates them to understand which compensation model to use. The sales representatives always go where the reward is, so the compensation model needs to fit in with the organization’s sales strategy and goals so that both the sales representatives and organization is working towards the same purpose.

If you want to learn more about Sales Incentives and how implementing the right model can increase sales growth, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

If you want to learn more about Sales Incentives and how implementing the right model can increase sales growth, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

About us

We are a team of independent professionals from diverse backgrounds who want to make consulting simple. We have extensive experience from strategy- and technology consulting firms, start-ups, and corporations, where we have solved problems in 50+ countries – from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. We are the architects of your growth.

GO-TO MARKET

GO-TO MARKET

How a well thought out strategy is a recipe for a successful product launch

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

GO-TO MARKET

How a well thought out strategy is a recipe for a successful product launch

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

Every company that wants to grow needs a solid strategy. To keep the company on the right path, you need a go-to-market plan with a clear vision of what you are selling, how, where, and to whom.

So, what is that you are selling?
Are you launching a new product?
Re-launching your company and brand?

Or do you want to move an already existing product to a new market? Whatever it is, the strategy should be a valuable tool with all the information you need to implement it, but that can be updated after feedback from prospects.

ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS

WHAT are you selling, and what problem is it solving? Is the product/service in demand? These are essential questions to answer to know if there even is a place for your product on the market. When you understand why you came up with this product and tested people’s need for it, you will find your position in the market.

HOW and WHERE will you distribute your product? Is it a physical store or online? How will you tell your customers about it?

WHO is going to buy your product? Do you know your audience? You need to know your customer, their needs and wants, passions, and preferences, for you to tailor your message so that they respond to it. The companies that understand their customer the best are the ones on top of the market.

  1. Summarize
    For the ones that cannot be bothered by reading the entire strategy, it is a good idea to summarize your entire strategy. This part should briefly describe the product and service, what problem you are solving, market strategy, pricing, sales strategy, and KPIs.
  2. Agenda
    How will you stand out from the competition? The chances are that there already exist several products or services that solve the same problem that your product is. So, what is your unique selling point?
    Position: Where does your product fit in on a scale of high-end luxury and affordability?
    Message: Describe the benefits of your product with 3 points. Sales materials: What support, material and tools do you need to sell your product?
    Customer journey: To understand how your business is perceived by the customers, it is good to map out how many stages there are before the customer makes a purchase.
    Personas: Who is the end-user of your products? Outline the customer’s behavior and character. Who is your ideal target customer?
    Use cases: How will life become better with your product?
  3. Pricing
    What kind of message do you want to send with the pricing? Is it a premium product, or do you want to lower the price to undercut the competition? The pricing should be set with purpose and fit in with the entire strategic plan.
  4. Sales strategy
    It is vital to have a clear vision of how your product is going to be represented by your sales representatives.
    The sales reps should be provided with the right tools, resources, how to acquire clients, and support from sales management.
  5. KPIs
    To recognize if the go-to-market strategy is successful, you need KPIs that will be used as metrics. KPI can be conversions, close sales rate, and leads, etc..

CUSTOMER’S JOURNEY

It is good to map out and visualize a customer’s journey to get a better understanding of their needs and how your product fits in as a solution.

THREE STEPS TO A CUSTOMER JOURNEY:

THERE ARE SEVEN STEPS IN THE B2B SALES FUNNEL:

IMPROVE CUSTOMER JOURNEY

A global manufacturing company decided to improve its customer journey in order to stay on top of its leading market position in a more competitive market.

The solution was to involve all the employees, from four different countries, in workshops where they contributed with their individual knowledge to create an improvement of the customer journey. More than 50 workshops were held, which resulted in a global program that was combined into daily operations that dealt with critical touchpoints. Next, they will decide on a leading model to make their new way of working the new normal.

The result of these workshops was a change in the culture of the organization and the way they spoke about customers, their needs, and experiences. On the market, the improvement of the customer journey resulted in significant sales growth.

SO WHAT?

In launching a successful product or service, a well thought out go-to-market strategy is a significant component. The right questions can get you the answers to what you need to do for your go-to-market to succeed.

Knowing where your product fits in on the market is one of the most crucial steps; if you do not know where the product fits in, it does not matter how good the marketing is because it will miss the right segments. Start by answering the what, where, how, and who before launching your product.

If you want to learn more about Go-to-market strategies and how the right one can increase your companies sales growth, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

If you want to learn more about Go-to-market strategies and how the right one can increase your companies sales growth, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

About us

We are a team of independent professionals from diverse backgrounds who want to make consulting simple. We have extensive experience from strategy- and technology consulting firms, start-ups, and corporations, where we have solved problems in 50+ countries – from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. We are the architects of your growth.

CRM – CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

CRM – CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

How to succeed with CRM projects and why they often fail

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

CRM – CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP
MANAGEMENT

How to succeed with CRM projects and why they often fail

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

Customer Relationship Management software is used to drive growth and profits. Designed for sales, marketing, and service.

How does it work?
CRM is a platform that gathers information from all channels; social media, website, email, etc. help the company obtain more customers and keep the existing ones. The CRM gathers everything and tracks leads, customer needs, offers, and conversions, in one place so that you can organize business processes, workflows, close deals, and collaborate. You save time since CRM keeps track of all data due to machine learning and analytics, which lets you streamline and improve customer interaction, sales, and marketing campaigns. Automating tasks and analyze data.

BENEFITS OF HAVING A CRM SYSTEM

  • Improves customer service –Manage all your contacts, leads, and customer profiles. 
  • Increase in sales – CRM helps improve the sales process, sales pipeline, automating tasks and analyze sales data
  • Retain customers – Automation of human customer support and service improve retention and analytics reveal why churn happens and why
  • Improved analytics – Data is collected and made easy to understand and relevant to your business needs.
  • Higher efficiency – Everything you need to do is gathered in one place, which results in higher efficiency
  • Sharing knowledge – Teamwork gets easier since all information is in one place, so everyone has the same knowledge
  • Transparency throughout the organization – Everyone has the same visibility into the business process, which results in a collective understanding and collaboration.

WHO
NEEDS
CRM?

Companies that are doing sales, marketing teams, service, support, startups, community manager, nonprofit, volunteer org., editorial teams, ad agencies, productions. Everyone can benefit from better organization, task management, AI, an automation tool that makes work faster and better with less time and effort.

CRM allows you to build a sales pipeline, track leads, and get a better visual on sales opportunities. Workflow is easier to simplify, and you can manage the message you put out to customers.

WHY CRM PROJECTS OFTEN FAIL

Implementing a new CRM system can be difficult if you do not have a clear strategy for it.

Everyone in the organization must be on board with how and why it is being used. For example, if the sales team does not understand the value of entering data into the system, it will result in insufficient quality data in the system that does not provide accurate information.

Why do CRM projects fail? A shortlist sums it up:

  • Poor CRM strategy – Not having clear goals and strategy of how to achivee them
  • Poor executive support – The CEO is not advocating for the system
  • Poor attention to the process – Not enough understanding of the business and customer needs
  • Low adaptability to the system – Personal do not see the importance or have the right knowledge of using the system.

HOW TO SUCCEED

So, how do we make the process of implementing a new CRM system successful?

  1. Start by developing your strategy together with the people that are going to be using the CRM system. When the people affected by the future change are involved in the process, it will be easier to adapt to the new system, and the project is more likely to succeed.
  2. It is also crucial for the CEO to voice the importance and be committed to the project for the entire organization to get behind it genuinely.
  3. With the CRM, you get a comprehensive view of the business process, which should support the customer experience. Instead of focusing on selling the product, the business process will align with the customer journey.
  4. Before you move your old customer base to the new CRM, the data needs to be cleansed to ensure that you have accurate personal data.

Everyone in the organization should think of the new CRM system as a tool for your company to increase revenue. Especially if the sales team understands that the CRM system is a tool that helps them sell more, manage their territory, and receive support during sales, they will provide you with the proper data input and forecast information.

CRM STRATEGY

A CRM strategy is your plan for how to increase the company’s revenue and improve customer service.

  1. Define your vision and goals
    What is your overall business strategy and goals? What do you want to achieve with the new CRM strategy?
  2. Who is your target customer?
    Create a persona which represents your ideal customer. What are their behaviors? Demographic? Interest and challenges?
  3. Customer Journey
    You need to map every step your customer takes in their buying journey. Then you can match that with good customer experience.
  4. Sales Channels & Sales Process
    Are you selling direct to the customer, or are you using a distributor or reseller? Define the steps in your sales process that are needed for a prospect to become a customer.

    • Presales – How do you analyze customer needs, gathering information, and set up business cases?
    • Sales Process – What can be automated for higher efficiency?
    • Customer relationship management – Are your offers and communication personalized?
    • After-sales – Do you have proper customer support in place?
  5. CRM roles and goals
    Determine who in your team needs access to the CRM system and for what they will be using it. Also, set goals that can be used to evaluate the performance of your team that will be using the CRM.
  6. Set KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)
    To measure the performance of the team and organization, set KPIs that are connected to the overall business goals.Examples of KPIs:

    • Customer satisfaction
    • Retention
    • Profits
  7. Select CRM software
    There are many different CRM software on the market, so a good idea is to review, research, and test drive the software to

Having a good CRM strategy is vital to increase a company’s revenue and improve customer service.

SO WHAT?

CRM projects often fail due to lack of a clear strategy and little to no involvement of the people that will be the once to use the new system.

When leaders are committed and involve all the right people in the strategy from the beginning, and everyone sees the new system as a tool for increasing the company’s revenue, the project will be more likely to succeed.

If you want to learn more about CRM systems and how it can help increase revenue, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

If you want to learn more about CRM systems and how it can help increase revenue, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

About us

We are a team of independent professionals from diverse backgrounds who want to make consulting simple. We have extensive experience from strategy- and technology consulting firms, start-ups, and corporations, where we have solved problems in 50+ countries – from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. We are the architects of your growth.

DATA CLEANSING

DATA CLEANSING

How clean data is beneficial for
productivity and decision-making

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

DATA CLEANSING

How clean data is beneficial for
productivity and decision-making

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

Data cleansing is all about correcting or removing incorrect, duplicate, or incomplete data that will be used for analysis. Data cleansing is not only about deleting information to make space for new data but maximizing the data accuracy that exists. With clean data, the analysis will come out correctly and provide accurate information. Data cleansing include fixing spelling errors, standardizing data sets, empty fields, missing code, and identifying duplicate data.

Data consist of everything from the company name, customer names, e-mail, phone numbers, addresses, and everything that qualifies someone as a sales lead and how to get in touch with them.

Data is the component that propels business success – but only if the data is of good, clean quality. Using insufficient data to guide you in business initiatives is like mending a leaky pipe with duct tape; it will not last, and the decision will damage the business in the long run.

Data cleansing aims to create data sets that are the same for everyone in the organization so that everyone has access to the same, correct information that can be used for marketing and sales.

BENEFITS OF CLEAN DATA

The benefits of having clean data are several; it will increase productivity and provide quality information in decision making:

  • Removes errors and inconsistencies created when several sources of data are used in one data set
  • Fewer inaccuracies make for happier customers and less frustrated employees
  • Ability to map the separate functions and your data’s purpose
  • Utilizing tools for the data cleansing process produces efficient business practices and faster decision making

THE PROCESS

  1. Errors
    Make sure that deviating values are accurate. Many algorithms do not accept missing values so input the missing data. Keep a record of where errors are coming from to make it easier to identify incorrect data.
  2. Remove duplicates
    Duplication happens during data collection. When data is combined from different sources, there is a chance that some data will be duplicates. A data cleansing tool can be used to help automate the process of avoiding duplicates.
  3. Standardize
    Reduce duplicates of data; it is good to have a standardized point of entry.
  4. Validate
    Faulty conclusion from insufficient data make for bad business strategy and decision making. At the end of the cleaning process, these questions should be answered to counteract faulty conclusions:• Does the data make sense?
    • Does the data follow the rules for its field?
    • Does it prove your theory? Or provide new insights?
    • Can you find tendencies in the data to help form new theories?
  5. Analyze
    When the data is standardized, validated, and cleaned from duplicates, use a data cleansing tool that automates the data compilation and analytics process to streamline the business.

When the data is clean, it is vital to communicate how cleansing and data entry is done to ensure that the data stays clean. Clean data will help the organization strengthen and develop customer segmentation and send targeted information to the right people.

QUALITY DATA

Determine the quality of data by looking at its’ characteristics:

  1. Validity – Does the data match up to business rules
  2. Accuracy – The correctness of the data values
  3. Completeness – How much of the necessary values are known
  4. Consistency – Is the data the same across multiple data sets?
  5. Uniformity – Is the data specified in the same measuring unit?

IMPORTANCE OF QUALITY DATA

A UK-based Account Manager at a global manufacturing company was hired to manage and grow sales in England’s southern part. When he logged into the CRM system and searched for his largest account, with more than 100 sites, he discovered that there were no address or contact details on any of the many sites. Surprisingly, he found that there have been logged activities with each site by his predecessor. If the data on the account level is not accurate, imagine how much time the salespeople need to spend on admin time that generates zero value. Insufficient data often lead to bad decisions and more workload.

SO WHAT?

Clean data helps increase the organization’s productivity since everyone is provided with the right information that can be used to make the right decisions in the daily job. With the correct data, everyone knows where to go and whom to communicate with at the company.

Quality data leads to better decision making. Suppose the data input and analysis are incorrect. In that case, your decisions will be inaccurate as well, and it could hurt the business, which is why data cleansing is of utmost importance.

If you want to learn more about Data Cleansing and how it helps increase productivity and efficiency, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

If you want to learn more about Data Cleansing and how it helps increase productivity and efficiency, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

About us

We are a team of independent professionals from diverse backgrounds who want to make consulting simple. We have extensive experience from strategy- and technology consulting firms, start-ups, and corporations, where we have solved problems in 50+ countries – from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. We are the architects of your growth.

B2B SALES

B2B SALES

How to transition into the new normal and change the way B2B sales are working post covid

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

B2B sales

How to transition into the new normal and change the way B2B sales are working post covid

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

The B2B sales landscape has always been widespread, with field sales representatives traveling across the country, meeting clients, prospects, and working at conferences. Sales representatives are used to being coached one-on-one by the sales manager and having regular teambuilding exercises that strengthened the team. In short, sales representatives are used to meeting and connecting with people every day. Then the pandemic covid-19 hit, and the entire sales model had to change to no in-person contact and a declining economy.

The B2B sales team was forced to drastically change the way they work and move  bout in the world, the office moved home, and all meetings are held online. Some companies have even been forced to close. Sales leaders needed to adapt the way the team is selling since customer needs, habits, and economics are changing. The B2B sales landscape will be completely different from what it was before the pandemic. Companies are reducing spend, interaction through digital channels is becoming essential, and sales have moved from in-person meetings to videoconference, phone calls, and web sales.

MOVING TOWARDS A DIGITAL WORLD

Companies will realize that there is no need for big office spaces because it is more likely that work will be done remotely once the pandemic is over. Instead of permanent office locations, meetings will occur in restaurants, community meeting spaces, or meeting rooms in coworking spaces.

We will also see a decline in travel; instead of sales reps going out in the field, they can communicate with their customers via video conference calls. Time spent on travel is saved and can be used for more customer interactions. Businesses will also become more environmentally aware and start purchasing locally. Essential travel will be close to none.

Sales have become a digital experience during the pandemic, and it is likely to stay that way once it is over. Virtual meetings, telephone calls, and webinars are the new routine, and in the future virtual reality, technologies can be a standard tool for presenting your product to the customer.

HOW ARE THINGS EVOLVING AND WHAT CAN YOU DO?

  1. Field sales reps must learn how to use sales enablement tools and sell digitally
  2. Customers will start purchasing products online without a sales rep being involved; sales teams will decrease in size
  3. It is time to reach out to potential clients and cold sales leads – things might have changed for better or worse
  4. Existing customers can be hesitant to purchase since the economy is uncertain
  5. Business leaders should show the organization and clients empathy and build trust by asking clients, “What can we do for you in these times?”. Clients will stay or come back when they can.

So, what do these changes mean for companies? Leaders need to ask if the organization has the right skills to operate in the new landscape if they have the right sales manager to take them through the crisis and beyond and build trust and comradeship within the sales team.

When companies understand that the way they work must change with how the times are evolving, they can continue to grow.

COMMERCIAL EXCELLENCE POST COVID

We have developed a new Sales Operating Model that will help companies transition into the new normal and change the way B2B sales are working post-covid-19.

  1. Market understanding – how has the market moved, and what do the competitors do?
  2. Customer Targeting – how do you target your customers and prospects?
  3. Go-to-Market Strategy – is your go-to-market strategy adopted to the new normal?
  4. Commercial organization – do you have the right commercial organization?
  5. Ways of working – the ways of working have changed as an effect of covid-19.
  6. Sales Management – do you have the right capabilities to manage a sales team digitally?
  7. Sales enablers – are you equipped with the right tools, systems, and methods to become effective and efficient?
  8. Performance – do you have the right targets, incentives, and KPIs to drive sales digitally? The right targets and incentives can have a positive impact on sales.

There is no quick-fix to get back on track post-covid-19. For some organizations, some of the areas above have not changed, for some, all have changed. Pinpoint a few where you will get the most value with the least complexity. The importance is to act because it will be a new normal and you cannot afford to wait.

If you want to learn more about our new sales model and how we can help your company transition into the new normal, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

If you want to learn more about our new sales model and how we can help your company transition into the new normal, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

About us

We are a team of independent professionals from diverse backgrounds who want to make consulting simple. We have extensive experience from strategy- and technology consulting firms, start-ups, and corporations, where we have solved problems in 50+ countries – from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. We are the architects of your growth.

HOW TO SUCCEED WITH CPQ

HOW TO SUCCEED
WITH CPQ

Reduce complexity and time to quote while increasing revenue, margins, and sales efficiency.

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

HOW TO SUCCEED
WITH CPQ

Reduce complexity and time to quote while
increasing revenue, margins, and sales
efficiency.

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

CPQ means configure, price, and quote software, which is used for sales optimization. CPQ is a tool for organizations to quickly generate quotes for orders in correlation with CRM, ERP, and other business technology, ensuring integrated data and accuracy. Quotes are required by a preprogrammed set of rules, which results in error-free pricing based on quantity, discount, customization, electable features, revenue type, and incompatibilities.

Successful implementation
To measure CPQ implementation success, start with setting a goal for what the organization wishes to achieve. Goals can be quantitative or qualitative, depending on the organization’s overall objectives. Also, map the sales team’s challenges and design the CPQ so that it solves the challenges. Ensure that product models create useful configurations, the structure of the pricing rules, and the quotation process for a consistent experience.

5 STEPS TOWARD A SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION

  1. Opportunity
    CPQ provides a similar customer experience across all platforms, streamline the sales experience, shortening the sales cycle, and satisfied customers. It maps challenges for sales representatives and automates processes to provide configurations. When implementing a CPQ, discover things you previously did not know or rethink processes and how to make them better. Take the time to reconsider the organizations’ routines.
  2. Know your business
    To ensure that the CPQ implementation is successful, it is essential to know the business processes and impact on the supply chain and customer experience and how it fits the organization’s overall picture.

Understand existing processes: What does the configure, price and quote system look like today? What inefficiencies disturb the sales process? Find out what the sales representatives need to manage to create, and deliver quotes effectively.
The customer: Understanding customer behavior and needs will help identify product models and pricing that will support effective selling.
Find lead opportunities: When you understand customer behavior, you will receive insights into product and pricing patterns to identify new sales opportunities.

  1. Business requirements
    Streamline your business internally and externally—set goals for workflows to eliminate delays. Review your catalog and existing pricing model. Decide what product information to include and how to handle data.
  2. Fit the CPQ system into the process
    CPQ systems integrate with several systems, so use information that already exists in other locations. To integrate the systems, you need to understand and answer these questions:•  What systems will be affected?
    •  How will the systems integrate and interact?
    •  What is the intended workflow?By effectively identifying business requirements, it will be easier to fit the CPQ into the processes.
  3. Change Management
    To ensure everyone in the organization is on board with the new system, follow these steps:

Testing Test the system to eliminate bugs. A smooth-running system will establish credibility
Project manager Someone who will be an ambassador for the implementation project and help i dentify requirements or needs previously unaddressed
Engage all departments A new system will affect the entire organization,  including sales, marketing, product management, finance, IT, and operations; they should all contribute and understand its benefits. A better understanding of how they will benefit will result in a faster adaptation of the new system
Training program Ensure that everyone knows how and is comfortable using the new system

CPQ software touches on every aspect of a business – the how, what, where, and why – which means that a CPQ project is a high-value process full of opportunities. With CPQ, organizations can modernize their infrastructure and, at the same time, maximizing impact for business value.

HOW IS CPQ BENEFICIAL?

CPQ is a sophisticated selling tool; channel selling structures, product configuration, and sales cycles become more complicated, CPQ sales strategies provide benefits.

Sales representative’s time not spent on selling is spent generating quotes, proposals, and approvals. When CPQ is implemented correctly, it can trigger several commercial benefits:

  1. Increased sales efficiency
  2. Accurate pricing
  3. Reduced approval time
  4. Reduced time to quote
  5. Reduced complexity
  6. Reduced configuration errors
  7. Increased up- and cross-selling
  8. Improved customer experience

As an effect of implementing CPQ, there are plenty of opportunities to increase your revenue and margins.

SO WHAT?

CPQ is a tool for companies that, when implemented correctly, generates increased revenue, margins, and sales efficiency within the organization.

Instead of spending more than half of the time, manually generating quotes, writing proposals, and getting approvals, CPQ frees up time to create more leads. CPQ works together with your CRM to make the sales process easier, faster, and more organized.

If you want to learn more about CPQ and how it can increase your company’s revenue, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

If you want to learn more about CPQ and how it can increase your company’s revenue, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

About us

We are a team of independent professionals from diverse backgrounds who want to make consulting simple. We have extensive experience from strategy- and technology consulting firms, start-ups, and corporations, where we have solved problems in 50+ countries – from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. We are the architects of your growth.

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

CUSTOMER
EXPERIENCE

How to acquire loyal and
returning customers

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

CUSTOMER
EXPERIENCE

How to acquire loyal and
returning customers

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

Customer experience is all about your customer’s interaction and experience with your company through their customer journey, from the very moment they get in contact with you to become a loyal customer.

The customer experience is an integral part of your CRM system and a positive experience that ensures all interactions are easy, enjoyable, and seamless results in a loyal and repeat customer. Still, to achieve that result, you must invest in the experience.

If a customer has a negative experience with your company, such as being treated poorly or ignored, they will probably stop doing business with you. Therefore, customer experience is of the utmost importance.

THE CUSTOMER IS THE REASON
YOU ARE IN BUSINESS
IN THE FIRST PLACE

The customer is the reason you are in business in the first place, and therefore executives and managers should focus on retaining new customers and keep the existing ones. But even though customer experience is a top priority, most companies fail to deliver a customer experience perceived as pleasing to the actual customer, which, in part, is due to rising customer expectations. If their experience is exceptional at one company, they expect it to be just as good or even better at your company. Bad customer experience involves:

Difficult purchasing processes
Poor customer support
Waiting too long on hold
Ignoring customer feedback

So, what can companies do to avoid bad customer experience and make it a great one?

7 STEPS TO A GREAT CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

  1. Customer experience vision
    Define your vision by creating a set of statements or values that guide principles. Everyone in the organization should know these.
  2. Understand your customer
    To understand your customers’ needs and wants, create personas to help your customer support recognize who they are, and understand them better.
  3. Emotional connection
    If customers remember how they felt when using your product or service and get emotionally attached, they are more likely to become loyal customers. Create an emotional connection by considering how you deliver your message and what YOU can do for your customer. Emotionally attached customers are:
    Three times likely to recommend your product or service
    Three times more likely to re-purchase
    Less prone to look for another solution
    Less price sensitive
  4. Customer feedback
    Ask your customers about their experience to determine what you are doing right and what needs improvement. Use chat tools, e-mail, and surveys to gather information about how your customer perceived the experience with your company.
  5. Develop your team
    Identify what training your customer support team needs to succeed. The quality framework takes assessment one step further by scheduling and tracking each members’ progress through coaching, eLearning, and group training.
  6. Employee feedback
    Use project management software or social media tools where your employees can leave feedback and ideas on how to improve the customer experience.
  7. ROI from excellent customer experience
    Ask your customers a simple question: “Would you recommend us to a friend or relative?”

It is vital for a great customer experience to understand the entire customer journey and have a clear understanding of the whole experience back-to-back and how interactions are received through the whole journey.

WHAT MATTERS THE
MOST TO CUSTOMERS?

Value for money, customer support, and product satisfaction, but an emotional connection sets companies apart, including brand identification, social responsibility, innovation, and trustworthiness. The best companies generate both value for money and an emotional connection, and in some cases, emotional connection is more important than value for money. How customers identify with a brand and how innovative they perceive it to allow for premium prices.

POST COVID-19

The pandemic drastically changed customer behavior and expectations, and companies were forced to change how they interact with customers. It is best to act now and not wait to get back to normal since this is the new normal. So, how do we transform our customer experience to fit in with the times? According to *McKinsey (2020), there are three building blocks:

  1. Build aspiration and purpose
    Define the experience you want to deliver and align it to the company’s aspiration. The aspiration is your company’s purpose and brand promise; imagine your company as a person. Who is that person at its core? Inspirational? Nurturing? What can customers expect from you? What value do you have in the customers’ expected behavior when their needs evolve?
  2. Transform the business
    Create a team that is in charge of developing platforms and technology. A team that is agile and cross-functional can reimagine the customer experience, products, and services. They should have real expertise in technology, experience design, and looking to improve the project continuously.
  3. New capabilities
    Customer-centric mindset To ensure that employees can deliver a great customer experience, they should be provided with the right skills and tools. Companies should provide courses, workshops, and support through the employees’ development.
    Integrate technology For a successful omnichannel experience, companies need digital platforms with microservices and apps that quickly offer a service to the customer. A contact-center with chat, video chat, e-mail, and a single platform that integrates the platforms.
    Agile operating model Establish an agile decision-making process where team members can negotiate and have the team leader make formal decisions.
    Performance management Implement management systems that teach employees which behaviors give the best result and guide innovation teams on where to focus. Management tools predict current satisfaction and future spend based on experience.

Combining these three building blocks will give companies an advantage in their field and emerge on top after the pandemic.

*Reference:
McKinsey & Company. (2020) The three building blocks of successful customer-experience transformations ( https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights /the-three-building-blocks-of-successful-customerexperience-transformations) (2020-11-20)

SO
WHAT?

Having a great customer experience is vital for consumers to become loyal and returning customers to your company. For a great customer experience, it is essential to understand the entire customer journey and how the experience is at every touchpoint.

The customer expectation changed once the pandemic started, and companies need to adapt to the customers’ new needs to have an advantage and stay on top of their field.

If you want to learn more about Customer experience and how it helps companies stay on top in their field, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

If you want to learn more about Customer experience and how it helps companies stay on top in their field, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

About us

We are a team of independent professionals from diverse backgrounds who want to make consulting simple. We have extensive experience from strategy- and technology consulting firms, start-ups, and corporations, where we have solved problems in 50+ countries – from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. We are the architects of your growth.

SALES KICK-OFF

SALES
KICK-OFF

Plan for successful sales kick-off events online & in-person

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

SALES
KICK-OFF

Plan for successful sales kick-off events online & in-person

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

The sales kick off is an annual event that everyone in sales looks forward to since it is one of few times when sales teams come together in person. The sales kick–off is the perfect opportunity to connect, build, and enhance relationships, align goals and expectations, and inspire the organization around the company vision. It is a time for sales teams to get on the same page and ready to succeed in moving forward.

PLAN FOR SUCCESS

When you and your team are planning for a great sales kick–off, there are some points to make room for:

  1. Focus
    By bringing your team face to face, you have a bigger chance of maintaining their focus.
  2. Build relationships
    Sales kick–off is a significant opportunity to network. Bonding with team members creates trust and productive collaborations.
  3. Emotion
    When the sales team comes together, they motivate each other and spread positivity, making sales reps ready to progress leads and generate revenue.
  4. Energy
    An engaging speaker, award ceremonies, and disruptive happenings is a great way to keep the energy up.
  5. Education
    Since everyone in the sales team gathers, it is an excellent opportunity to educate them on the ins and outs of the product they are selling.

THE ROAD TO A SUCCESSFUL SALES KICK-OFF

  1. Objectives
    Ensure that everyone aligns with the company strategy, goals, and objectives that the company has for the year. Start by answering these questions:What do we want people to focus on during the event?
    What do we want to accomplish? What area is the most important?
    Is it technology, education, motivation, or product information?
    How do we measure the success of the event?
    How can we maintain the energy past the event?Use the answers to form objectives that anchor your planning. Objectives define what you want to accomplish and for everyone in the organization to know what needs to be achieved and for when.
  2. Agenda
    The sales kick–off is a chance to get your team on the same page as the company and shift their focus to the most critical area of the year. Your schedule should consist of speakers, customers‘ perspectives, networking, and team building.
  3. Team building and networking
    SKO is an excellent way for the team to get together and build trust with one another, resulting in productivity and a healthy organization. The agenda should schedule for networking and unexpected collaborations.
  4. Involve your team
    Ask your team what they are interested in seeing at the sales kick–off, then incorporate their feedback and ideas. For team building activities and networking, assign one team member to take the lead.
  5. Communication
    To generate excitement and expectations for the event, you need effective pre-communication. The communication can be in the form of teaser announcements, information about the theme, and material shared before the event.
  6. Technology
    Technology is an easy way to engage participants before and during the event. Tech such as an app to keep track of the schedule and live polling platforms is simple to incorporate into the event.
  7. Success stories
    The event is a great chance to lift success stories and inspire team members by rewarding accomplishments and highlighting the customer experience. Team members will get an insight from the customers‘ viewpoint.
  8. Plan for the after
    The event is a great chance to lift success stories and inspire team members by rewarding accomplishments and highlighting the customer experience. Team members will get an insight from the customers‘ viewpoint.

ADJUST THE PLAN THIS YEAR

Companies may consider canceling their sales kick–off event; however, companies should consider having an online event instead of doing that. An online event even has many benefits, such as ease to share content and record guest speakers. Instead of canceling, try to rethink how the event is possible online. Some tips to consider:

  1. Scheduling
    The annual sales kick–off is usually a three-day–long event, but that does not translate well to an online event. Instead, make it a series of three hours per day.
  2. Commitment
    Before the event, create commitment by asking what attendees liked about last year‘s event, what they want to highlight this year, create surveys, and teaser videos about exciting themes and speakers, et cetera.
  3. Engagement
    Create quizzes about the subject the team is being educated about, create excitement around who the winner is. Engage through chats, music, polling, and gamification. When the attendees don‘t know what to expect, they will stay alert and engaged throughout the event.

PROS & CONS

Of course, there are pros and cons to having an online event instead of getting together and meeting in the same room. For instance, it is easier to educate the team about products since there are no distractions then motivate learning by having a friendly competitive quiz. Cons is, of course, that it gets more difficult for team members to network and socialize with one another, making it harder to build on the company culture.

Now is the time to innovate how the sales kick–off is being done, encourage the team through the year, and hope for an even better in-person gathering next year.

SO WHAT?

Determining the company‘s goals and needs can make it obvious which strategy is the right one for your business. Of course, you can try different strategies to determine which one works the best and have different strategies depending on the product. However, the right pricing strategy is crucial for business success.

The consumer market is growing and expanding to new areas faster than ever before; companies need to elevate their pricing strategy. With a solid pricing strategy plan, your company will succeed.

The sales kick-off is an annual event that sales organizations look forward to since it is the perfect opportunity to connect, build and enhance relationships, align goals and expectations, and inspire the organization around the company vision.

This year the event needs to look a bit different, and the event organizers need to find innovative ways to motivate their teams to be still engaged in the event online and after.

The sales kick-off is an annual event that sales organizations look forward to since it is the perfect opportunity to connect, build and enhance relationships, align goals and expectations, and inspire the organization around the company vision.

This year the event needs to look a bit different, and the event organizers need to find innovative ways to motivate their teams to be still engaged in the event online and after.

About us

We are a team of independent professionals from diverse backgrounds who want to make consulting simple. We have extensive experience from strategy- and technology consulting firms, start-ups, and corporations, where we have solved problems in 50+ countries – from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. We are the architects of your growth.

LEADERSHIP STYLES

LEADERSHIP
STYLES

Common leadership styles and how to develop your style

Author

Christoffer Hansen
ch@hanei.se

What type of leader are you?

Maybe you are leading a project, team, or an entire department. Whatever your leadership capacity looks like, you might identify or adapt to a specific leadership style. As you develop your skills as a leader, you might realize that you use different styles depending on the circumstances and that there are areas that you can improve on and develop. Maybe there are better ways to lead to serve the company goal and understand how others in the organization lead.

COACH

Identify and nurture each member‘s strengths, weaknesses, and motivations. It is useful in setting expectations for each team member, creating a positive work environment, and making the teamwork better together through communication and unique skill sets. Optimistic in nature and promotes the development of new skills, create a confident company culture. The coaching leadership style is underutilized since it is more time–consuming than other leadership styles since it acquires one-on-one time with each team member. Focus is on the growth and success of individuals.

A coaching leader trait:

• Supportive

• Guide instead of commands

• Value learning as a way of growing

• Ask guided questions

• Balance knowledge and helping others to find it themselves

• Self-aware

VISIONARY

Drive progress and change by inspiring team members and earning trust for new ideas—the coach fosters confidence for direct reports and colleagues. The visionary is excellent for small, growing organizations or organizations that are in a phase of restructuring. They help companies grow and innovate technology and practices.

The visionary is characterized by:

• Persistent

• Strategic

• Risk–taker

• Inspirational

• Optimistic

• Innovative

SERVANT

Focus on employee satisfaction and collaboration with a people–first mindset. The servant builds on employee morale and engages their work. Create employee loyalty and productivity and are great for non-profit organizations.

The servant:

• Motivate team members

• Great communication skills

• Care about the team

• Encourage collaboration and engagement

AUTOCRATIC

Focused on results and efficiency. The autocratic leader makes decisions on their own or with a trusted few without any input from employees. Expect employees to do what they are told. This style can be beneficial for organizations with strict guidelines or to manage employees with little to no experience. The autocratic leader can also boost productivity and reduce stress for employees by deciding for them; however, the autocratic is rarely effective, and organizations with this leadership style tend to lose employees.

The autocrat is:

• Self-confident

• Self-motivated

• Clear and concise

• Follow rules

• Dependable

• Value high structure

• Believe in supervised work

LAISSEZ-FAIRE (hands–off)

Delegates tasks to the team and leave them to it. This leadership style works for organizations with experienced team members that are independent workers. Laissez-faire promotes accountability, creativity, and employee retention. They give full trust in their employees while they focus on running the company.

The laissez-fare:

• Delegator

• Believe in freedom of choice

• Provide resources and tools

• Offer constructive criticism

• Promote an autonomous environment

DEMOCRATIC

Before making a decision, the democratic leader asks for feedback and input from their team. When employees feel that their voices are heard and matter, it fosters higher employee engagement and satisfaction. The democratic leadership style is effective in creative businesses such as tech industries since it drives discussion and participation.

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The democratic leader:

• Value discussion

• Involve the team in decision making

• Encourage idea sharing

• Rational and flexible

• Good at mediation

PACESETTER

The most effective leadership style for driving fast results. The pacesetter is focused on performance and set high standards and hold their team accountable for hitting goals. It is excellent in high paced settings where they motivate and help the team. Focus their team on hitting goals and accomplish objectives. High energy and dynamic work environments.

The pacesetter:

• Set the bar high

• Focus on goals

• Highly competent

• Value performance

• Slow to praise

TRANSFORMATIONAL

Focus on clear communication, goals, and employee motivation. Thrive on transforming and improving the company practices. Organizational objectives and the big picture drive the transformational leader. The transformational leader is great for teams that handle tasks without supervision, and they push their team out of their comfort zone.

The transformational leader:

• Mutual respect with the team

• Encouraging

• Inspire others to reach their goals

• Sees the big picture

• Intellectually challenge their team

• Creative

• Understand organizational needs

TRANSACTIONAL

Value performance. The transactional leader establishes an incentive plan, such as a monetary reward for success and disciplinary action for failure that motivates team members to work toward the goal. Also, focus on mentorship, instruction, and training to achieve goals. Great for sales organizations that have revenue targets to hit.

The transactional leader:

• Value corporate structure

• Micromanage

• Don‘t question authority

• Pragmatic

• Value goal hitting

• Reactionary

BUREAUCRATIC

Do everything by the books and expect their team to as well. Focused on duties, and each employee has a set of responsibilities. There is no room for creativity and collaboration; employee feedback is ignored if it does not fit the company practices or policies. Best suited for finance, healthcare, and government organizations that have strict rules and regulations.

A bureaucratic leader:

• Detail–oriented and task–focused

• Values rules and structure

• Great work ethic

• Strong–willed

• Committed to the organization

• Self-disciplined

DEVELOP YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE

In your journey to finding your leadership style, it is essential to choose an authentic style for you and know what style works for each situation. Here are some questions to ask yourself to determine which style works for you:

  1. What do I value more? Goals or relationships?
  2. Do I believe in structure or freedom of choice?
  3. Would I rather make decisions by myself or with the team?
  4. Do I focus on short or long-term goals?
  5. Does motivation come from empowerment or direction?
  6. What does a healthy team dynamic look like to me?

STRATEGIES TO DEVELOP YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE

Experiment – Try different approaches in different circumstances

Find a mentor – Speaking with an experienced leader provides great insight into how they developed their style

Ask for feedback – Feedback helps you grow into a successful leader

Be authentic – Choose a leadership style that fits in with your strengths and improve it.

SO WHAT?

In the search for your leadership style, it is important to stay authentic to who you are and your strengths. In actuality, the best leadership uses a mix of all leadership styles. It is good to know when and what style to utilize, depending on the circumstances. You may find that you excel in project management using one leadership style but must adjust your style when leading an entire department.

If you want to learn more about Leadership styles and how to develop your own, feel free to reach out to us at Hanei Consulting Group.

About us

We are a team of independent professionals from diverse backgrounds who want to make consulting simple. We have extensive experience from strategy- and technology consulting firms, start-ups, and corporations, where we have solved problems in 50+ countries – from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. We are the architects of your growth.