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.
- 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. - 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. - 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. - 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. - 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.
