Kimberly (Koehly) Davey
Today’s guest post is written by Kimberly Davey, a Certified Partner in Phoenix with The Whale Hunters and Director, Channel Sales at EmpowHER.
I know how hard it is for a small business to stay focused on sales. You know it is a discipline you need to hone – or at least have – in order to survive. You dream of the day when you no longer have to think about “sales” like the bad five-letter word it has become. But how do you find the time and energy to keep up with sales when you have a business to run? And of course there is no way to afford the luxury of a dedicated sales person.
Does this story sound familiar? Are you ready to make a paradigm shift in your company’s thinking about sales? Sales, as you know by now, is as critical a function to the health and well-being of your company as every other division. I argue more so. In order to change the results your company has had historically generating new business (fancy academic term for SALES), you must first change the way you think and feel about sales. The best way to do that is by crunching some numbers. Ask yourself and document the answers with as much real data as possible (NOTE: if real data is not available; use your best estimation from memory):
– What is my average sale today?
– What is my monthly financial burden?
– What are my growth aspirations?
– How many new deals would I need to close at the current average sale in order to achieve my financial goals?
– How much time would I need to dedicate (or have someone from my team dedicate) to making these new deals happen?
– What is the equivalent payroll cost to making this happen?
Now ask yourself:
– How many new deals would I need to close if those deals were 10 to 20 times larger than my average sale today?
– How much could I afford to pay a dedicated person to be responsible for generating these deals?
Did you feel the paradigm shift? I know from my experience in growing deals from an average size of $350/month to $35,000/month that the effort you and your team put toward closing and on-boarding new clients that are dramatically bigger than your clients today is not commensurate with the increase in the deal size. It is achievable and measurable, but it has to start with the recognition that you need to make a dramatic change with regard to your thoughts, feelings and approach to sales. Find a way to make sales the shining star in your company–not the red-headed step child.
Your bottom line is a direct reflection of your effectiveness at moving the topline in the right direction.
