Effective performance improvement programs promote alignment of business operations with the organization’s vision, mission, values, and goals. Such programs consistently identify opportunities to improve high value-adding operations and to eliminate low value-adding activities. These programs themselves are highly efficient and capable of producing repeatable results. Documenting the business performance assessment process provides the framework necessary to achieve this level of focused execution consistency.
Hi there! Gain access to this article with a StrategyDriven Insights Library – Total Access subscription or buy access to the article itself.
Subscribe to the StrategyDriven Insights Library
Sign-up now for your StrategyDriven Insights Library – Total Access subscription for as low as $15 / month (paid annually).
Don’t need a subscription? Buy access to Business Performance Assessment Program Best Practice 8 – Documented Business Performance Assessment Process for just $2!
Nathan Ives is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/DocSAProcess.jpg282425Nathan Iveshttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngNathan Ives2013-11-12 06:25:152018-12-16 16:42:10Business Performance Assessment Program Best Practice 8 – Documented Business Performance Assessment Process
74% of salespeople complain about losing a sale because their price was too high. And 74% of them are wrong.
How did you lose the sale?
Why did you lose the sale?
Was it really price? Or was it you?
Losing the sale manifests itself in ‘blaming complaints’ about: price, unreturned phone calls, bidding, loyalty to others, and other blame-based excuses about why a sale does not take place, and the relationship isn’t being built. Ouch.
Here are the major reasons why salespeople lose sales:
1. The customer was loyal to someone else. Your first job is to uncover what makes the customer loyal. What’s the real reason they continue to do business with someone else? Ask yourself if you and your company possess the same qualities.
2. Lack of real connection to or with the buyer. The prospective customer is looking for comfort, peace of mind, and assurance
3. Lack of engagement. You weren’t able to create real interactive dialog.
4. Lack of perceived value. If the customer does not perceive genuine, definable value in your offer, then there is none.
5. Lack of perceived difference. If the customer does not perceive genuine, definable difference between you and your competition, then there is none.
6. Lack of relationship. When long-term relationship is present, truth, trust, and value are the basis of purchase.
7. Lack of hustle. Response time to a customer’s need for service and/or information are critical factors in purchase.
8. Poor salesmanship. This has fundamental flaws of preparedness and presentation skills. There’s an obvious lack of questioning skills or sales strategies that create a buying atmosphere.
9. Poor attitude. The way you present yourself and your word choice combined with your tone and demeanor leave a HUGE impression on the customer. And that impression is either positive, neutral, or negative – and YOU CHOOSE how you made them feel.
10 Lack of ability to reduce or eliminate risk. This may be the prime factor in losing sales. And the least talked about. The simple answer is: PROOF. Can you substantiate your claims?
10.5 Failing to do your BEST. Without a doubt, this is the BIGGEST flaw in salespeople. Whether it’s attitude, belief, self-confidence, preparation, or follow up, your execution at a level less than BEST leaves a huge opening for your competition to win.
REALITY: None of these reasons are ever stated by salespeople. Instead, they (you) blame the loss of a sale on price.
“They took the lowest price,” is the most often stated ‘reason’ for the loss of a sale. And it is totally bogus. It’s easy to blame ‘price’ for the loss. It’s harder to face and discover the real ‘why.’
The reality (and life-long value) of why you lost a sale is forever silenced when you blame the loss on price, and move on to the next sale.
REALITY: “The customer took the lowest price,” is as bogus as “My dog ate my homework.” The fact is you let the customer control the selling/buying process. Not good.
STRATEGY: Get the customer to change the criteria of proposal submission in a way that is both in favor of the customer and you.
GIVE THEM IDEAS TO GET THE ORDER: Make the customer aware of the cost of buying inferior products as it relates to work stoppage and lack of productivity. Make them aware of the value of their image and reputation.
PROVE IT TO WIN IT: Make everyone competing provide a VIDEO testimonial for each item they’re selling and every claim they make about it. Document and prove elements like service response time, how friendly you and your team are, and how easy you are to do business with.
THE REALITY OF BLAME: The opposite of blame is responsibility. In sales responsibility is taken, not given. Be responsible TO yourself and FOR yourself. Don’t blame the customer, HELP the customer. Do not let the REAL reasons you lost the sale get tangled up in blame.
ASK YOURSELF: Why did you really lose that sale? What could you have done to make it?
PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE: Lowest price is the EASIEST excuse for a salesperson to make. Customers take lowest price because they perceive your product or service is the SAME as your competition. Not good.
If you are sick of losing sales like that, then you better discover WHY they took the lowest price, and create greater value differentiation. And while this is easier said than done, it is BY FAR, the biggest sales and profit opportunity you possess.
“Jeffrey,” you whine, “But what about bidding?” You know the people that take three bids then choose the lowest price? I’ve got some surprise answers about bidders next week!
Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.
About the Author
Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/JeffreyGitomer.jpg218156StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2013-11-11 06:58:512016-08-08 08:55:48Why did you lose the sale? Really?
When you combine artwork created by children with an organic bakery, you get an innovative campaign that generates 30,000 new Facebook likes and a handful of honorable awards. This original idea created for Rudi’s Organic + Gluten-Free Bakery by Vermilion Design + Interactive anticipated far less participation than it received with 18,000 submissions for the “Let’s Doodle Lunch,” where young artists would receive a free customized sandwich box with their design on the lid. A more humorous concurrently running campaign, the Toast-a-Gram promotion allows fans to create their own toasted masterpiece – usually their own photo uploaded to a custom Facebook app that makes it look like it’s been miraculously ‘burned’ onto a piece of toast. The resulting image can be posted, shared and emailed to friends, and has generated more than 20,000 likes and almost 6,000 coupon downloads to boast product trial.
Since that campaign, the quarterly social media efforts for both the organic products and especially the newly introduced gluten-free products have grown the size of the Rudi’s online community more than tenfold. And while it’s hard to tie revenues to specific Facebook campaigns, sales are expanding at a 20% annual clip, and Rudi’s continues to grow their Facebook and digital marketing efforts. Building, supporting and engaging a growing fan base through social media is working for this innovative bakery.
In order to achieve these strategies, marketers need to have a perspective on the potential strength of each idea, to evaluate its connection with consumers and to align its outcomes with business goals. By taking data-driven research, insights, and creativity, they can achieve their goals and get results. Some approaches to achieve these results include:
Hi there! This article is available for free. Login or register as a StrategyDriven Personal Business Advisor Self-Guided Client by:
Bob Morehouse founded Vermilion in Boulder, Colorado in 1980. The Yale University graduate chose Boulder because of its outdoor lifestyle and the eclectic creative community that inhabited it. Morehouse has been very active in Boulder’s nonprofit community, serving on a number of boards and providing probono services to nonprofit organizations. In 2009, he was awarded Business Person of the Year by the Boulder Chamber of Commerce.
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.png00StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2013-11-08 06:57:572016-01-31 13:48:22Social Engagement for the Small Business
The last decade ushered in an economic meltdown and technological breakthroughs that have forever changed the business world as we knew it. The changes have been so dramatic that most companies are still scrambling to figure out the new rules of the game.
We are facing a new world – one that calls for new approaches to generating consistent competitive advantage. Unfortunately contemporary management theory and practices have ill prepared us for our current reality. The near-universal rush to cut costs and headcount is more likely distracting us from, rather than enabling, the real work of retooling our enterprises to be competitive in this new world. The world is making tectonic shifts, which most business leaders are meeting with puny incremental responses.
Historic innovation often comes during times of historic difficulty, as these breakdowns create the demand for something new to emerge. As such, they are also times of great opportunity, providing a new way of seeing the world.
Hi there! This article is available for free. Login or register as a StrategyDriven Personal Business Advisor Self-Guided Client by:
Chris Majer, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Human Potential Project, is the author of The Power to Transform: Passion, Power, and Purpose in Daily Life (Rodale), which teaches the strategies corporate, military, and sports leaders have used to positively transform themselves and their organizations in a way readers can adept to their own lives and professions. He may be reached at www.humanpotentialproject.com.
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/CMajer.jpg9675StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2013-11-07 11:33:172016-08-25 09:33:106 Silent Productivity and Profitability Pitfalls, part 1 of 7
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has served as an integral part of the nation’s financial system since its inception in 1933. Our trust in this institution is so strong that it is rare to find someone with a checking account in a bank that lacks an FDIC placard in the window. Nonetheless, the failure and resolution of Texas-based First RepublicBank, reminds us that the hand of government can harm as well as help when it wrestles the invisible hand of the market.
More than an insurer of accounts up to $250,000, the FDIC also regulates financial institutions and serves as a receiver in bankruptcy. The latter role was codified in the Federal Deposit Insurance Act of 1950, which provided the FDIC “additional powers to both expedite the liquidation process for banks and thrifts in order to maintain confidence in the nation’s banking system,” the FDIC’s Resolution Handbook explains.
RepublicBank merged with InterFirst Corporation in June 1986, and formed First RepublicBank Corporation, the largest bank holding company in the Southwest at the time. Then FDIC Chairman William Seidman expressed concern about the merger of two weak banks, “however, without the merger, both banks were more likely to fail, and they would cost even more [apart] than if they failed together,” Seidman recalled in his memoir Full Faith and Credit1.
Seidman’s concerns were warranted. With both banks highly concentrated in the weak Texas real estate market, the deal ended up helping neither bank. As the bank’s losses mounted, depositors fled. Just nine months after the merger was completed, the FDIC had to step in to resolve the failing institution, and at $3.9 billion, it was the most costly bank failure in FDIC history.
Though much can be blamed on the poor condition of the bank’s assets, some of the government’s deal-making “proved to have some room for improvement,” according to the FDIC’s review2.
Included in the resolution was a servicing agreement between the FDIC and NCNB Corporation of Charlotte, NC, the acquiring bank of First Republic’s assets, which required the FDIC to cover costs associated with managing the troubled asset pool. This agreement turned out to be a major source of income for NCNB, and gave them an incentive to hold on to the assets rather than liquidate when the market strengthened. All told, the FDIC paid $1.9 billion in management fees to NCNB.
Another issue was taxes. The IRS had negotiated with NCNB (and no other bidders) $700 million in tax savings with the acquisition. A letter from the IRS allowed the acquirer to treat the deal as a “tax-free reorganization and to carry forward losses from the failed banks to offset future income,” according to the FDIC’s analysis3. These tax savings allowed NCNB to compete aggressively in the Texas market, offering above-market deposit rates and below-market loan rates.
“The government has created a monster,” Chris Williston, the president of the Texas Independent Bankers Association, told American Banker in 19904.
In stepping up when banks fail, the FDIC provides “an element in the readjustment of our financial system more important than currency, more important than gold, and that is the confidence of the people,” President Franklin D. Roosevelt said in 1933. But the example of First RepublicBank reminds us that infusing government into any market-based transactions can change the outcome for better and for worse. In restoring public confidence, the more invisible our government can be, perhaps the better.
About the Author
Cara Wick writes about American financial and political history at www.bankersnotes.com. She holds a BA from Williams College and an MBA from the University of Iowa. Cara can be reached at [email protected].
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/Base3000x3000-SDEPP.jpg30003000StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2013-11-07 06:31:272016-06-11 16:15:58StrategyDriven Editorial Perspective – The Government has Created a Monster
A VETERAN OWNED SMALL BUSINESS | Call or text now for a FREE consultation: +1 (770) 765-3692 | Website Login
Business Programs
Business Performance Assessment Program Best Practice 8 – Documented Business Performance Assessment Process
/in Business Performance Assessment Program, Premium/by Nathan IvesHi there! Gain access to this article with a StrategyDriven Insights Library – Total Access subscription or buy access to the article itself.
Sign-up now for your StrategyDriven Insights Library – Total Access subscription for as low as $15 / month (paid annually).
Not sure? Click here to learn more.
Don’t need a subscription? Buy access to Business Performance Assessment Program Best Practice 8 – Documented Business Performance Assessment Process for just $2!
About the Author
Why did you lose the sale? Really?
/in Marketing & Sales/by Jeffrey Gitomer74% of salespeople complain about losing a sale because their price was too high. And 74% of them are wrong.
How did you lose the sale?
Why did you lose the sale?
Was it really price? Or was it you?
Losing the sale manifests itself in ‘blaming complaints’ about: price, unreturned phone calls, bidding, loyalty to others, and other blame-based excuses about why a sale does not take place, and the relationship isn’t being built. Ouch.
Here are the major reasons why salespeople lose sales:
1. The customer was loyal to someone else. Your first job is to uncover what makes the customer loyal. What’s the real reason they continue to do business with someone else? Ask yourself if you and your company possess the same qualities.
2. Lack of real connection to or with the buyer. The prospective customer is looking for comfort, peace of mind, and assurance
3. Lack of engagement. You weren’t able to create real interactive dialog.
4. Lack of perceived value. If the customer does not perceive genuine, definable value in your offer, then there is none.
5. Lack of perceived difference. If the customer does not perceive genuine, definable difference between you and your competition, then there is none.
6. Lack of relationship. When long-term relationship is present, truth, trust, and value are the basis of purchase.
7. Lack of hustle. Response time to a customer’s need for service and/or information are critical factors in purchase.
8. Poor salesmanship. This has fundamental flaws of preparedness and presentation skills. There’s an obvious lack of questioning skills or sales strategies that create a buying atmosphere.
9. Poor attitude. The way you present yourself and your word choice combined with your tone and demeanor leave a HUGE impression on the customer. And that impression is either positive, neutral, or negative – and YOU CHOOSE how you made them feel.
10 Lack of ability to reduce or eliminate risk. This may be the prime factor in losing sales. And the least talked about. The simple answer is: PROOF. Can you substantiate your claims?
10.5 Failing to do your BEST. Without a doubt, this is the BIGGEST flaw in salespeople. Whether it’s attitude, belief, self-confidence, preparation, or follow up, your execution at a level less than BEST leaves a huge opening for your competition to win.
REALITY: None of these reasons are ever stated by salespeople. Instead, they (you) blame the loss of a sale on price.
“They took the lowest price,” is the most often stated ‘reason’ for the loss of a sale. And it is totally bogus. It’s easy to blame ‘price’ for the loss. It’s harder to face and discover the real ‘why.’
The reality (and life-long value) of why you lost a sale is forever silenced when you blame the loss on price, and move on to the next sale.
REALITY: “The customer took the lowest price,” is as bogus as “My dog ate my homework.” The fact is you let the customer control the selling/buying process. Not good.
STRATEGY: Get the customer to change the criteria of proposal submission in a way that is both in favor of the customer and you.
GIVE THEM IDEAS TO GET THE ORDER: Make the customer aware of the cost of buying inferior products as it relates to work stoppage and lack of productivity. Make them aware of the value of their image and reputation.
PROVE IT TO WIN IT: Make everyone competing provide a VIDEO testimonial for each item they’re selling and every claim they make about it. Document and prove elements like service response time, how friendly you and your team are, and how easy you are to do business with.
THE REALITY OF BLAME: The opposite of blame is responsibility. In sales responsibility is taken, not given. Be responsible TO yourself and FOR yourself. Don’t blame the customer, HELP the customer. Do not let the REAL reasons you lost the sale get tangled up in blame.
ASK YOURSELF: Why did you really lose that sale? What could you have done to make it?
PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE: Lowest price is the EASIEST excuse for a salesperson to make. Customers take lowest price because they perceive your product or service is the SAME as your competition. Not good.
If you are sick of losing sales like that, then you better discover WHY they took the lowest price, and create greater value differentiation. And while this is easier said than done, it is BY FAR, the biggest sales and profit opportunity you possess.
“Jeffrey,” you whine, “But what about bidding?” You know the people that take three bids then choose the lowest price? I’ve got some surprise answers about bidders next week!
Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.
About the Author
Social Engagement for the Small Business
/in Marketing & Sales/by Bob MorehouseWhen you combine artwork created by children with an organic bakery, you get an innovative campaign that generates 30,000 new Facebook likes and a handful of honorable awards. This original idea created for Rudi’s Organic + Gluten-Free Bakery by Vermilion Design + Interactive anticipated far less participation than it received with 18,000 submissions for the “Let’s Doodle Lunch,” where young artists would receive a free customized sandwich box with their design on the lid. A more humorous concurrently running campaign, the Toast-a-Gram promotion allows fans to create their own toasted masterpiece – usually their own photo uploaded to a custom Facebook app that makes it look like it’s been miraculously ‘burned’ onto a piece of toast. The resulting image can be posted, shared and emailed to friends, and has generated more than 20,000 likes and almost 6,000 coupon downloads to boast product trial.
Since that campaign, the quarterly social media efforts for both the organic products and especially the newly introduced gluten-free products have grown the size of the Rudi’s online community more than tenfold. And while it’s hard to tie revenues to specific Facebook campaigns, sales are expanding at a 20% annual clip, and Rudi’s continues to grow their Facebook and digital marketing efforts. Building, supporting and engaging a growing fan base through social media is working for this innovative bakery.
In order to achieve these strategies, marketers need to have a perspective on the potential strength of each idea, to evaluate its connection with consumers and to align its outcomes with business goals. By taking data-driven research, insights, and creativity, they can achieve their goals and get results. Some approaches to achieve these results include:
Hi there! This article is available for free. Login or register as a StrategyDriven Personal Business Advisor Self-Guided Client by:
Subscribing to the Self Guided Program - It's Free!
About the Author
Bob Morehouse founded Vermilion in Boulder, Colorado in 1980. The Yale University graduate chose Boulder because of its outdoor lifestyle and the eclectic creative community that inhabited it. Morehouse has been very active in Boulder’s nonprofit community, serving on a number of boards and providing probono services to nonprofit organizations. In 2009, he was awarded Business Person of the Year by the Boulder Chamber of Commerce.
6 Silent Productivity and Profitability Pitfalls, part 1 of 7
/in Management & Leadership, Tactical Execution/by Chris MajerThe last decade ushered in an economic meltdown and technological breakthroughs that have forever changed the business world as we knew it. The changes have been so dramatic that most companies are still scrambling to figure out the new rules of the game.
We are facing a new world – one that calls for new approaches to generating consistent competitive advantage. Unfortunately contemporary management theory and practices have ill prepared us for our current reality. The near-universal rush to cut costs and headcount is more likely distracting us from, rather than enabling, the real work of retooling our enterprises to be competitive in this new world. The world is making tectonic shifts, which most business leaders are meeting with puny incremental responses.
Historic innovation often comes during times of historic difficulty, as these breakdowns create the demand for something new to emerge. As such, they are also times of great opportunity, providing a new way of seeing the world.
Hi there! This article is available for free. Login or register as a StrategyDriven Personal Business Advisor Self-Guided Client by:
Subscribing to the Self Guided Program - It's Free!
About the Author
StrategyDriven Editorial Perspective – The Government has Created a Monster
/in StrategyDriven Editorial Perspective/by Cara WickMore than an insurer of accounts up to $250,000, the FDIC also regulates financial institutions and serves as a receiver in bankruptcy. The latter role was codified in the Federal Deposit Insurance Act of 1950, which provided the FDIC “additional powers to both expedite the liquidation process for banks and thrifts in order to maintain confidence in the nation’s banking system,” the FDIC’s Resolution Handbook explains.
RepublicBank merged with InterFirst Corporation in June 1986, and formed First RepublicBank Corporation, the largest bank holding company in the Southwest at the time. Then FDIC Chairman William Seidman expressed concern about the merger of two weak banks, “however, without the merger, both banks were more likely to fail, and they would cost even more [apart] than if they failed together,” Seidman recalled in his memoir Full Faith and Credit1.
Seidman’s concerns were warranted. With both banks highly concentrated in the weak Texas real estate market, the deal ended up helping neither bank. As the bank’s losses mounted, depositors fled. Just nine months after the merger was completed, the FDIC had to step in to resolve the failing institution, and at $3.9 billion, it was the most costly bank failure in FDIC history.
Though much can be blamed on the poor condition of the bank’s assets, some of the government’s deal-making “proved to have some room for improvement,” according to the FDIC’s review2.
Included in the resolution was a servicing agreement between the FDIC and NCNB Corporation of Charlotte, NC, the acquiring bank of First Republic’s assets, which required the FDIC to cover costs associated with managing the troubled asset pool. This agreement turned out to be a major source of income for NCNB, and gave them an incentive to hold on to the assets rather than liquidate when the market strengthened. All told, the FDIC paid $1.9 billion in management fees to NCNB.
Another issue was taxes. The IRS had negotiated with NCNB (and no other bidders) $700 million in tax savings with the acquisition. A letter from the IRS allowed the acquirer to treat the deal as a “tax-free reorganization and to carry forward losses from the failed banks to offset future income,” according to the FDIC’s analysis3. These tax savings allowed NCNB to compete aggressively in the Texas market, offering above-market deposit rates and below-market loan rates.
“The government has created a monster,” Chris Williston, the president of the Texas Independent Bankers Association, told American Banker in 19904.
In stepping up when banks fail, the FDIC provides “an element in the readjustment of our financial system more important than currency, more important than gold, and that is the confidence of the people,” President Franklin D. Roosevelt said in 1933. But the example of First RepublicBank reminds us that infusing government into any market-based transactions can change the outcome for better and for worse. In restoring public confidence, the more invisible our government can be, perhaps the better.
About the Author
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:51 — 5.6MB)
Subscribe: RSS
References