E249: Without Improving These 3 Parts of Your Sales Strategy You Are Risking The Future Growth of Your Trade Business

Today we're going to dive a little bit deeper into episode 248 and have a look at how you can improve 3 parts of your sales strategy to stop you risking the future growth of your trade business. Welcome to Trade Sales Made Simple, the show helping 7 to 8 figure trade, construction, and industry leaders finally end the stress of inconsistent sales by simplifying your sales systems so that you can close more deals and grow faster. I'm your host Ben Wright, and over the last 15 years I've helped hundreds of trade and sales leaders grow their businesses and generate over $200 million in additional revenue by simplifying their sales processes. Let's get started. Our job today, or your challenge should you choose to accept it, is to be curious around 3 parts of your sales strategy that we're going to go through that will help you future-proof the growth of your business. Now, this episode came from a quote from one of my customers a couple of years ago, actually, and this was quite a large business. So they're about $350 million in turnover. And the quote went something like this: Ben, you push me into thinking about my strategy when I simply can't day to day. Now, this was a very experienced sales leader and someone who I rate really highly in terms of their ability to not only sell themselves but to understand their market. So for someone who had so much experience, I'm talking about 35 years experience in sales, to say, hey, you're pushing me into strategy, actually made me at that point in time spend a significant amount more of my time working with my trade businesses in particular around some small things they can do on their sales strategy that will help them grow their business. Now this episode is following on from episode 248, which was Monday's episode. It's a very short episode and I would encourage you to go back and listen to that first if you haven't already done so. So press pause, go back to 248, and we'll see you in about 7 or 8 minutes if you haven't. But just to recap for those who did listen, is this episode was all about doing one audit or a process audit of your last 20 deals that you lost and finding out where those deals were dropping off. Was it at lead stage? Was it at site inspection stage or quote stage, or was it at closing stage? Right, where was the point where your deals are dropping off? So from there, the aim is that we actually find out exactly where customers are choosing not to proceed with us, which then gives us the opportunity to say, okay, what are we gonna do about it? And today, that's what I'd like to look at. So how do we go about that? Well, I can certainly say that this is a process I have done hundreds and hundreds of times. In fact, I am into the thousands of times. So what I can say about this process is it's one that I've done thousands of times, not hundreds, not dozens of times, but thousands of times. And that's not only within my own businesses, but also within the businesses that I help improve their sales numbers with. And what it looks like is something like this. First of all, we found the area that our customers are dropping off. I'm going to take the most common point, which is after we quote them, to use that as an example. So we find that, okay, we've quoted a customer, gone. Really hard to get them to move forward from this point in time. What do I do about it? First thing that I encourage businesses to do is to sit down and say, okay, what are we doing really well at this point? Quoting quickly, pricing well, giving our customers lots of stories, being really clear on the processes that they need to move forward. Being personal, right? Getting the quote out to them both face-to-face and via email, right? Lots of cool things that we look at what we're doing well. And what I want you to do is say, okay, great, these are the areas I think we've got covered. So it's always good when you start these type of exercises in a positive manner because when you do start to look at areas you can improve, they can be a little bit challenging, right? And I like to make sure that as a business we have the right headspace when we're getting into this. So take those areas we do well and just put them to one side for now. The second thing to do is to then look and say, okay, where do we need to improve? Now that can be a challenge in itself for businesses because sometimes they don't know what they don't know, right? And they're not actually sure where their business isn't working well. Now that's the point where you'll generally go and talk to your team, talk to your customers, or even more impactfully, get some help, right? We're here, we can help you as you need to with it. But certainly that's not the point of this podcast, right? Because it is an exercise you can certainly do the first parts of on your own. So we've had a look at what you're doing well. The second thing is to look at where you need to improve. So if we use this quote example as our case study for today, did you agree with the customer what you were going to do next post the quote? Did we have a job for the customer once we left, right, that they were going to do and they were going to move forward with? Did we ask them what they'd like to do next? Was our quote sharp, right? Was it really easy to read? Did we confirm with the customer that we've ticked off everything they needed? Right now, these are small things versus some larger things that says, are we too slow to quote? Is our quote itself not engaging? Our sales team not actually asking the right questions of customers, so we're doing the wrong quotes. Are we pricing inaccurately? Right? You know, we hate to talk about price being the reason that people win or lose deals, but it's really important to review and make sure that we are in the right ballpark with our customers. I generally say 0 to 5%, if you're creating value, you should never lose deals. 5 to 10%. So to give an example of this, of an area where we might need to improve is if it's pricing. I generally say that if we are in 0 to 5% of our competition, we should be able to win every deal based on value. If we're between 5 and 10%, right, then we need to be making sure we're clearly creating that value. And then if we're above 20%, then we need to be really clear with our customers around why they should be choosing us over other people. Thankfully, most of the businesses I work with generally are in the premium space, so they're pretty well versed at doing this. But what I often find is that it's not their pricing that needs to improve, but how they communicate the value that it creates. So there's a slightly deeper example around an area where you might identify that you need to improve. So we're building on episode 248, we're into 249 today, and it's all about what you can do to improve where you find that gap in your sales offering. So first of all, have a look at what you do well. Secondly, have a think about where you need to improve. And then your third exercise in your last part for today is define what success looks like in that improvement. Is it quoting within 5 days instead of 7 days? Is it increasing the storytelling that you have across your quote templates? Is it simply agreeing with your customer on what your next steps are or confirming with them that you've ticked off everything they need? But when you can define what success looks like based on where you need to improve, that allows you to then go and execute the improvement, review its progress, refine. And from there you review, refine, review, refine, review, refine. It's a really nice cycle to get involved with when it comes to improvement because certainly my experience is that When I work with a business who starts to improve, they get that appetite to want to do more and more and more, and they simply continue to roll it out from there. So 248, 249 episodes, package deal here. 248 was all about finding the area of your sales process where you're losing customers the most, and episode 249 is all about what you can do to fix that. So number 1, what you do well. Number 2, where you need to improve. And number 3, what success looks like. So your action item from today is, if not, If you haven't already, go and listen to episode 248 and review your last 20 lost deals. From there, I'd like you to have a think about, okay, can I find an hour where I will look at one of the areas we found that we're not doing well? Have a look at what we're doing well, have a think about where we need to improve, and then just pick one of those that you could define what success looks like. One area from your business where you're losing customers, where you think you can improve, and go and play with that. I'm always happy to hear about what that is. So let me know, please, easy to contact us. Let me know if you'd like some, just some thoughts around that. But at the same time, if you are quoting over and over again and you're not winning enough deals, it's getting increasingly frustrating. Well, then I think my advice is that if you don't change something, you're probably going to get those results again and again and again. So please go and take our free quote quiz audit. It's in the show notes. It's super quick. And I personally review every single response. Otherwise, that's it for today. Please keep thinking about how you can be 1% better each and every day, because it does make all the difference. Bye for now.