The key to success in business, recession or not, is to increase your sales… so we’d like to share with you some of our strategies for achieving a better win rate.
Ultimately, what you’re looking for is a way to convince clients to buy from you, not from your competitors – so your sales technique is of paramount importance, and there are ways in which you can increase sales through better communication with current and potential customers.
Making new sales is not only critical to business growth, it’s key to maintaining an existing level of activity too, since it is inevitable that clients will be lost at some point – and this can be due to factors outside your control, such as corporate consolidation or relocation.
However, there are some factors that are definitely within your control. Often a client will switch suppliers if they feel that there isn’t a significant drawback to this action, so you not only need to make sure your services or products are ticking their boxes, but that you are building the business relationship too. If a client feels ignored, or you only contact them when you’re looking to sell something or there’s a problem that needs solving, it’s easier for them to take the decision to go elsewhere. Always keep in touch with your client proactively, just to see how things are going for them, and to check they are happy with the service they are receiving from you. Make sure they feel valued.
Another common reason for a customer switching suppliers is that they believe they can get similar (or even better) value elsewhere, because they don’t see you as being different – but we’ll come on to how you can combat this in a moment.
They say knowledge is power, and nowhere is this more apt than in business. Do you know what your current win rate is? If not, take time to look at how many contracts you pitched for over the last year, and out of those, what proportion were actually won. You should be aiming for a rate of around 66%, or two-thirds.
If you want to improve this rate, there are two ways of going about it – obtaining more wins, or reducing the number of attempts made. In hard times it’s tempting to take the ‘I can’t afford to be fussy’ approach when it comes to new business leads, but this can be counter-productive. Bear in mind that going after jobs that you’ve not got a good chance of winning means you’ve got a fairly good chance of discovering your time, effort and resources have been wasted.
But how do you achieve more wins? Well, once you’ve ensured you’re pitching to the right kind of company, it’s all about communicating how your business can help to make theirs great. Yes, that’s right – you don’t want the emphasis on how brilliant your company is, but on how it can help the client company achieve brilliance themselves.
Many pitches start with the credentials of the business doing the pitching – but this can be a mistake, since not only is your focus on the wrong business in the potential partnership, but you’ll be taking a similar line to all the other presentations that the client company will have ever seen. The simplest place to start is on your presentation or slide titles – for example, re-work ‘proposal to client X’ into the infinitely more engaging ‘how company Y can add value to client X’. Then, rather than this more usual thought process underlying your presentation’s structure:
Ø We have great credentials in your field
Ø Therefore we get it right first time
Ø Therefore you spend less time/money on this particular area
Ø Therefore you have more time to spend on your core business
Ø Therefore you can achieve your business goals more quickly
Try this one:
Ø You can achieve your business goals more quickly
Ø Because you have more time to spend on your core business
Ø Because you spend less time/money on this particular area
Ø Because we get it right first time
Ø Because we have great credentials in your field
By including case studies of clients you have helped to achieve their objectives, you’re not just providing evidence of your effectiveness, you’re helping to differentiate your business from the competition. If you explain that you have increased client A’s market share by X%, it’s a point of differentiation, because chances are you will have been the only company to have increased client A’s market share by X%.
Speaking of existing clients, speak to your existing clients. This will help you to maintain your focus in the right way – find out what made them choose your company, and make sure you implement this in your future new business activity. It’s also useful when it comes to making sure you really know what the benefits of your offering are, because benefits are only truly benefits if perceived so by your customers. Tap into what they value, and you’ll find that the information will prove invaluable to you.
Remember, no business will buy from you if you simply blow your own trumpet – you need to illustrate how you can help them to sound a fanfare. If your proposal proves that you can deliver this value to them, they will become your customers.
