Blog post by Tom Ball
Thought for the quarter
Owen Ashby - changes in sales approach born out of the ‘New World Order’
The calm after the storm seems to be providing those with the ambition, the opportunity to completely re-think how they go about running their business.
What seemed to work in the ‘old world’ turns out not to have been anywhere near robust enough to withstand the test of an angry, volatile and vengeful marketplace and certainly looks very quickly to be anachronistic in the ‘new world order’. No question it’s a hard lesson for us all, but for some, the chance to take stock and think again is netting some surprising returns….
We’re finding that just about everyone we speak to is prepared to look at new and innovative ways of engaging customers, building dialogues and selling. It seems that while we were all happy to race along on the crest of the ‘old world wave’ no one had time, inclination or need to consider what might be flawed in our approach to these challenges. ‘If it aint broke don’t fix it’ sic . Well it appears it was ‘broke’ is just that it worked well enough to ‘hit the number’ so no one saw the need to change it.
We’re all guilty.
Just as companies have been forced to strip-out overhead and reduce cost and complexity in their operation, so many are looking at the very same challenge in the way that they sell and market their products and services.
I know of one global IT services organisation who has been almost forced (by lack of budget and resources) into using Social Media…..as a result they have witnessed staggering returns that have taken them all aback. I am working with a Financial Services organisation who have changed their whole sales engagement to be more client centric and more impactful….using a big bit of paper (and some Smart Thinking) and who hasn’t heard that Dell is reported to have generated $3M of new business directly through Twitter alone?
Add a comment:
We’ve seen an increase in the number of organisations who are looking to sell differently; to really differentiate themselves within the market. People are asking us if and how they can use a big picture as a sales engagement tool to ensure they stand out and increase conversion ratio.
As you said Owen, like other companies, we’ve had to adapt what we offer in this new marketplace. We’ve been finding a lot of SMEs that would get a lot of value from using the big picture to win more business but can’t afford the full bespoke big picture process. Because of this we’re launching two new big picture options – the Big Picture Express and Big Picture Lite to meet this need.
Big Picture Express is great for companies who want to harness the power of visuals and feel they have a good grasp of their messaging and what clients are looking for and the Big Picture Lite is for clients who would like more insight into the right messaging for prospects but who aren’t able to engage us for the full bespoke big picture process.
By Ellen Coomber on Wednesday, 30-Sep-09
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