The intellectual business space has been awash recently with ideas, concepts and strategies propounded by highly respected experts on how value-delivering organizations are coping with the business environment. Organizations’ state of health, growth, and of course prosperity if they have been able to take advantage of opportunities the hard times have been throwing at us.
In this write-up, I will go beyond the shallow waters and dig a little bit deeper. I will also buttress my self- avowed belief that intelligently carried-through selling analytics with creativity, are the cornerstones of growth and prosperity.
First, let me state the following facts: Businesses can build and achieve healthy momentum and drive profitability and growth simultaneously, no matter the situation. There is nothing like a “growth industry”, but we can always organize and operate businesses to create and capitalize on growth opportunities. It is unreasonable to believe that you can ride on assumed growth escalator because of perceived strength and seemingly unchallenged superiority of product or service. This can fail you. Sales strategy must be based on the values-to-customers model to achieve success. We can achieve predictable and reliable inflow by benchmarking on ROR-driven customer success.
To creditably determine the health of organisations, I will use four (4) types of performance indicators namely; Key Financial Indicators (KFI), Key Performance Indicators (KPI), Key Knowledge Indicators (KKI) and Key Behavioral Indicators(KBI).
The first one is very popular but limited by the fact that it offers strictly the financial view of the organization’s health namely; growth profitability, liquidity leverage and activities that are essential to the survival of the organization.
In my article last week, titled “Higher Performance through New Sciences”, I gave an overview of KKI, the Key Knowledge Indicator or tool for ensuring knowledge and employee engagement.
Please note that the key to monitoring and achieving quicker operational excellence (with all indicators), is “Customer Satisfaction”. Before I continue, let me give some useful ideas about selling. I mentioned earlier that your strategy must be values-to-customers oriented not product or service oriented. Organizations through daily feedbacks from customers and sales people, must continually adapt values to the requirements of the market. You must have deep sensibility. That means, ability to sense, feel, perceive and fully understand what the customers want. Mastery of details of your solutions and their options are only valuable to customers when they are adapted to their levels of knowledge and interest.
Jeremy Raymond, author of “Secrets of Great Salespeople” said: “Selling takes a lot of energy. You kiss a lot of frogs along the way to find your prince.” Salespeople therefore, he added, must be genuinely passionate about outcomes. We are now in the age of customers and the only way to stay competitive in business is to rethink the traditional marketing practices and rules. Tailored customer conversations now win over hard selling. Users of our products and services are the ones determining best content about brands. Our focus, in order to create and generate demand, must be on customers’ feelings and interests.
There is a new metric and narrative on achieving “predictable and assured” revenue, and at the same time phenomenal growth. It is, through precise and systematic management of old customers and the outbound sales teams. Aaron Ross, renowned author of “Predictable Revenue through selling” pointed out that “salespeople do not drive growth, lead generation drives growth and salespeople help fulfil it”.
He mentioned three (3) types of leads. Seeds sown through word-of-mouth can profoundly grow sales; Nets or dynamic marketing; Spears: the outbound one-to-one prospecting of old and adaptably-grown loyal customers and the new ones.
Organizations must deliberately and systematically pursue renewals by adopting customers through the value roadmap feedback. Smart Companies must run always, with the rule that “you must not lose a customer” (although you may lose a few or not lose any at all). You can take it to the bank that if you make your customer happy, you will get more customers from the existing ones and their word-of-mouth will deliver more loyal customers. When organizations give customers genuinely value-adding support and not “glorified or after-thought” support, they become reliable advocates and very effective foot soldiers.
Organizations must therefore invest deliberately in building “Customer Success”. Please note that your customers as advocates and reliable soldiers will definitely create the word-of-mouth loop that leads to substantial and predictable revenue. An amazing job that must be continuously achieved by the sales team is to ensure “a second order” from every customer.
Do you know that diligent management of continuous patronage by every customer will definitely deliver predictable and reliable revenue? That is why investment in customer success is very critical to achieving growth. It delivers the most reliable return on investment or ROI. Results of recent researches have revealed that customer success is five times more important and reliable. Visiting and regularly engaging existing customers, guarantee their loyalty through “regularly adaptable values”. This is the greatest form of ROR or return on relationship. As said earlier, systematically holding-on and building this essential relationship can even be more rewarding than going after new ones.
Churn is a major obstacle in managing customers for lifetime value. Churn happens when the customer switches his service provider or the brand that he has been patronizing. When customer success is enhanced, it automatically halts the trajectory of churning.
Let me conclude by reiterating the point I made earlier that people buy not just because of function but also, perceived benefits. Utility of a product or service is its ability to deliver an “utmost satisfying experience”. The benefits must be on three levels: physical, logical and emotional. The outcome is the mental equation that we refer to as the Customer Perceived Value (CPV). Organizations must always and systematically improve and promote these CPVs.
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