"Burns' Business Builder" by Steve Burns

The Sales Overhaul - Step 1 - The Sales Audit
This article is part of a series of articles designed to help you completely "overhaul" your business. Previous articles looked at the issue of overhauling your leadership, marketing, and sales efforts (see www.steveburns.ca/articles.htm for past articles). This article is the second in a series designed to help you overhaul your sales efforts.

It is critical that you passionately and consistently reevaluate your business. That is why you need a "Sales Audit" to determine what issues need to be addressed in your sales area. Better to head off a problem now than to try to react when sales start dropping.

Just a word of caution to consider. Take the time to have someone independent of your organization perform the Sales Audit. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, an objective, independent assessment is really valuable. You need no hidden agendas with nothing to protect. Secondly, performing an internal assessment can put your employees in a difficult position by fueling conflict, distrust and animosity. Nothing is worth sacrificing your positive culture.

The following is an outline of my Sales Audit Process, which can be applied to any business, regardless of industry, market focus or size.

What Is the Profile Of Your Ideal Customer?

• What is the profile of your ideal customer? What key characteristics do these customers possess that differentiate them from other customers?
• If each sales person were to segment their current customer base and their prospects, how many would meet our ideal customer profile? Why?

What Are Your Sales Goals and Performance Measures?

• Have realistic and achievable sales goals been established?
• Are innovative measures such as Return on Assets Managed (ROAM) used to measure the performance of individual sales professionals or the team?
• Have individual sales professionals and the sales team met their sales goals or quotas consistently over the last six months? If yes, why? If not, why not?
• What sales tools/technology is currently being used? Is it helping you to better track and manage the performance of your sales team?

How Does Your Sales Team Spend Their Time?

• What percentage of time do your sales professionals spend between conquests of new business versus maintenance of existing customer relationships?
• What is the average number of hours per week that your sales professionals work? How does this compare between your sales professionals?
• What percentage of their time is spent in direct selling activities such as face to face or over the telephone sales versus other activities such as traveling, waiting and administrative tasks?

What Sales System Are You Using and Does It "Fit"?

• Do you have a defined sales system that fits well with how your customers buy from you? Are you currently using a relationship selling process, a transactional selling process or something different? Why?
• Have you reevaluated your sales process/system in the past year to determine if the system still fits? If yes, what were the results? If not, why not?
• Do you use a reliable sales tracking/funnel system? How often do those customers that appear deep down the funnel in one month, disappear the next month?

How Do You Evaluate Sales Performance?

• What is your hiring process for sales professionals? Is it working?
• What has your sales turnover been and why?
• How much training is provided to existing sales professionals? How do you ensure that they stay motivated and sharp?
• How does your sales compensation practices compare with like companies and best industry practices?

What Do Your Customers Think of Your Sales Team?

• What do your customers think of your sales team? How would they rate them on a number of factors such as: responsiveness to your needs; communication skills; product knowledge; attitude; creativity, etc.?

How Well Can Your Sales Team Describe...

• How their product or service is unique.
• What their customers really value about their product or service.
• How their customers make their purchase decision and whether or not their sales method matches how customers buy.
• How their own sales effort could be improved.
• What needs to change for the company's current sales effort to produce better results?

If performed with brutal honesty, this Sales Audit Process will help uncover the real issues that must be addressed in your sales area.

Next week we will go through a specific example of a Sales Audit scenario. This will help you translate the audit process and questions into a tangible Sales Overhaul Action Plan that implements change in your sales efforts and helps you to achieve the new results that you are looking for.

"The joy of owning your own business is that you have the freedom to create a fresh start at any moment you choose - make the choice to act now!" Michael Gerber, Author of The E-Myth Revisited, Why Most Small Businesses Fail And What To Do About It.

Steve Burns, CA, CMC, CFP is the President and CEO of Burns Innovation Group Inc. and Steve Burns Inc. Chartered Accountant, which provide innovative consulting and accounting services to Okanagan entrepreneurs. Steve can be reached at 763-4716, via email at steve@burnsinnovation.com or steve@steveburns.ca

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