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Can A Company Generate An Additional 20% Or More In Sales In Lean Times? Take two random companies “A” and “B”. They are both facing stiff competition and times are lean and the marketing and sales budgets are fixed in stone; how would they go about increasing sales revenue? The marketing manager from company “A” might try to convince the finance department to increase its budget or try to invoke a jolt of energy into the sales force via pep talks or threats to increase sales for the upcoming quarter. This approach, though it might work in the short-term, is generally very stressful and less predictable in the long-term. When quotas aren’t met everyone usually begins to trade blame which leads to more frustrations. Is their another way? Enter the world where easy innovations are part of the job. They are simple because just about everyone can innovate with a few applications of their imagination. This is the process company “B” uses to thrive. So where would you go to find examples you could use as models? There are several sources. You could hop over to amazon.com or your favorite book store for any number of books on marketing and business innovation. For those who would like to get started immediately I have written a free booklet that provides examples of how these simple innovations are carried out. The booklet is titled “5 Cost-free Examples of Marketing and Sales Innovations That Can Increase Revenues By More Than 20%” and is available at http://www.UsefulBizTips.com. Also, I recommend the book “Turn Your Imagination Into Money” by the late Ray Giles. It’s among the best books on marketing and sales innovation. It’s available at http://www.ImaginationBook.com for $29.95. The resources above will show that the solution to company “A’s” approach is a commitment to innovation that creates a hassle-free environment while improving sales. One might ask, why doesn’t company “A” implement this approach? There are several reasons, such as ignorance of alternatives and the ease with which a simple innovation program can be implemented. So, a marketing manager might say, I know it’s important to innovate but how do I get my employees to innovate and how much will it cost in time and real dollars? Other obstacles include employees who are reluctant to committing themselves to an innovation program. However, if the right incentives are in place few would object. Imagine if the sales manager had to lay off a few workers in a short while and were to say to them, if you can find a unique way to improve sales, then the additional revenues would help to justify to the higher-ups to keep everyone. In fact, this example was used in Giles book to show how quickly sales rose by 20% when one sales manager tried this approach. And best of all it didn’t cost much - no money, only a little time. This is the kind of virtually-cost-free innovation that caused company “B” to excel. Company “B” excels because it’s committed to an innovations program and people will take innovation seriously if they realize that as innovation increases so does sales and so does their commissions and bonuses. So company “B” has a successful feedback mechanism where everyone wins. The company wins with additional revenues, the marketing manager wins with a bigger bonus, less headache and less pep talk and the sales force wins with greater commissions. Over time, company “B” will have a well tested and highly optimized sales process that yields great results and increases their share of the market. Isn’t this a process that every company wants? It can be implemented and best of all it’s cost-free.
This article was posted on October 30, 2005
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