Chris Griffiths
I’m a big fan of building repeatable systems into small businesses. I’m not referring to the kind of corporate, mind numbing, paperwork and data collection systems that can sometimes appear in very large businesses. Instead, I like simple processes that everyone can use to get goals accomplished; the kind of systems that are easy to communicate with staff, and on which small business owners can rely on to get done, every day.
When it comes to sales efforts, however, I rarely see small business owners put systems in place. I see peaks and valleys of proactive sales generation, usually inspired by a slow month and a panicky owner or manager.
My preference when building simple sales systems is to keep the frequency high and the time investment low. Put another way, I always look for ways to do less more often, as opposed to periodic batch work. This applies to work flow on the factory floor, bookkeeping and administrative tasks and yes, sales systems.
While certain cycles in your business might create peak periods of sales activity, like back to school or Christmas, that doesn’t mean the rest of the year is a wash. The best way to set yourself up for success is to build a routine that keeps your business top of mind all year long.
Let’s look at one example of a sales system: outgoing customer telephone solicitation. The first step is likely data collection. I have written about this important business asset before. If your company is B2B (business to business) you probably have loads of contact information about your customers at the ready. If not, what are you waiting for? You need to populate contact management software, even Microsoft Outlook’s Contact Manager will do, with names, numbers, emails and addresses.
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