Why time and continuity are critical in sales

3,5 minute read

All companies we work with want to grow, which is pretty obvious, otherwise we would be out of business. Some of them aim at a slow but steady growth throughout the years, others are a little more ambitious. It doesn’t matter what your growth strategy looks like, only one thing is certain; your revenue has to increase, and more sales leads to more revenue. This article tackles a few issues company leaders are facing, and why time and continuity are of essence between making decisions and taking action. It all starts with identifying the need to invest in sales and the room for improvement in your sales processes.

Let’s suppose a company determines its strategy for the next coming year and aims to grow its revenue with 30%. Everyone in the company agrees they should attract more sales, in order to generate more revenue. A lot of managers or founders (especially in start/scale-ups) often take the sales part for their account. But not all of them have a commercial background and therefore no experience in sales. E.g. they manage the company 3 days a week doing managerial stuff, and the other days are for sales. This situation clearly isn’t ideal. Imagine all your sales meetings or calls have to be scheduled only those few days you’re doing sales, clearly this situation is not sustainable. Sales should be done consistently, in order to guarantee continuity.

Here’s a situation we often encounter: when a CEO decides to invest in sales, they mainly target their own network at first. Often resulting in mis-hires, due to the lack of the right fit and restricted network. Sometimes they appeal to an agency or a similar institution after a while. In turn they will also have to set up a sourcing strategy in order to find a good match. After a few weeks (best case scenario), the CEO can finally hire an appropriate sales person with the right profile and the right background.

Let’s take a closer look at this not so ideal situation. The company appointed its priorities and decided it should focus on sales. But it takes months before they hire their first sales person, so there’s a large time-period where sales is not running smoothly. This means that for months, there hasn’t been much lead generation, account management or business development.

It’s clear the CEO is facing some opportunity costs here. What he/she could have done better is make sure that sales was up and running from the moment they decided to invest in sales. One scenario could’ve been to hire a sales profile that makes sure leads are generated, that potential clients are identified, prospect approached, … And whilst looking for a permanent business developer(s), he/she could have made appeal to an interim sales person or sales consultant.

The main issue in this particular situation is the awareness to invest in sales in order to grow and make more revenue, and the time it takes before they can properly start focusing on sales. You can have the best developers or engineers in the world, the most innovative product, but without a productive sales department, achieving growth will be tough.

After a company has made the investment in sales and they set up a performing sales team, the CEO still faces a few uncertainties. One of the biggest issues here, is whether the person that has just been hired, will stay in the company for a longer period. It happens that people leave the company, which brings us back to the beginning of the process described in this article. The CEO should come up with a way to make sure to keep the revenue generating machine running, even when someone quits. That’s the reason why SDR’s for example are so important, to keep the motor running. Thus more experienced Business Development Managers or Account Managers can focus on making new clients or maintain a good relationship with current ones. This is why thinking of alternatives while hiring on a permanent basis could be a solution.

In conclusion, we often notice that a company is missing out on a lot of revenue or opportunities because they’re indecisive when it comes to sales. We believe when it comes to sales, you have to be creative and consider alternatives. And once you find that ideal sales person for your company, he/she will be worth the investment.

 Do you have trouble growing your business, feel free to reach out to us so we can have a chat.