Building an effective sales capability

Building an effective sales capability is central to successfully taking your innovation to market. Developing such a capability is much more than hiring good salespeople – although that is frequently (but not always) a key ingredient. It is about developing a professional, systematic set of processes, providing the right training and coaching, implementing the right metrics and rewards, all with the right context of other strategies and capabilities.

In Blue Mine Group’s innovation methodology, sales effectiveness is predicated on several critical elements. You must have clear market focus on an identifiable customer. Your customer must have an urgent need, that is not currently being satisfied by alternate options. You offering must meet your customer’s needs in all key respects – product functionality, pricing, availability, support, and many others. You must have in place a sound marketing communications program, that provides effective messaging, relationship and reputation building initiatives. Your operations, delivery and support processes must deliver great customer experiences, that drive loyalty and referrals. Absent any of these, no matter how good your sales process, you will struggle to get traction and win customers.

Our sales effectiveness model comprises five key elements: organization, prospecting, account development, sales opportunities and sales management. We will discuss each of these over the next few posts.