Description
Modules
Sales Propositions & Opportunities
Sales Propositions & Opportunities includes the essential checklists for developing new propositions & identifying opportunities to secure further sales orders, many of which may initially be obscure or completely hidden.
Regardless of whether there is a formal sales team or not, as your client account will not survive without new business, everyone who represents your company must be constantly on the lookout for opportunities to secure further work, no matter how small. Their ‘sales-related antenna’ must always be up.
Also, account managers need to ‘think outside of the box’. Ask yourself, ‘is there an opportunity here?’ (for you, others or your company). Opportunities are often disguised, camouflaged by the hubbub of the client’s day-to day business activity. It will help to put yourself in the position of the client and think on their behalf, look at things from their perspective.
Ask yourself why things are being done the way they are, what’s the rationale, the justification – can you think of ways to make things easier, quicker, less stressful? (this will be ‘adding value’ which is particularly important when you are compared against the competition).
Also, when an ‘opportunity’ initially seems very difficult to deliver, be careful not to dismiss it until a brainstorming session has been conducted.
Total Checks & Tips: 70
“without opportunities for sales there is no future”
Sales Opportunity Qualification
Sales Opportunity Qualification provides a unique breakdown of all the checks needed to qualify any sales opportunity throughout the sales process.
Extensive amounts of time and money are frequently wasted in the pursuit of sales opportunities which either don’t result in an order or, where an order is won, there is either a very low profit margin or an actual overall loss. Also, in many ‘lost order’ cases, the supplier had little or no chance of winning the order in the first place.
Such financial losses and disappointments can so often be avoided by performing rigorous qualification to determine the chances of actually winning the order and also minimise the risks should an order be won to undertake work or to provide a service, people or product.
So, various qualification questions are provided in ten separate groups. to make these easier to remember, the first letter of each group name is used to create the acronym COSMONAUTS (competition, opportunity, solution, money, objective, need, authority, unique, timescale, size).
Not all the questions are for the client directly. Some of the information will already be held in the account file &/or known by the account manager and some by people who have worked, or are currently working, for the client in question. Other information may also be obtained from the client’s website, PR office, annual report & accounts, etc.
Total Questions: 72
“inadequate qualification of sales opportunities can have disastrous financial consequences and a very damaging effect on morale”
