by Pietro Savo ©2007

Winning new business or sustaining existing business is directly related to urgency. Urgency in the eyes of your customer can yield you greater business opportunities. Opportunities that will be awarded to someone, and why should this someone not be you? Holistic approach to winning quoted awards is directly linked to your customer’s urgency and your urgency to respond to that customer. Urgency is the key; your response speed sends a clear message to your customer that:

1. WOW! “I’m ready to do business with you!”
2. “I’m confident, let’s get started!”
3. “You are important to me and I can help!”

Persuading customers that it would be better for them to work with your company because you recognize their sense of urgency is easy to implement because the resources are already in place. Ideas don't always have to be dramatic or terribly creative to drive successful sales. Urgency trends have a dramatic effect on businesses. Your sense of urgency creates a powerful perception that you are the right vendor and service provider, right now and today! An area that is often difficult to nail down because we are focused on the ultimate goal of higher sales we lose sight of a critical part of being in business. Achieving higher sales becomes the target and not our true business reality.

It is essential to figure out exactly who your potential customers are and to describe them in your core business plan. Being clear on what your company does best, your strength business, is critical. We get caught in the “quote-everything-itis syndrome.” Quote-Everything-Itis Syndrome is a common disease that companies find themselves engaged in. Companies don’t even realize they are doing it. The only clear sign is that sales goals never seem to be reached, and great frustration tends to be the norm because you don’t have enough time to quote efficiently and smartly. We quote every request for proposal (RFP) and request for quote (RFQ) that comes across our sales team’s desks even if it’s something we have never done before. Have you ever heard or said this phrase yourself? “Don’t worry if we win the job, we will figure out how to get it done.” There is an old culture out there that believes that increased sales are a result of quoting everything. This quoting strategy gives the false perception that the sales team is working very hard. What happens next is we have tons of RFP and RFQ backlog, we need more resources, we add more staff resources, the backlog reduces, and then it begins to increase once again, establishing a vicious cycle of wasted resources.

To evaluate whether or not to quote something is simple. When the RFP or RFQ ends up on your desk, ask yourself one question. “Can we do this?” If the answer is “yes,” quote it. If the answer is “I think we can do this” or “I want to do this” or “no,” don’t quote it. In aviation we have a famous saying when determining whether or not to fly the airplane that particular day. If you say to yourself. “I think I can make it,” stay on the ground and don’t fly the airplane. More egos kill pilots then mechanical errors. The same thought process applies to quoting work. Be sure you can make it happen and then quote it!

Staying within your core business is the first important lesson in holistically improving sales; the second lesson which is just as critical is speed to proposal and quote. With speed to proposal or quote, a hot zone correlation between responding to leads, RFPs, RFQs, and submitting a quote to the customer exists. The increase in awards is significant if you stay within the hot zone (2 to 4 working days). It does not matter if this is for manufacturing parts, services, or consulting. Hot zone correlation is easy to measure: improve the flow = greater sales. This sends a clear message to customers that you are confident that you can get the job done. Quoting on projects within your core also drives efficiency, allowing a high percentage of quotes to be submitted within the hot zone. Quoting on projects within your core is easier because you have experience and history in gathering all parts of a quote or proposal. Parts such as outside vendor support, materials, labor hours, and scheduling is part of your established cultural knowledge base. The advantage of staying within your cultural knowledge base includes improving internal and external collaboration for better productivity and efficiency, mining data better to understand which programs and which customers to emphasize, and allocating resource time to consumer-centric activities.

Conclusion. The holistic approach upon success in sales evolves around:

1. Relationships, face-to-face is better, because the human attention span is short, this is a human factors resource element, and focus on the quoting hot zone of 2 to 4 working days.
2. Urgency, in the customers mind “Think Customer’s Pain Reduction.”
3. Providing credible services by staying in your core business to drive positive customer perceptions.

The holistic sales approach is not an overhaul of your sales force. Holistic sales approach becomes a strategic focus on your company’s experience, comfort zone, and elimination of past sales frustrations.

About the Author. Pietro's human factors career focuses on improving manufacturing and plant operations in Automotive, Aerospace, Defense Manufacturing Companies. He has over 25 years experience in Operations, Engineering, Manufacturing, Quality Systems (TQM), Material Management and Lean Manufacturing with high emphasis on ISO quality systems; application at lean principles, capacity planning , inventory control, and employee productivity. His relevant applicable experience involves working with over 75 small to medium size manufacturers in the Department of Defense Supply Chain solutions. He is an alumnus of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Sacred Heart University, and Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. He served honorably in the United States Navy. He is also a licensed pilot.

The results of our customer survey are in. Here is what we have discovered...

1. 75% said we do a yearly customer satisfaction survey.
2. 75% said we do re-contact customers 30 days after job completion to inquire about satisfaction or problems.
3. 100% said that the company trains every employee who has a touch point with customers.
4. 75% said the company does survey customers to be sure they are happy with the way they are treated.
5. 100% said that the company receives at least 20% of new business from current customers.
6. 100% said that the company trains every employee who has a touch point with customers on standards of behavior for customer loyalty.
7. 25% said there is a sense of mission and engagement in our staff; 75% said that there is mostly a sense of mission and engagement in our staff.

Tip #79: Identify the beliefs and assumptions that create roadblocks. Develop a strategy that overcomes those roadblocks. Be sure to communicate, communicate, and communicate some more.

This tip is from our booklet, 104 Tips on How to Ignite and Optimize Your Business and its Leaders by Bonni Carson DiMatteo. Filled with great tips on Leadership, Managing Others, Communication Skills, Strategic Planning, and Creating and Igniting Change, 104 Tips makes a great gift for vendors and customers alike. You can even have it customized with your logo and business name on the cover.

Assessment Tools: We have become certified a number of new instruments.

1. 360 Leadership Effectiveness Analysis. Based on the research of Management Resource Group (MRG), this instrument measures the following key elements of leadership:
   • Creating a vision
   • Developing a follower ship
   • Implementing the vision
   • Following through
   • Achieving results
   • Team work
2. Strategic Directions, Role Expectations, and Leadership Culture. Strategic Directions enables a company to identify what key behavior, practices, and roles they need to develop to achieve the results for their strategic direction.

View Bonni's article, "Does Your Company Have the N.O.M.A.R Syndrome?", which appeared in Executive Excellence in Sales and Service in December 2004. The article (yes, it was written before the World Series championship!) challenges leaders to look at themselves and their executive team, and ask the tough questions like Theo Epstein might have to ask to select and groom a winning team. Read the N.O.M.A.R. article (pdf format).

View Bonni's article on Quiet Leadership, which recently appeared in IndUS Business Journal.

Don't miss our next Biz Builder series, beginning in March in Wellesley. Complete our registration form to enroll in the Biz Builder Workshop.

Do you find yourself without a strategy or action plan to keep your business pipeline flowing? This Biz Builder Six-Week Workshop will get you back on track.

Who: For Professional Service Providers: consultants, lawyers, financial planners, coaches, etc.

What: A six-week Business Development Program to create your own strategic plan and strengthen your business.

When: Meets every other week for six weeks (3 meetings)
Next workshop begins March 2007
New groups begin each quarter: November, March, May, September

Where: Wellesley, MA

Facilitator: Bonni Carson DiMatteo, CMC. President of Atlantic Consultants. Bonni co-founded Atlantic Consultants in 1982 and provides coaching, training, and consultation to entrepreneurs and their companies.

Fee: $450
20% discount for ACC clients
10% discount for IMCNE, NESAP, ODLG, and BFR members

"Executives are focusing on how to build a flexible and responsive organization to more quickly detect and respond to market opportunities," according to Forbes editor John Dobosz and GartnerG2 Research Director Neil McDonald (April 2004).

What are you doing to build your leadership competencies?

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• Do you know that to replace a key employee is estimated to be 1% to 2.5% of company revenue or between $10K and $100K per employee depending on level? (source: ASTD)
• Do you know that the TRS (Total Return to Shareholders) on training that increases development, communication, and morale is up to 200%? (source: SHRIM)
• Do you know that research indicates that there is an average of 5.7 ROI for coaching key employees? (source: Manchester Group)
• Do you want to retain top talent and groom them for the next level?

Then you want the Next Level Leadership Program. This cutting edge program combines:

• Leadership/management training (3 workshops)
• Assessment of core competencies
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And all for less than it would cost you to send a manager to an offsite three-day leadership program.