Here’s a silly question… Would you like your company to hit its sales and revenue generation targets reliably and predictably? I’m going to go out on a limb and say the answer is yes ????.  There is a very simple recipe to make this happen.  Implement it and you will be golden. It’s called The 4 R’s. Here it is…

If your sales team does The Right Things, The Right Way, To the Right Degree, at the Right Time your company will hit its revenue generation goals reliably and predictably.

Here’s how it works…

The Right Things: Having a detailed process flow that inventories all of the “right things” your sellers should be doing over the course of every sale will ensure that each sales opportunity is given its’ chance to convert into a happy paying customer. Sales process steps being skipped is the death-knell for a deal.  If you’ve ever done a post-mortem on a lost opportunity and said “if we’d only done this one extra thing we would’ve closed it” you’ll know what I mean.

The Right Way: If your sales team is doing all the Right Things but in the wrong way then of course results will be variable. For each of your “Right Things” have a corresponding “Right Way to Do It”.  The right way usually comes from a] studying the sales that you have won and distilling out best practices for each of the sales process steps and b] studying the ones you lost, finding the tripping points and taking them off your Right Way list.

The Right Degree: Once your team is clear on what to do and how to do it this 3rd factor relates to how much of each thing they are doing. If your team applies all their energy to closing deals and none to filling the top of the funnel you know what happens. Sales is very much a balancing act of doing the right amount of each thing so that you achieve optimal sales velocity and deal size.

The Right Time: Prime Selling Time refers to sellers reaching out to buyers and conducting meetings when those buyers are available. If you are doing the right thing [for instance sales lead research] at the wrong time [in the middle of the business day when you should be having buyer facing meetings] sales results will suffer. Honouring Prime Selling Time helps to focus your team on executing sales activities at the time of the day, week or month that will give them the highest likelihood of revenue generation productivity and success.

The 4 R’s recipe is by no means complicated. The thing about it is that you need to build out the recipe based upon your sales situation. If your company sells airplanes your 4 R recipe will look much different than a company who sells office supplies. If your company sells to senior decision makers at Fortune 500s your 4 R recipe will likely look much different than someone who sells to local SMEs.

As I know you have already guessed, the secret to making the 4 R’s work for you and your company lies in clearly defining what the Right Things, Right Way, Right Degree and Right Time are [to the granular level] for your company in your industry and geography.  Accomplishing this requires a focused and purposeful effort. It doesn’t happen in a one hour meeting. It might take several meetings over the course of a month to capture all of the elements and refine them into your 4 R’s recipe.  Distill the map down to its elements, embed it into your CRM, let your sales team bring it to life and watch meeting your sales goals become a thing of reliable and predictable beauty. 

If you have any questions about this process and how to undertake it please let me know. I’m always happy to help.