Driving More Revenue: It's Never in the Budget

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You need more sales -- more revenue to be exact -- but there is "no budget" to spend on marketing. Sound familiar?

Maybe, just maybe, more marketing spending is not what you need.

Whenever I sit in a meeting about prospects, we discuss the biggest challenges that salespeople face. Number one is always sales or attaining revenue. The funny thing about that however, is there is often an assumption that with more lead generation, more marketing dollars or more advertising, the sales team will be able to sell more.

Don't get me wrong, your prospects still have a need for what you sell and it's important for them to know you exist, but even with the best prospects or greatest lead list, if your sales people are not at the top of their game, you will lose way more then you will win.

Think seriously about shifting your focus to what you can control. OK, there is no money in the budget to do more marketing, so take what you have and make sales managers and sales people better.

Focus your energy and the money you do have on your sales managers:

• Put a program in place to assure they are spending time with the sales people who have the greatest opportunity to improve.
• Start tracking your sales team's leading indicators, such as who they are calling on, how often, and what products they are presenting.
• Assign your managers the task of tracking subjective data. For instance, rate the reps' ability to present your products, their knowledge of the message, and their ability to sell.
• Spend what money you have on taking away administrative tasks from the sales managers and provide them with a system or tool to track, manage, monitor leads, and coach.

Ask yourself the hard question: How do we make quota this year? And realize that the answer to this question requires you to understand every person on your team and their ability to deliver.