The roles, responsibilities, and behaviors of the typical sales manager are defined by the objectives by which they are measured. In most cases, their performance and their compensation are closely linked to increasing revenues. As a result, the metrics they use to measure and influence the performance of their sales team is almost exclusive focused on new account activity. After all, more customers equals increased revenues. Unfortunately, this is not entirely correct.
Revenue and sales growth comes from several sources:
- New products and services to new customers
- Existing products and service to new customers
- New products and services to existing customers
- Introducing additional products and services to existing customers
Sales managers singularly focused on new account acquisition are missing out on a big component of the growth model. There are two growth channels that exist in every business: existing customers and new customers. Unfortunately, most sales departments appear to overlook existing customers as they continually pursue their next customer.
It is the existing customer that much easier to sell more to: they know you, they know your product, they know your business, and they already have a relationship with you. Expanding the sales relationships with existing customers is more cost effective and it is more efficient. If that is the case, why do business leaders and sales managers lose sight of the power of expanding existing customer relationships, including being more engaged with customer service?
Sales people and their managers have been taught to close deals and get more clients. Both of those objectives are behaviorally transactional. There is little or nothing in those objectives that says build relationships with your customers. Until businesses educate and develop sales professionals and managers who understand how to build and nurture customer relationships, the emphasis will be on new customers and not on expanding revenues with existing ones.
(This is first of two blog posts. Tomorrow: Changing the Transactional Mindset.)
