Do you want to increase your company’s sales? Have you considered hiring a sales consultancy?
It could be what you need to generate results in your business, especially in the medium and long term.
Understand why!
What is a Commercial Consultancy?
Sales consulting is a service provided by a sales consultant or company specializing in sales with the aim of fixing flaws in a business’s sales process and pointing out improvements that will generate more results to increase sales. Sales consulting is recommended for companies of all sizes, at any stage of growth.
The biggest benefit of having the help of a sales consultancy is that, by having a targeted perspective, it can be more assertive when finding and implementing solutions that help the company increase its sales productivity .
Imagine the role of the consultancy and your company as a relationship between a doctor and a patient. Your company tells you what pains you feel and the consultancy relates the symptoms to the causes and tells you what the treatment should be.
Consultants, then, must carry out a complete analysis and find the root cause of the problem. And they can do this, most of the time, with much more precision and speed than you or your sales manager.
Just like a doctor, according to the symptoms, the consultant bases himself on the hierarchy of organizational problems, makes an in-depth diagnosis and suggests action plans.
The commercial specialty gives the consultancy the ability to prioritize what needs to be done to solve the problem.
What is the difference between Business Consulting and Commercial Consulting?
Imagine again the relationship between doctor and patient and answer: what do you do when you have a serious back problem? Go to the doctor!Do you understand the difference between business consultancy and commercial consultancy?
Business consultancies are more generalist. Some of them involve themselves in several areas of the company, but without going into depth in any one area.
It doesn’t mean that they don’t bring results, but when there is a specific problem, in the case of sales, a commercial/sales consultancy is more assertive.
And even though commercial consultancy is about sales, it must also look at other areas, but the focus is to identify what interferes with the company’s sales productivity.
For this, she needs to be experienced! Experience is something that cannot be replaced. Because it is not just about collecting data, it is about knowing how to accurately read it.
In any case, I understand that there are doubts about whether or not to hire a consultancy, especially a sales consultant. So let’s check whether your company really needs this partnership.
What does a business consultancy do?
The sales consultant analyzes your business’s entire sales process in order to find gaps and make improvements. This is done based on a systemic view of the company, with regard to business objectives, strategies, processes, skills and learning.
Through a methodology, it is possible to bahamas whatsapp data develop specific education programs for the sales team.
And for this to happen perfectly, the consultancy needs to enter the client’s operation, working alongside the professionals in the area in the company to understand the existing problems.
What is the role of the sales consultant?
The commercial consultant is neutral and impartial, and will be focused on solving the deficits. And this is an advantage, especially in large companies, where there are issues of egos, power games and vanity involved.
After all, it is common for companies to get lost internally and end up not defining what their real problems are.
Within these businesses, the commercial director how cato networks grew its business with priority enginet could be responsible for carrying out the role that the consultancy does, but it would be very costly to remove him from the day-to-day operations.
Not to mention that for him to dedicate himself completely, his other tasks would be left unsupervised.
Another great advantage of the consultancy is that it has many competent professionals involved, with diverse experiences.
What are the steps in the consulting process?
The stages of a consultancy process are: business analysis and diagnosis, action plan, implementation of new processes, training, post-consulting management.
Therefore, a diagnosis is first made to identify all the gaps in the commercial operation and, consequently, the necessary solutions are analyzed.
This should involve: strategy, structure, culture, processes, management, people, product mix, HR policies and also the search for technological andorra business directory tools that can assist the activities in that area.
Through education, it must be able to empower salespeople and leaders. Perhaps you believe that your sales manager or HR team can do this.
Is that so? Is the manager, being part of the operation, able to see it in its entirety? And in the case of HR, does he have a practical view of the business and does he have sales professionals to train salespeople?
Do I need to hire a sales consultant?
Hiring a sales consultancy will ensure that flaws in management and the sales process are corrected and gaps in the business are resolved, ensuring better results for the sales team.
Generally, companies that seek the help of a consultancy are looking for a more specialized perspective and guidance on their operations, and in the case of commercial consultancy, a view, obviously, on the commercial area.
Ideally, this specialized partner will offer a systemic diagnosis of all the factors that interfere with your company’s sales operations. Analyze your numbers and see if you need to sell more and increase productivity.
You need sales consultancy when you have been going sideways for years, i.e. without growth; marketing and sales costs increasing every year, without generating greater sales volumes; high turnover and dissatisfaction of the sales team with the company.
If you can’t pinpoint exactly where the flaws are in your sales process, then this could be a sign that you need help.
At this point, the input of a consultancy can be very useful: to identify and provide solutions to the problems your company faces.
There is no point in trying to guess where the errors are, you need to act assertively, but often those involved in the operation cannot see this clearly.
The consultancy, because it is specialized, can get straight to the point.
Furthermore, she has already witnessed other situations similar to yours in other businesses and segments, therefore, she already has a trained eye for finding a solution.
3 reasons to hire a business consultancy
The first thing you should think about is: what could a consultancy do for your business that you wouldn’t be able to do yourself?
Let’s analyze 3 questions:
1. Sales Specialists
As we have already said, the consultancy is specialized in the commercial area.
It means she understands the subject more than anyone else because that’s all they do and they’ve seen it in many different circumstances.
Generally, those within the company are limited to their segment, at most two or three.
The consultancy will have more different ideas, bringing and proposing innovation.
2. Neutrality
Saying that business consultancy is neutral means that it is impartial.
Since companies involve internal political issues, it is often essential to have an impartial third party present to make decisions. The neutrality of the consultancy can mitigate these conflicts.
3. Focus
It also means that the consultant is available to solve the company’s problem.
The consultancy is focused on this.
It is even common for the human resources area to promote productivity increase programs to improve salespeople’s performance.
But have you ever thought about how HR is going to develop a sales program that is truly effective if they are not from the sales area?
They may know a lot in theory, but in practice it is different. And it is not because HR is inefficient, on the contrary, but they are not from this area and will not know what really needs to be done.
When you hire a consultancy, they are responsible for the entire process, from theory to practice. They don’t just provide palliative solutions, but solutions to solve the problem as a whole.
How much does a business consultancy cost?
The value of commercial consultancy varies according to several aspects, such as mentoring time, whether it is in person or online, size of the company and sales team and level of knowledge of the consultants.
Therefore, when deciding which commercial consultancy is best for your business, never use the final price as the only requirement. After all, highly complex and very cheap services are generally not of high quality, making the consultancy no longer an investment but an expense.
When to hire a Commercial Consultancy?
The time to hire a sales consultancy is when your sales area does not deliver the expected results, cannot meet targets and is not very productive, then they are alerts to fix your operation.
And if you have already made investments to try to solve the problem and still haven’t obtained good results, or haven’t even managed to define which aspects are causing the low performance, then commercial consultancy/sales consultancy can be your great ally.
The consultancy will follow your process from ”Strategy to Execution”. I gave a talk about this during RD On The Road – the largest traveling marketing and sales event in Brazil.
If you want to see the full lecture, click here .
How to choose a business consultancy?
Unfortunately, many companies come across very theoretical sales consultancies in the market, which focus on the conceptual side and forget the practical side. And in practice, the theory is different… They suggest business models, structures and processes that solve the administrative areas (back office), but hinder sales operations.
I recently joined a client company and learned about a new area called DPV. Have you heard of it? DPV is an acronym for the Sales Prevention Department. This is the name the sales team is calling the back office, given the bureaucracy that has become institutionalized to make a sale. In short, the consultancy needs to have practical experience aligning strategies with execution.
They do not effectively address the pain points and weaknesses of the sales team.
There is no point in having consultants who lack practical experience and who do not bring their knowledge to the point of sale, to the Route. The best consultants go to the POS/Rota to understand the company’s challenges. It is not very productive to talk about generic things about closing a sale; you need to correct their mistakes at the point of sale.
What consultancies do is transform learning into action, bringing about change and results.
Consulting needs to be committed to results
A business consultancy needs to be committed to the results of your business!
There is no point in simply showing a solution in a PowerPoint presentation and then in class. Only by looking at the numbers will it be possible to see if anything has really changed. And I am not talking about the number of hours spent executing the project, I am referring to the results of the client’s business.
Therefore, 3 characteristics are important in a commercial consultancy:
- Commitment to Results;
- Be a specialist in the commercial/sales area;
- Have a systemic view of the commercial operation.
4 practical tips for choosing a business consultancy
1. Check the specialty
Note whether it is a commercial consultancy or a generalist consultancy.
As we can see, a specialist sales consultancy is specific to this area, it takes a deeper look at the problems that cause and hinder the operation.
If you know that the gap in your business is in sales, then find a ”specialist” and not a ”general practitioner”.
2. Research how the consultancy works
Being a specialist in the commercial area does not mean that you should not analyze other areas of the company.
Because many sales problems are not necessarily linked to this area. It could be a deficiency in marketing, logistics, credit, after-sales, and even legal matters.
Therefore, the consultancy must carry out a systemic diagnosis to identify the causes that interfere with sales results.
3. Check the business segments
Once you have chosen your specialty, it is now time to look at the segments in which the company operates or has operated.
This will indicate whether the consultancy understands your business and has know-how about your segment. This experience makes a difference, as each market has its own terms and rules.
And if the consultancy does not know the segment of activity, the “smell” of your business, then it runs the risk of becoming generalist.
The best business consultancies on the market have consultants trained in the most diverse types of segments. This is another major differentiator.
4. Check the consultancy portfolio
You can also ask the company for references from clients it has worked with. It has great capacity to transform the culture of your company.
In fact, the more confident directors and those responsible are about it, the more receptive they will be to understanding the suggestions given.