Proactive Techniques

Reducing the cost and improving the quality of prospecting data is about experience as much as expertise.

After 20 years and 300+ projects, we are used to dealing with ‘new’ challenges. As an agnostic advisor, we use multiple data sources for our solutions, because no supplier has all the data and all the contacts that you need (no matter what they say). And we know which data suppliers own the data they supply (critical!), and what their ‘match rates’ really mean.

Half our projects help Consultants and Interims with the specialist data ‘grunt work’ that they need, to be able to deliver tangible improvements for their clients. The other half are with our Clients direct, to help them to fix their own challenges.

In most Sales and Marketing-led businesses, there are questions about the real factors that affect sales performance.

To what extent is length of relationship a factor of good customer service, or lower prices?

Is there a relationship between the amount we spend on advertising, and either the quality or quantity of customers that result?

What are the real factors that affect our ability to cross-sell from one product to another

What are the factors that affect customer churn, and how can we identify the right warning signs?

There are an almost infinite number of ‘Cause and Effect’ possibilities that affect a business. There are analytical tools that can help you to get a much clearer understanding of your business drivers, to help you find the right answers.

Problem

A business with 5 product lines that appear to be complimentary, and up to sixteen measurable variables that could have an impact on revenue

How do we identify the real causal relationships and the best opportunities?

Solution

Chaid and Regression were used to identify the real dependencies, and quantify the the extent of each ‘relationship’.

As a result, the client was able to highlight a threat to the length of customer relationships that came partly from the quality of individual Reseller performance, and partly from a change in available technology. The churn problem was partially solveable.

We can just show you how to achieve your ‘New Business’ objective, or we can stay and help you to deliver the result.

So how do you solve the timing dilemma?

We work on the principle that most businesses tend to have a general momentum that carries them on from month to month. They have a group of existing suppliers that suit all their needs and no real need to change.

That is, until some sort of Significant Event affects them. It could be anything from a merger or acquisition, to the opening of a new branch in a new country, to the launching of a new product, or even a redundancy programme!

Cold calling is a numbers game. Out of ten identical Prospects, only one is an opportunity – because only they have a problem.

Over the years we have created a number of ‘intelligence’ feeds and relationships that let us know when companies have certain types of problems. Being able to talk to these companies at the right time gets much better conversion rates.

In any of these cases, the Prospect is taken out of his comfort zone and therefore needs to look for new suppliers to help him solve his problem. We can find him at that moment.

Why does this approach tend to be so successful? Because it solves the ‘timing’ problem in a stroke, allowing you to offer your solution at a time when there is a need, so you are pushing on a partly open door.

Intelligent channel Reward schemes can add 20% to the turnover and value you get from your reseller network. We can offer two unique features –

We can identify your partners with the greatest potential for improvement, so your Rewards budget gets the best return on investment In most cases we can identify new sales opportunities to help your partner create even more income.

We use one particular Rewards partner because they have an impressive and loyal client base, and they have helped us to integrate customised solutions to fit within the wider business development programmes that we build.

There is no fee for the management of the programme. Income derives solely from the awarding of points.

Our philosophy is realistic; if the scheme works, then everyone wins. So the monthly cost of points awarded will cover all scheme management, hosting, points redemption and reporting. As a result we can deliver a new generation Online solution, that can be fully ‘white labelled’ to your brand, run with any type of incentive, managed and set up remotely and with a full communications and reporting capability.

Whether you are already using a scheme, or simply want to find out if one could help drive extra results, you need to talk to a specialist that is approachable, and has a unique approach to delivering value.

If you are just looking for a stand-alone rewards partner, we are happy to introduce you to ours.

Whether your sales team are on the road, in the office or both, there is usually a 200% difference between the real potential available in the smallest and the largest territories.

This means that your ace sales performer may be no better than any of his colleagues, he may just have a much larger pond to fish in.

Similarly, your worst sales performer may simply have a territory that is so geographically spread out that he spends too much of his time driving from meeting to meeting.

Problem

12 sales territories with large inequalities that wasted opportunities, increased ‘time in the car’ and made targets unworkable

A redesigned territory solution that equalised workload, minimised drive-times and increased average territory yield by 8%

These types of issue typically reduce sales performance by between 4% – 10%:

• You are wasting lots of sales opportunity in a territory which has too much potential
• The sales team is demotivated by unfair sales targets
• You are wasting selling time in territories that take too much travel-time to service

Solution

The solution is to create a territory planning solution that has two objectives:

Each territory has an equal amount of either workload or opportunity

All the above territories have the minimum possible average drive time to service them

If you simply need to get more performance out of your existing team, we can help you to re-design existing territories so that you maximise the ability to improve sales.

If your sales team is understaffed, we can help you decide where is the best place to recruit a new replacement, or how to redistribute the vacant area.

If your sales team is overstaffed, we can help you to understand the full impact of losing an under-performer.

Although attracting new clients must be a basic objective of nearly every business, there can be some amazing opportunities for increasing the turnover generated from existing customer relationships.

The challenge is always to understand where the potential exists.

Historically, we have found that the sales team will have an unduly optimistic view of their sales skills. They will believe that they have got all of the business they can get from each of their current clients.

Problem

Customer repeat income in decline because account management was inefficient, but un-trackable

Solution

Profile report of the customers with highest Up-sell potential, prioritised third party contact identifies actual ‘share of wallet’ values and facilitates new sales discussions – £250k net gain in three months

One of our techniques allows us to identify the individual customers that are most likely to have significant potential to increase sales.

Similarly, it sometimes isn’t obvious that some of your customers could be buying extra product lines from you that you didn’t even know they purchased. We can show you which customers and which products.

This ‘Current Client’ module can create specific lists of the companies that are most likely to either buy more of their existing products, or extra products from your range that they are not buying at present, or both.

Market Shape has been in business for 22 years, delivering market research projects across the UK and overseas.   Our clients range from Blue Chip to mid-tier companies across almost Professional and Financial Services, Manufacturing and Distribution sectors.

In the Public sector, we are a ‘Quality Assured’ solution provider for Business Link (their highest level of certification) and are accredited with the LSC.

In the private sector, we have also passed the Due Dilligence processes of The Daily Telegraph, Accenture, Investors in People, BT, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Royal Bank of Scotland, and KPMG.

As a result, we compete quite happily with ‘top twenty’ professional services companies and the more old fashioned research houses, but with overheads that make us attractively competitive.

We are a member of the British Quality Foundation (BQF), a not-for-profit membership organisation that promotes business excellence to private, public and voluntary organisations. The BQF is Europe’s largest corporate membership organisation promoting performance improvement and excellence.