My Services

I offer four main types of work centered around maintaining and building sales, and these are detailed below, but I also offer to service individual tasks involved in the sales process such as bid writing.

Employee Cover

When capacity to service business is put at risk, I can support you with your sales process for anything from 1 day to 1 year.

When you lose staff to sickness or leave, I can quickly pick up the slack and actively look after accounts and sales in their absence.

An important and large piece of business might be on its way to you, in this case I can integrate with your existing team to add resource when busy times approach.

Strategy Planning

Are you approaching new markets or seeking to build business with existing and new customers, a solid sales strategy can help you effectively achieve your targets.

I can work with you to devise a tangible and action-led sales strategy that will ensure your sales force resources are highly optimised to get the right value out of your customers.

I can consult on, manage and deliver sales strategies.

Relationship Management

The golden milestone in relationship management is achieving 'Valued Supplier' status and I can help you do this.

This process is about reducing uncertainty for the client and developing the relationship with them to a point where buying from your business is the obvious logical choice.

Account management is one thing, relationship management is another level up and can help create a secure trading future.

Mentoring and Training

During the last 30 years I've learned a thing or two about sales! Having won and managed sales accounts for multinational corporations worth tens of millions of pounds, I am now able to offer mentoring and skills transfer to your sales team.

This is no 'pie in the blue sky thinking.' This is recognised skills and theories, action-led ideas and genuine experience in creating and delivering sales strategies, maintaining and developing customer relationships and achieving your business goals.

The Sales Process - which part would you like help with?

Sales Strategy

Do you have a sales strategy? Who do you want to sell to? Why and how do you want to sell to them? Are those sales targets the right ones? Will they convert into business or are you wasting resources going after fish you can't catch or, actually, don't want to catch?

Devising a coherent sales strategy is key to using your sales resources effectively and delivering the results you want and need.

Deal Closing

Are you good at opening the door and starting the conversation but can't seal the deal? Deal closing starts when the deal opens. Getting your client to sign on the dotted line is all about building trust and understanding their needs and motivations.

Ideally, by the time you get to the act of closing the deal, you want the deal to have been 'closed' long ago.

I can help you close more deals through strategic planning and relationship development.

Benefits Bridging

So you've got a customer on board but they just don't see what value you're bringing to the table.

I hear this all too often. Helping your client understand that what they're getting from you is really excellent value is key to winning their trust and repeat business.

Benefits bridging is about helping the client recognise the benefits that you promised and subsequently delivered.

Procurement Documents

Procurement departments are both a challenge and an opportunity and creating documentation fit for procurement is an artform!

Thankfully, after 30 years I am able to impart my abilities as a procurement document writer and can offer to help create procurement documents that will win.

However, procurement is a formal process in an otherwise normal sales process. The bigger picture is still about understanding the client inside out, getting to their motivations and power mapping the organisation.

I can help you both develop the relationship with the procuring client and develop winning procurement sales pitches that can significantly improve your chances of success.

Requirements Analysis

Delivering a successful project, in whatever guise, relies on good quality requirements analysis to ensure the client knows what they're asking for, knows what they need and knows what they are going to get.

Getting the client's requirements right in the first instance means you can quote more accurately, set expectations that you can comfortably meet and ultimately give the customer a great experience.

Poor requirements analysis leads to slippage in the scope, fluid and changing costs (usually upwards) and perceived delay in delivery. This results ultimately in a poor client experience, not because you did wrong, but because the requirements weren't clearly expressed by the client or clearly gathered by the supplier before the project started.

I can help you take advantage of good requirements analysis.

Bid Qualification

When a game changing bid opportunity presents itself we often find ourselves getting excited about the potential to step up our business to the next level but taking on bids can be a huge risk.

What would you do if you actually won the business? Could you realistically finance it? Do you have the resources required?

The bid process is also going to be a very costly exercise, can you afford to outlay and lose? Do you have the resources to write high quality bid documents? Low quality ones could jeopardise future opportunities as well as the immediate one.

Bid qualification provides a real sharpening of focus. It's a process of deep analysis into the 'exciting' opportunity that will save you from a costly but unrealistic bid or deliver a clear, balanced and well considered road map to navigating the bid and it's ramifications.

New Client Engagement

When a new client comes into your business, it's a great opportunity to impress them with your all new sales approach. Get it right from the word go and use my strategy for taking every new customer through the sales journey towards achieving 'valued supplier' status.

I can help deliver strategies for building strong relationships with all your new clients and it's about much more than days out at the golf course.

Conflict Resolution

Recognising that it doesn't always go well with clients, I can offer solutions for turning conflicts into opportunities to save and possibly improve business too.

Conflicts often arise because there is a misunderstanding around your business process on both sides. In my experience delivering complex software projects, disconnects can usually be resolved with some constructive discussion. Whatever the cause of your current conflict, there is likely to be a solution available.

Becoming a 'Valued Supplier'

Across your whole sales process I can help you achieve this high value status among old clients, current clients and new clients.

Win business and keep it by becoming a valued supplier. It's about taking action at every point in the sales journey to build trust and deliver the kind of value your clients simply can't get anywhere else. This is a long game but one that will pay huge dividends if invested in for the long term.