Changing Business Models
New ways of doing business are constantly being developed.
You need to be able to adopt the selling styles and behaviours that match the different models.
Change is always Accelerating
Organisations are changing their business models more often and at a faster pace than ever.
Why?
- To adapt to the ever changing market
- To address new competitors
- To prevent margin erosion
- To take advantage of their loyal customer base
- To provide “added value” services.
These are only some of the reasons why ways of doing business are changing, and you will doubtless be experiencing the challenges created by new business models.
Do you find that:
- New models are usually triggered by the launch of a new product or service?
- The board understands clearly why the changes are necessary?
- The salesforce are expected to understand, but not enough effort is put in to helping them adapt to the changes?
- Many customers don’t really understand the need for change as they are used to living with a problem that you can now solve?
- The salesperson at the sharp end is expected to get on with new ways of doing things because “selling is selling”?
- Most of the challenges created by changing business models happen when new products or services are introduced?
Why is this so?
The salesforce are used to selling established products that have become commodities over time, with buying decisions made based on price and criteria. A good example of this happening recently is website content management software. Over a period of just three years, products changed from being five/six figure solutions to a £100 off-the-shelf products – and a totally different business model now applies.
Where products have all become commodities, sales forces will have forgotten or will not be able to sell value and so get out of sync with their board and its vision when new business models are created to launch new products and services.
They have difficulty:
- Creating needs (the prospect is not aware of the problem)
- Selling at a senior level (where non-commodity decisions are made or approved)
- Presenting compelling ideas (to move mind sets)
- Justifying budgets (via a business case)
Clearly there are other factors to address at times of change, such as marketing messages, product and environmental training for the salesforce and the establishment of best practice sales approaches that work within the new business models.
And what can you do about it?
Deal with the new challenge:
- Perhaps set up a strategic sales review to assess your situation and help you plan the way forward.
- This will help you to understand the root causes of the problems you are facing and put actions in place to obliterate them.
- You will likely need to initiate some new sales training activities.
- Where change is the driver, you will certainly need to adopt the right selling styles to match your customer’s business model.
There’s much that you can do ... and we can help.
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So, if you have a new solution looking for a problem, and need help to rise to a new set of sales challenges:
Call us on 0845 125 9098