Develop A Diverse Sales Model to Guide Your Business Development Activities

Sales can be difficult. Some people thrive in a sales environment; they enjoy the art of the deal. But many entrepreneurs and business owners just want to do what they love. They want to build their concept or perform the service they enjoy. They view sales as a necessary evil, to be sure. One of the best ways to bring yourself into a sales mode is to develop a model that works best for you and your business.

A sales model is simply a framework which will guide your selling activities. Usually, this involves identifying all the ways that clients currently find out about your product or service and blending them with all the other ways you might employ to generate new business. I like to think of a basic model that includes three main components: sales generated through events (in person or online); sales generated through proactive means (i.e. cold calling); and sales generated through passive means (such as through ads). If you start with this basic model, you can expand it to include those channels that might work for your specific business.

If you have a sales team, you can divide specific functions according to the skills of the individual team members. If you are part of a small company with no dedicated sales team, you might want to focus on certain types of activities on particular days. Either way, the idea is to create a model that will support a robust sales process on an ongoing basis.

Focusing on just one aspect of the model (i.e. online ads) will carry additional opportunity costs and increase business risk. You might end up leaving money on the table or leave an opening for competitors. Creating a diverse and complete model should help you determine all the various channels that are available to you and allow you to put forth a broad based business development effort. This will help prop up your sales numbers in the long run by allowing you to capitalize on as many opportunities as you can.

Implementing a diverse sales program during a down economy will be as competitive as you can be and will ensure you are better positioned when the market begins to turnaround.