Sales/Business Alignment – I’m proud of you. Remember, you still have a long way to go.

My late father, Ed Theis, used to tell me, “I’m proud of you. Remember, you still have a long way to go.” Sales and business alignment is an ongoing process. Successes and failures occur along the way. Working to build a self-correcting alignment system ensures long-term success.

Let’s look at the simple facts:

  • Your company’s leadership decided to go into business to make money by selling something.
  • There are companies or businesses out there that are potential clients; they need the something that you sell.
  • Your marketing department identifies who is buying, and works to convince potential clients of the merits of something
  • Your sales department talks to potential clients interested in that something, and converts interest into a sale.
  • Your customer service department works to keep clients happy and to offer an additional something.

Is there such a thing as a self-correcting alignment system? What needs to happen for a business to stay aligned with the process?

  • Willingness to adopt a program of ongoing improvement.
  • Understanding of the relationship between sales, operations, revenues and profits.
  • Creating a clear set of goals around these relationships in terms of throughput, inventory and operational expense.
  • Defining and implementing tactics and metrics to track progress.
  • Implementing tactics to meet the goals.
  • Evaluating success (Ed Theis: I’m proud of you) and changing course based on a look at the results (Ed Theis: remember you still have a long way to go).

A plan/do/check/adjust approach like this is a self-correcting system. But it takes a special team of key people from sales, marketing, operations, and leadership to make the self-correcting system a success.

A self-appraisal approach are a great way focus on real issues with the right people to develop a set of goals and actions for near-term action. Interested in learning more about the self-appraisal approach? Call me at 317.502.7622.

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