Most companies today struggle with sales challenges. With economic instability and world conflict, these issues may seem to be externally afflicted; however, most businesses can utilize a sales check-up to determine areas of vulnerability and to uncover healthy, revitalized sales.

Sales is an operational area that confounds even the savviest executives from time to time. Determining when it is appropriate to call for reinforcement and when a simple adjustment to a vulnerable area will do can mean the difference between achieving results desired and a vicious cycle of one-time starts.

Companies in all industries face similar sales issues and the extent and complexity of sales challenges vary from company to company. However a simple sales check-up can help executives pinpoint where along the sales process their sales teams stepped off the golden patch.

The first step

The first step is the sales examina-tion. Just like a doctor, this step takes the business’s vital signs to get an idea of the health of the sales organization.

In this phase, key employees talk about where the company is and whether they believe the cause is internal (the organization is responsible for what’s going on) or external (that means someone else is impacting company efforts).

Internal issues may include fear or lack of certain skills or tools needed to be successful. External forces could point to something in the business or company that affects sales. This could be anything from poor customer service to unfulfilled customer expectations.

Key questions asked during this phase, include:

- What are sales?

- How do the company’s sales stack up against sales goals?

- How does the company set sales goals?

The more thorough the exam, the better the diagnosis tends to be. Working with the check-up allows participants to reap the full benefit. Companies find that simply taking the time to analyze the current situation yields positive results.

For instance, a large manufacturing company met for this phase. When company executives and sales professionals discussed each area systematically, they discovered that they were not meeting a critical client need. Their sales message lacked the necessary punch to move clients to buy.

With minimal adjustments, a coordinated marketing campaign and renewed sales vigor, the company was able to move sales upward very quickly. This was a problem the company struggled with for quite some time, but feared that hiring outside consultants would cost too much considering the company’s already weakened sales. The end result, however, paid them 10 times over in increased sales, improved client relations and a turbo-charged sales force that looked forward to selling the company’s products.

The diagnosis

Once a company has disclosed everything about its sales life, it’s time to move to the diagnosis. This is where an objective third party can truly add value. Sometimes the issues hit too close to home. Sales consultants can walk through a sale with company sales representatives and provide great insight into what’s working and what’s not. Companies need a safe environment to explore what is happening so they can pinpoint what is causing the pain.

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