NEW YEAR, SAME CHALLENGE, FRESH THINKING?

There is a cyclical nature to most business operations and so, despite the advent of a new year, the age-old challenge remains to improve sales performance as a means to improve profitability. Yet most organisations have yet to find the 'magic bullet', by which they can continually improve sales volume and profit levels year on year by continuing to do the same things in just the way they always did.

How can you go about making sure your entire team feels energised for the year ahead and what are you doing to inspire them? Here are five things you should do today to make a difference:

Be clear: In the early days of any business, selling anything might be regarded as a result. As your organisation matures (and whilst you should rarely turn away business if it comes to you), be really clear about what your best offers are - those that are profitable, make your customers happy, have the greatest likelihood of stimulating referrals and that generate repeat business. Look closely at your biggest successes of 2014 and consistently enthuse your team to understand that this is where you want to be proactive.  

Focus: Engage with your team to ensure they are clear about who you should and really want to target. A 'spray and pray' approach can mean everyone is busy, but if you're not targeting those areas that are proven as well as those new areas that you really believe will generate real future success, demoralisation might be your only outcome from a whole mass of 'busy-ness'. How has you market evolved over the last twelve months and should that impact on how you're approaching it?

Reward and recognise: We all like to be told we've done a good job, and almost all organisations tell me they have a mechanism for employee reward and recognition beyond the bonus payments made to Sales for on-target achievement. But when I get 'under their skin' to understand whether it's really 'lived' or merely documented, I find that for all the best reasons in the world, it's rarely so. This is a real shame, because reward and recognition doesn't need to be big and expensive, just heartfelt. This is the best time of year for you to make sure that what you have in place is both 'lived', promoted and fit for purpose.

Repeat: Remember that analysing your business success doesn't only provide the stimulus for reward and recognition, but it can also provide a great trigger to thinking how and where that success might be repeated. Take some time to analyse what really worked well for you last year and see how that can be leveraged for the year ahead.

Make it your mantra: None of this is new thinking, you probably do each of these things at least once each year. But in the pressure of day-to-day business when your landscape can change quickly, your teams change intermittently, and morale change in a heartbeat, it is down to you to think about this stuff often - and particularly as the new year begins.

So ask yourself...have you done all you can to energise and inspire your team?