Increasing Cash Flow is in your Sales Force

Many businesses are feeling the squeeze, some believe micro-managing their sales targets is the key, others think the finance department have the solution & some are set on micro-managing everything and cutting costs; but in most cases they would be looking in the wrong direction.

My point is simply most businesses operate leanly & cutting even more corners to the majority of businesses is not the answer; infact it compounds the problem. How many times can you cut the corners of a square before it resembles or becomes a circle?

The first step to surviving hard times is to actively manage your business. The problem is many mistake this to mean micro-managing the business. I'd challenge anyone to find someone you know who likes being micro-managed. Micro-managing is an imploding activity & a result of poor performance generally from a wrong strategy, leadership or general management to begin with.

Think for a minute then of a business & everyone within it were performing well, the market still needs the business but everyone's under financial pressures. The solution to the business surviving these pressures is the how the business is perceived & valued in the market.

The elements to surviving & growing in these times are Cash Flow, Maintaining Sales & Communication.

Some might be thinking of the Finance Department as the solution but they can't collect cash when payments stopped due to a query in the service. The Finance Department can't control stock levels & cash caught up in it because purchasing agreements are at certain volumes for efficient production. The Finance Department could delay payment on suppliers but that's short lived. In addition no-one likes a later payer & becoming notoriously late usually means the business needs more stock to maintain operations as order fulfilment drops to late payers with potential order shortages due to account stops etc. The Finance department can help but on their own they can't affect cash flow substantially.

My point is the Sales Force is the strongest department in tough times & it's not about mirco-managing them and their targets. The Sales Force impact the businesses perception in the market, they're the front line to the customer & hold the relationships to surviving hard times. Maintaining Sales is about continuing the level of sales as much as possible, reducing your Debtors & sending out positive messages.

If there's a service issue making a payment query, the Sales Force is the right department to handle it. The business needs to find more commitment from customers, such as raising minimum order values or shorter customer payment terms; the Sales Force is the right department to handle it.

The view & strategy that really bothers me is cutting the Sales Force in hard times, though I recognise in certain circumstances its required. In mostly situations this happens because the business focus is inwards with a belief of cutting overheads & riding the storm with existing sales. This behaviour has little thought to the Communication & signals this sends out to the market.

If a business has a high turnover of staff, specifically in a field sales type roles the perception in the market is that the business is a poor employer, struggling, not to mention the lose in customer relationships and knowledge. Such a practice can't control market perceptions it creates because no-one's there long enough for the customer to have any integrity with.

Remember some of the old sales phrases: “ring fence your customers” & “when you're not talking to your customers, some else is.” - I believe they've lost their meaning and value.

To conclude be close to your customers through your Sales Force to increase your cash flow, don't micro-manage, communicate to maintain sales.

I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts: was it thought provoking? is it what you expected?
possibly I could help with a query, or a sales come sales teams issue you're facing or involved in?

If you want to get more on related blogs view “Grow your business through Sales Leadership”
or want to know more on Tim visit www.timbridle.blogspot.com & www.sphereuk.net - you can also
keep up with Tim at http://twitter.com/timbridle
& http://ecademy.com/user/timbridle
Visit & join www.thesalespro.co.uk - the sales network, tips & professional advice site