Our clients are usually classified as “Small Business”—though I absolutely DESPISE that term.
The US economy is POWERED by small business! In fact, as of the 2010 census, small businesses make up to 99.7% of employer firms in this country (a “small business” is defined as having less than 500 employees).
Yeah, small business isn’t so tiny!
Back to my point—most of our clients at Sauce Agency have annual revenues between $20M and $120M with sales teams between 6 and 40 sellers.
I share these stats with you because there is a common theme among ALL of my clients and nearly every small business sales program I’ve ever reviewed:
Fundamentally, this is because in most scenarios there is very little, if any, sales program infrastructure. With small sales teams, contract sellers, or sellers that wear multiple hats or have different titles that include revenue generating responsibilities, there is often no direct Sales Supervisor whose primary responsibility is to manage and lead the revenue generation efforts.
SMBs run lean and owner/operators are usually the main managers of sales teams and though revenue generation is critical, HOW revenue is achieved, or not, is usually not their singular focus. Pulled in dozens of directions, struggling with competing priorities, and even lack of sales proficiency are reasons why most Small Business sales teams are really struggling.
In your sales program, here’s what this looks like:
Ouch.
Do any of those scenarios ring true for you or your business?
If they do, then you’re missing opportunities to grow revenue and scale your sales program.
Business Owners and Operators are certainly driven by revenue results but there are dozens of other functions that compete for attention on a daily basis. The sole purpose of a Sales Director or Sales Manager is about the “HOW” of getting to sales results:
In your sales program, here’s what this would look like. Sales Directors are:
Running a lean organization is paramount to profits whether you’re a startup or a Fortune 500 Enterprise Company. In our assessments, most SMBs don’t have this layer of Sales Leadership because they believe they can manage the sales team, or the sales team doesn’t need any management—they should just sell, right? OR, they believe they can’t afford to hire someone who wears this one (critical) hat—as opposed to the usual 3 or 4 that most administrative team members wear in a small business.
What is this costing you?
What would the payoff be if your sales team had a rock-solid strategy, were coached to improve their skills, and held accountable for their efforts?
A great Sales Leader hire could be a big return on investment that allows you to scale and grow.
Start crunching the numbers and see what you could be missing!
Need help to figure out what this is costing you or how you can add Sales Leadership to your organization? Contact us and we’ll talk through the possibilities!