{"id":7932,"date":"2011-03-23T15:09:01","date_gmt":"2011-03-23T15:09:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/?p=7932"},"modified":"2014-10-06T01:45:23","modified_gmt":"2014-10-06T01:45:23","slug":"understanding-and-planning-for-a-sales-model-transition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/?p=7932","title":{"rendered":"Understanding And Planning for a Sales Model Transition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Companies find themselves facing the need for a Sales Transition for many reasons.\u00a0\u00a0 Hopefully more often, it\u2019s the result of good things like growth or expansion opportunities.\u00a0 At times however, it\u2019s because bad things keep happening, like revenue declines or growing much slower than the industry.<\/p>\n<p>There are two fundamental considerations to understanding and preparing for a company Sales Transition.<\/p>\n<p>1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Identifying and assessing the situation creating the opportunity \u2013 or causing the problem<\/p>\n<p>2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Developing the appropriate company sales strategy to address the situation<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sales Transition Symptoms<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>First, let\u2019s separate Sales Transition symptoms from causes.\u00a0 This is so you ultimately design the appropriate strategy.\u00a0 \u00a0Examples of symptoms at company\u2019s potentially facing a Sales Transition include the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The company is no longer achieving revenue growth goals \/ Sales consistently missing revenue targets<\/li>\n<li>Growth opportunities exist but are not successfully achieved \/ Growing slower than the industry<\/li>\n<li>Poor success winning new clients<\/li>\n<li>Flat or declining revenues over a prolonged period<\/li>\n<li>High sales force turnover \/ Losing performing reps to competitors<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Anticipating and Planning for a Sales Transition<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There are common situations that strongly predict it\u2019s time for a Sales Transition.\u00a0 As we said previously, some result from success, where others are in response to challenges.<\/p>\n<p>With foresight, company\u2019s can anticipate these opportunistic situations and prepare themselves for that next stage.\u00a0 And even when the cause is a negative one, quick diagnosis can save quarters \u2013 if not years \u2013 of missed new revenues.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Anticipating a Sales Transition \u2013 When Is the Right Time To Change?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Highly successful start-ups that have out-grown the founder\u2019s time to function as sales leader <strong><em>and <\/em><\/strong>chief executive.<\/li>\n<li>Companies that grew on a great product or service but have now saturated their initial target market.<\/li>\n<li>Companies where most growth came from the <em>Rolodex <\/em>of the leadership team but are now running out of viable contacts to sell to.<\/li>\n<li>New ownership or leadership team taking the company in a new direction.<\/li>\n<li>Businesses making major structural or organizational changes, i.e. realigning, combining or shedding business units.<\/li>\n<li>Well-funded start-ups \u2013 strong knowledge of the industry and their own offerings \u2013 but lacking experience in professional sales leadership.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As your company\u2019s top executive you will know best when it is time to prepare your Sales Transition plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Companies find themselves facing the need for a Sales Transition for many reasons.\u00a0\u00a0 Hopefully more often, it\u2019s the result of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7932"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7932"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8202,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7932\/revisions\/8202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}