Do you reflect and analyse your previous work in order to measure the value you provide your clients? If not, then how will you move your business forward, win more business and achieve targets?
In our experience, we often find once a salesperson has won a deal the focus (understandably) moves to the next opportunity/prospect, without steps being put in place to measure the impact and the value provided during the engagement. This is particularly evident in the professional service space, where it can often be difficult to provide a quantifiable measurement and, when it is, the success depends on a number of criteria outside of our control.
With that in mind, and to give us the best chance to measure the value, one critical question when engaging with clients is ‘how are you going to measure success’. Once we have an understanding of this – what good looks like – we are not only able to better match our proposition to their requirements but we may also be in a position to help them measure the impact against their relevant critical success factors. If we can engage with a client on this level there are some clear benefits;
We gain a deeper understanding of what the client is wanting to achieve, and as such can offer the most suitable solution(s) to ensure success
We are seen as a trusted advisor and partner, involved throughout the duration of the project • We become closely aligned to the client, strengthening relationships, which in turn reduces the risk of being replaced by another provider
The impact can be communicated within the client, providing confidence and potentially opening up further opportunities
Once we have measured our impact we are also then in the position to use this information with other clients, opportunities and/or prospects, to communicate the value we may be able to add to their organisation, backing this claim up through the use of third person validation. The process and methodology outlined above can be shown simply as below:
Call to action:
- Measure the impact of your client engagements, involving the client in this discussion from the very beginning
- Communicate the value you are providing to clients, opportunities and prospects, as well as internally within your organisation
If you’d like to know more about helping clients to effectively obtain and utilise this information to improve sales force effectiveness, why not get in touch on +44 (0) 20 7653 3740 or info@sbrconsulting.com