Turn on the TV, log into the Internet or read a newspaper, book or magazine and you’ll hear how you and your company can go “green”.   Going “Green” means taking actions focused on protecting our environment and our natural resources.  Regardless of how you feel about the movement, few people disagree with the concept of safeguarding the environment.  As I sat on a plane last week headed for “the green paradise” of Florida, it occurred to me that the Green principles of reducing pollution, reducing waste, recycling and protecting our resources, apply to our sales environment just as readily as it does to our physical environment.  A healthy sales environment is the foundation for profitability.  Here are some actions you should take to protect your sales environment:

•    Reduce the Sales Pollution

Is your sales environment being polluted by negative, derogatory comments about the competition?  About management?  About difficult customers? About the “other sales people who don’t’ pull their weight”?  About the economy?  When your sales team is presenting to prospects or clients, do you hear the same old bull, the same old story?  Are they “emitting” hot air and failing to sell the value you offer?  Time to clean up the environment by focusing on the positive.  Capture new client success stories, refocus the team on your customers and their needs, conduct an unbiased audit of your competitors that reminds your team that denigrating the competition merely makes them look weak and does nothing to diminish the competition.  AND stop talking about the economy – life goes on and that means people must buy things including your product or service.  Touch times demand creativity, a can do attitude and a will do commitment!  Yes You Can! Clean the air of the negativity that interferes with success.

•    Reduce Waste in Your Processes and ……

Reducing wasted steps in your sales process will shorten your sales cycle, increase your efficiency and free your sales team to sell more.  Seriously examine each step in your sales process and compare it to your customer’s “buying process”.  Do they sync up?  Where can you eliminate non-value add activities?  Where can you add value for your customers?  What paperwork can you trash that adds more frustration than value for your internal and external customers?  Do you really know which marketing efforts have a clear ROI?  Look for waste everywhere and then get rid of it.

It is also important to carefully examine your sales team.  Do you have reps who are only marginal?  You can’t afford to keep reps who consistently fail to meet goals regardless of how hard they work or how nice they may be.  This is even more important in down economic cycles.  Consider how your product or service should be sold and then ask if your reps possess those skills.  For instance, do you sell a one off product?  Then your staff must be great at quickly establishing value for the customer and closing the deal.  But if you sell a product or service where the relationship is critical, does your staff possess the right skills to build and nurture long term relationships?  Consider formally assessing your team’s skills to find a match to your sales strategy.  Assessments will also identify your high potentials whose talent should be cultivated and not wasted.

•    The Good, the Bad & the Ugly of Recycled Business

Recycling business or in sales terms, “repeat business” is a good thing.  We all know that it costs more to attract new business than to maintain and grow existing business. Note that the key here is grow the business.  Revenue numbers for a customer that are flat year over year is a sign of a weak customer relationship.   The  “bad” in repeat business is complacency!  Assuming your good customers will continue to buy from you is dangerous especially in a down economy when your competitors are truly hungry. You must earn that business and grow the relationship by offering ever increasing value to your customers.  Taking long term customers for granted and failing to offer new reasons to stay, makes you vulnerable to losing them – the ugly aspect of recycled business.

•    Your People are Your Business – Protect Your Resources

Surprised when one of your best sales people leaves the company?  It’s a wake up call you should heed.  Keep your best people happy by regularly rewarding them with money, training, recognition and new products to sell.  Review your compensation plan annually to insure it reflects market place changes in customer’s needs and in employment opportunities.  Examine territories annually for distribution fairness. Freshen and update marketing materials and sales tools.  And fire the non-performers.  Nothing demoralizes good sales people as fast as ignoring the slackers!  AND never take your team for granted! Don’t assume that in tough times they need your job and should be happy to be there- that attitude is the fastest way to lose your best and to demoralize the rest.

Perhaps the most important aspect of the environmental movement is the acknowledgement that man and his environment must be in balance.  In the business world, the most successful companies acknowledge and act on the same premise: that their customers are partners and in any partnership both parties must receive equal value.

When that “value scale” is unbalanced, you place short term goals over long term goals; you are happy with quick sales due to manipulation rather than on an open honest dialog with your customer or prospect: you choose fast to market over product quality.   Just as the environmental movement attempts to secure a healthy physical future, adapting the environmental principles to your business environment will insure a long, healthy future for your company and will see you through the tough times.  “Greening” your sales environment is a proactive strategy that will deliver results.

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