Sales is, of course, about selling. Yet many companies focus mainly on acquiring new customers instead of selling more to their existing ones. In practice, it is usually easier, cheaper and more profitable to grow revenue with current customers than with new ones. This directly improves your margins and overall profitability. The key questions are: how do you do this in a structured way, and how do you strengthen customer loyalty?
In the 1990s, Don Peppers and Dr. Martha Rogers introduced the concept of One-to-One marketing, a practical approach to Customer Relationship Management (CRM). For those who mainly associate CRM with IT systems: CRM is first and foremost about sales and marketing. Software is only a tool, not the strategy.
That said, every company also needs new customers. The real question is how to acquire them more efficiently and at lower cost — ideally in a way that is profitable from the start. Do you actually know how much you earn per customer? And what about customers who may be loss-making? Should you let them go, or take action to make the relationship profitable?
This is not complex theory, but it does require clear insight into what to do — and just as importantly, what not to do.
Many entrepreneurs equate marketing with advertising, but advertising is only a small part of marketing. It starts with the well-known 4 Ps: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Promotion includes all forms of advertising and sales activities, as well as positioning and the use of social media. But what determines your pricing? Where and how do you sell your products? That is the “Place” element.
It is essential to approach these components in a structured and consistent way so they reinforce each other and support a clear commercial policy. This creates focus and direction, not only for management but for the entire organisation. A good starting point is a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) to shape your commercial strategy. And when it comes to advertising: the more targeted your efforts, the more effective they will be.
The sales team should then actively work with the insights generated by marketing. At the same time, sales can provide valuable feedback on customer behaviour and market signals that marketing should take into account.
Finally, if you believe that “Big Data” will solve everything, think again. In most cases, you can achieve significant improvements simply by using the data you already have in a smarter and more disciplined way.
