When buying a Porsche, one is faced with a myriad of options. There are “hobby cars” that look good, but won’t win any races (at least against other Porsches); there are high performance vehicles built for speed; and then there are the add-ons – the number of which is somewhat mind boggling.
These add-ons range from the purely aesthetic monogrammed headrests for several hundred dollars, to the performance enhancing Porsche-Doppelkupplung (PDK) package for several thousand dollars. The headrests might look good, but they certainly won’t enhance performance. The PDK on the other hand will take you from 0 to 62 mi/h in 4.3 seconds give you the power to achieve a top speed of 187 mi/h.
The point is, when it comes to automobile performance, you get what you pay for. If speed and handling is what you are looking for, start with a powerful engine and add on from there, putting the money into options that enhance performance before you start spending on the “nice to have” extras.
The same could be said for building a business development engine—particularly for an early stage company or an established company looking to break into a new market. If you want speed-to-market you need to start with a powerful engine and then choose the base package that addresses performance.
Looking at it in automobile terms, your base package should include no less than the following:
- Experienced sales management and coaching
- An active business development team tasked with forging new relationships
- A powerful value statement
- A defined strategy for attacking the territory (territory management plan) and the tools needed to support it.
- A strong database
- A CRM system to log activity and monitor metrics
- An outbound calling strategy focused on relationship building and brand awareness.
- A solid marketing automation platform
- A consistent lead gen, lead scoring and nurturing process
- A built-in process of measurement and refinement
- A strong online presence with a website that professionally portrays your brand
- Well-researched buyer personas
- A hiring & training machine that can quickly add qualified personnel when the time comes to scale upward.
Add-ons that can be added as sales begins to support the spend include:
- More extensive content marketing
- Inbound lead generation
- Tradeshow & event marketing
- Additional investments in sales resources, improvements, sales enablement, further training
Within that “base package” lies the true beauty of the sales-as-a-service model. As we wrote in The Sales Learning Curve and Virtual Sales, “Visionary companies launching a new product or service that are willing to break free of old paradigms can take advantage of the new Virtual Sales model to ramp up their efforts for less risk, higher return on investment and faster speed-to-market than if they chose to build an internal team.”
Instead of piecing together a sales machine bit by bit – building the car on your own, so to speak – you get the car fully loaded ready to drive out of the lot at top speed.
To find out more, contact the Nugrowth team at 800-966-3051 or fill out a brief contact form and we will be in touch.
