Do you have a success system?

Ok, let's take care of your sales or the sales of your company. We almost always depend on selling something to others or helping others do it - directly or indirectly. As Peter Drucker once said, every company has two core functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing, in this sense, includes selling. 

Hence, I will ask you a few very simple questions, which you need to answer to optimize your business: 

• What is the average purchase frequency of your customers per segment?
• What is the average transaction value of a sale per segment?
• How many new prospects ("leads") do you need this month to create your quarterly and annual targets?
• How much of your sales are generated by what marketing measures, e.g., referrals, advertisements, fairs etc.?
• What are your "must-win deals" this month, i.e., the deals you need to win?

These are reasonable questions to answer to be able to control your business instead of sailing in the dark. Believe it or not, almost all CEOs and salespeople I speak with have no answer to these questions. Often, it is not even known how much sales they make with which customers. 

The point is this: Without control, you can succeed, but only by chance and with enormous efforts, which often come as "fire-fighting exercises" ("Let's call all customers quickly, we need sales!").

The consequences: decreasing profitability and burn-out. 

What can you do better to shape your business (instead of reacting)? Here are 3 important steps that most forget: 

1. Decision. Decide to systematize the success of your business unit. Success comes from having a system! You can be spontaneous and intuitive, but you will always lose against those who have created a successful system.
2. Key figures.Identify 5-10 key metrics that determine the success of your business or business segment. Think of it: What are your most important "success drivers"? The questions mentioned at the outset may give you some idea.
3. Transparency. Create transparency! You cannot control what you do not measure. Yes, this requires a little effort and expertise. I always wonder how few small and medium-sized companies have no controlling expertise. You need to change that to maximize your success.

Quite often, the expertise is lacking to systematise success.