Collector - November 2017 - 34
is below 90 points, your imbalance factor is just too high. What is your vision for your agency's future? If you are happy with the way things are and are absolutely positive that no client losses, changes in the economy, increased sales performance by your competitors or any other outside economic factors could negatively impact your agency's future financial security, then you have nothing to worry about. But if your competitor starts taking away your market share or a significant client gets a new manager who brings in someone else, then having failed to take the necessary steps to protect yourself, you may eventually feel like you're rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The market is fickle. Healthcare may go to single payer. Perkins loans may go away. A market like HOAs may simply dry up. A major client becomes part of a consolidation and now you are out, or a competitor may get out ahead of you and close deals that could have been yours. Given the reluctance of today's creditors to change agencies, those deals may never become available again. Without an effective, highly professional marketing and sales program, there is no real capability to offset any of those losses. Playing catch-up is more difficult and sometimes too late. Sun Tzu emphasizes timing is critical. Your only real protection is to get there ahead of your competitors. Sun Tzu's Rules REBRANDING YOUR AGENCY Agencies focused on the future will make marketing and sales the facilitator of economic activity and prosperity. Committing the funds needed to support new, more strategic priorities is crucial. As I tell all of my agency clients, sales should be your first line on profit. That means using sales to replace unprofitable clients with more profitable business, and renegotiating fees with marginal profit clients. That requires a high level of training and negotiation expertise. The plan must include a redesign of the entire sales process-from how salespeople are managed to how they sell. It means investing in a more enlightened methodology and approach. Since all agencies provide essentially the same services, with the same tools and the same resources while following the same rules and regulations, we must finally, once and for all, put a stake in the heart of feature-based, seller-based selling. That means that the agency needs to rebrand itself based on relationship building-essentially selling who you are, not what you do. Sell what you do and all you can compete on is fee. Sell who you are and a whole world of possibilities opens up. But telling it and selling it are two different things, and it won't happen without proper sales training. What steps will you take to improve the client's experience? How will you translate that to sales? Do you have the necessary capabilities in-house? If you don't, are you prepared to build or buy them? If you can't build, you have to buy. You have no choice except to bring in outside expertise. It must be collection-specific expertise-generalists cannot help you here. The strongest agency CEOs will shape the future of our industry by redefining how we interact with the outside world. They will create solid relationships built on trust and client-defined excellence- and they will build their robust financial future by expunging the antiquated sales methods that plague our industry and take their sales efforts to a new level of professionalism. They will give better training to salespeople to attract new clients through "Insight Selling." That requires a level of strategic coherence and management balance between operations and sales that builds a tactical advantage over competition. Early adopters of this new, more professional approach to sales management are just starting to emerge, and will be gaining significant market share while improving profit margins. They will create escalation dominance in the marketplace and gain footholds they will likely never relinquish. For the rest, sitting on their hands as the "Insight Sellers" pass them by, business Win all without fighting: Capture your markets without badmouthing competitors. Avoid strength and attack weakness: Sell in a way unexpected by competitors. Deception and foreknowledge: Maximize the power of market information. Speed and preparation: Move swiftly to overcome competitors. Shape your opponent: Employ strategy and tactics to master the competition. Character and leadership: Provide effective leadership in difficult situations. 34 ACAINTERNATIONAL.ORG
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