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.

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