If you’d like to stay ahead of the competition and thrive during difficult economic times, commercial productivity should be top of mind. Put simply, commercial productivity measures how efficiently a company converts inputs, like labor and capital, into outputs, such as products and services.
In an article about commercial productivity, Harvard Business Review referred to a Bain & Company analysis of 1,245 public B2B companies across 10 industries. Bain found that for most organizations, productivity gains were growing at the same rate as sales and marketing expenses. However, 24% of these companies, which the study referred to as “elite,” noticed a higher productivity rate than what they spent on sales and marketing functions.
Non-elite companies put too much focus on cost reduction, overspend on software that doesn’t pay off, and lack a viable plan to support their sales reps. Elite or highly productive companies, on the other hand, do the following three things:
- Refine their go-to-market model: The leaders of productive companies create a proactive, go-to-market model. This model rebalances account assignments based on future customer spending. Then, it maps sales territories while considering each route’s customer segmentation and profitability.
- Focus on turning every sales rep into an A player: With ongoing training and coaching, productive companies shorten the onboarding of new sales reps and in turn, improve sales performance. Top performing sales reps have higher-quality and more frequent interactions and reviews with their managers. A highly collaborative sales rep community is the key to success.
- Ensure highly efficient sales and marketing operations: Simplifying complex processes with digital and automation tools leads to a leaner sales and marketing support team, saves money on operating costs, and increases profitability.
The leaders of productive companies create a proactive, go-to-market model.
Here are some other ways your business can improve productivity:
- Set goals: Figure out what goals you’d like to achieve and share them with your team. This can keep everyone motivated and give them a sense of fulfillment when your goals are met.
- Understand your customers: Dive deep into why your customers are your customers. With this information, your sales and marketing team can improve the way they target and communicate with them.
- Innovate: Always be on the lookout for how you can enhance your current processes and procedures. The most successful companies are not only open to change but embrace it as well.
By taking advantage of these strategies, you can maximize your commercial productivity and become an “elite” company.
Read more: [This Week on Entrepreneur: How to Make Your Small Business More Productive]
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