Avoiding Sales And Operations Planning Mistakes

Published on: 19 June 2021 Last Updated on: 03 January 2025

When it comes to sales and operations planning, a lot of mistakes can be made throughout the process, and you won’t be successful. Planning for the sales and the operations is going to lead the organization to the peak of success. But faults and errors are going to cost more than this. For beginners, the sales mistakes chances are enormous. Take a look at the common mistakes and avoid making blunders.

5 Common Planning Mistakes In Sales And Operations

The organizational structure and the profit are entirely depending upon the organization’s sales and operational system. Therefore, avoiding these sales mistakes can help you execute best practices and reap the rewards.

Here are five common sales mistakes which can lead your organization to a dark and challenging state.

1. Lack Of Executive Ownership

The big sales mistakes happen when the executive leadership team doesn’t fully own the sales and operations planning process. If leadership isn’t engaged, then it won’t be as successful. If the leaders aren’t involved, it’s essential to understand why. It could be you aren’t giving them the tools to run the company or consider information that is easy to understand.

A good technology platform may also be the key. The best processes and people can only take you so far, and technology can help speed up the process and allow the team to shift focus from just calculations to analysis, which is more important.

2.Lack of Cross-Functional Engagement

The whole point of using the sales and operations planning process is to make sure the entire organization is moving in the same, right direction. This can be hard to do if there isn’t any involvement from the key stakeholders. If you aren’t having sales, operations, or finance teams engaged in the process, you won’t be successful. Usually, this is due to a lack of a way to translate between the different views of information.

To make the process work, you need to have the same information exposed to each stakeholder in the form they need and understand. You can start small and work your way up to more significant projects, but you need to extend the scope to all the different people and provide the required translation to make sure everyone is on the same page.

You may go through History and How to Increase Sales in Your Confectionery Shop

3.Focusing On Just One Number

For years, the mantra of sales and operations planning was to get to a one-number plan, but this can be too simplified and limits the value of planning for many executives. Executives are paid for predictability, and they are hired to manage sales mistakes risk.

Planning can be a great tool to help, but only if you aren’t falling for the one-number trap. Instead, it helps plan in ranges and have a best case, worst case, and expected all in the process. The ability to know what can happen if things don’t go according to the plan is priceless information.

4.Complexity

It’s essential to keep it simple when it comes to metrics. Companies can become paralyzed by making the wrong decisions when looking at hundreds of different metrics. On the other hand, having things too complex can prevent companies from asking the right questions.

You should pick your big 10 to 15 metrics and then go with them. Then, track these metrics and make the performance transparent. Therefore everybody can understand why these metrics are being tracked, what they are, and how to learn from the numbers. Common sales mistakes can be avoided by knowing the metrics and analyzing the data.

5.Not Having Documentation

In order to learn from past mistakes, you have to have documentation. You need to capture all the assumptions and knowledge that goes into the plan. You need to provide a tool to capture this information and make it easy for teams to contribute.

For instance, if you are collaborating as a group using social media, then be sure to capture those chats and embed them into the plan, so you are able to understand the context of changes or decisions six months later. If you aren’t learning from history, you are doomed when you will repeat it and won’t succeed.

Conclusion:

Sales and operations planning can give you great results, but you may not achieve success if you aren’t executing the process correctly. These are the common sales mistakes that may happen at any time. If you want to avoid making these mistakes, always look at the operation and data collection before planning. What is your strategy to avoid making mistakes for the sales and operation plannings? Do not forget to share your opinion in the comment section.

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The Ultimate Guide To Guest Posting: Scale Your Business In 2022

If you are a savvy blogger, you are most probably aware of guest posting. But why is guest posting important for your business? The concept of guest posting is quite simple - You write articles for another blog that you don’t own. Guest posting is a mutual relationship between bloggers and the owners of the website. Both get the benefits of a guest posting. Guest posting is a new opportunity for both bloggers and website owners. They are exposed to a wider pool of audiences and get new traffic from the web. Due to its several benefits, today, online startups and established businesses use guest posting to reach new audiences. However, if you are a startup owner, not familiar with the whole guest posting concept, and looking for sites that accept guest posts, you are at the right place. Today, I am going to tell you how you can use guest posting to scale your business in 2022. Best Strategy For Guest Posting At Scale In 2022 We are already at the end of the year. The year 2021 has been a tough year for businesses. The businesses that survived the first post-pandemic year are expecting great things from the year 2022. This expectation has really burdened the guest posting strategies. Market experts believe that if the businesses want to take their game higher, guest posting might play a key role. Guest posting is a tried and tested method for attracting new yet relevant audiences. It can help your business establish itself as a market expert and present itself as an authoritative figure. Step 1: Start With Setting Your Goals The first step towards creating an effective guest posting strategy is to outline your goals. Having goals will ensure that you are walking on the right path. Ask yourself: Why are you planning this campaign? How will this campaign affect your business? Your answer to these questions will help you determine your goals and make things clear for you about the objective of the guest posting campaign. Step 2: Look For Prospective Sites Creating a guest posting strategy means that you first need to find a platform you can contribute to. This step is crucial as you cannot just post your content on any website. It is imperative that you post your blogs on websites that matter the most to you and are relevant to your niche and industry: Here are a few criteria that should be met while selecting websites. Relevant niche. Huge social media following. DA of at least 40. Keeping your search filtered to these key points will ensure you high-quality, relevant websites for guest posting. Step 3: Make Your Pitch Once you have listed down the website, you want to write for. The next thing is to make a comprehensive and convincing pitch. This is where you will be selling your content idea to the site owner via mail. Do not go for generic pitches; they do not stand out. Furthermore, the website owner will show no interest as he receives hundreds of pitches every day. Here is what your pitch should contain. Introduce yourself and showcase your area of expertise. Show appreciation for the post published on the website. Tell them about your goals. Present your idea. You can even add a brief outline of your idea along with the mail. Step 4: Craft Your Content If your pitch is accepted, it is time to craft your content. Now, what most people do - they think, as this is not their website, giving any content will do. However, that is not the case. Remember, guest posting is a mutual relationship. If your content is of poor quality, it will not perform on the website. Hence, your purpose of guest posting will stand void. Always focus on quality content, as this content will become your advocate. If the content is of high quality, readers would want to know about the author and will trace you back to your website. Step 5: Write An Interesting Author Bio As we have already said, people check the author bio of the writer who creates high-quality content. Hence, it is important that you write an appealing author bio for yourself. An author bio is the only place to directly market yourself, talk about your skills, and even add links back to your website. However, while writing an author bio, don’t make it too long. Just keep it enough that the readers know the kind of person you are. Step 6: Promote Your Content After your guest post is accepted and published on the site, you need to promote your post. This ensures that your content reaches as many people as possible. Here is a cool trick you can use to promote your content. Ta or Mention the site while sharing or writing your content. Step 7: Keep Track Your work is not complete after the guest post is published. In fact, you are just halfway through. One of the advantages of guest posting strategies is that they are scalable. That means, if you can enhance their performances, you can easily scale up your reach. Once your content goes live, make sure to go through the comments. See what readers feel about the content and respond to their comments. Actively engaging with the readers creates a good reputation in the industry and makes the reader feel that their words are taken care of. Guest Posting Is A Communication Exercise You must see guest posting as a communication exercise that needs practice. You will have to accept the fact that even after trying and following all the best practices, you are bound to make mistakes or might not get the results you desire. Making mistakes doesn't mean the end of your effort. Instead, come out with experiences and pitch again—this time ensuring that you do not repeat the same mistake. Like a communication exercise where you talk more instead of thinking, the same thing stands true in guest posting. The more you pitch and connect with the other bloggers in guest posting, the better you would become. Read Also: Best Ways to Get More From Your Outreach Campaign Creative Marketing Strategies to Put Your Small Translation Business How to Become a Great Travel Blogger: 11 Secrets Improve Your Local SEO via Content Marketing

Cold Calling Script for Successful Sales Persons

Cold calls are still of great importance even in the modern virtual world. If you are looking for business, one of the most effective sales tactics is cold calling. It is part of the outbound marketing strategy for your business and can deliver great results. A recent survey by DiscoverOrg on 1000 sampled senior executives in the IT industry reveals that 60% of them attended an event or took an appointment after receiving an unsolicited email or cold call. If you fear cold calls, then these tips will not help you to eradicate your fear. However, they will give you a more successful experience in making cold calls. Focus on the Goal Most beginners think that cold calling only deals with making the sale. However, this is not the case. It deals with getting an opportunity to make a sell. The primary reason behind making a cold call is setting an appointment for making the pitch. You can use a cold calling script to help you focus on the goal. Research Your Prospects and Market Before Making the Cold Call Your cold call has to target the right audience. Market research can help you to focus on the right audience. Gather a lot of information about the company or individual you will be calling in advance. This step will give you a significant advantage of being in a position to talk about their business and needs when you make the call. Gartner Group states that an enterprise that has an average of 100 to 500 employees will have approximately seven people making the purchase decisions. Therefore. It is critical to connecting with the right individuals if you need success in your cold calls. Leverage Contacts on Social Media to Enhance Your Chances of Connecting Statistics from Vorsight reveal that if you share a LinkedIn group with the person you are calling, you have a probability of 70% of making a successful cold call. What applies to LinkedIn can also stand to the other social media platforms. You can increase your prospects of receptiveness when you are connected with your audience in social media. Therefore, make sure that you work towards establishing of extending your presence on social media. Prepare Opening Statements for Your Call It is good to organize your thoughts before making a call as this will assist you to avoid the common mistakes while opening the conversation. Making such errors can make the individual you are calling to terminate your call. At this point, the cold calling script comes in handy. This document should act as a guide, and you don’t have to read it out. What Should Be in The Opening Statement of the Cold Call It is essential to organize your conversation on the cold call in a logical manner. You need a greeting, an introduction, reference point that talks about the prospects, advantages of your products and services, and lastly a transition to the dialogue or question. Prepare a Script for the Remaining Section of the Call Put down the benefits of your products or services and reasons that will make your prospects to buy them. Put down some of the possible objections and how you will answer them. It is easy to meander or leave something out if you don’t have a cold calling script. Once more, you will not be reading out the script when you call. The most important thing is to prepare a framework for your cold call in advance. Be ready to answer tough questions about the products and services you are selling. Forbes Insights report that 58% of potential buyers assert that sales representatives cannot adequately respond to their questions. You can get yourself out of this script by preparing an excellent cold calling script. Request for an Appointment During the Cold Call Set the appointment that you request during the conversation at a specific time. For instance, you could ask the prospect whether 11:00 a.m. would be good for him/her. You could also ask your audience whether you can meet them the following week. It is good to get your prospects committing to a meeting in your initial conversation. Don’t leave it vague because this will necessitate a second call for setting up the meeting. The phone call may never take place if you are unable to get to the prospect. Note That Gatekeepers Are Allies and Not Foes Remain polite to anyone who picks up the call or whoever guards the inner sanctum when making the cold call. Have strategies that will make the gatekeeper to come on your side. You could even ask something like ‘I am not sure whether you will be able to assist me?’ and he/she will give you the info that you require like the name of the person you need to talk to or the best time of contacting the prospects. You also need to learn the names of the gatekeeper and remain friendly during the call. Send Your Prospects Unique and Small Promotional Items to Smooth Your Way for the Cold Call This step will break the ice and make the brand to stand out from the crow. Sending out such promotional items will prepare the way for a successful cold call. A question like ‘are you the one who sends me this’ from the prospect may seem to be unnecessary or cheesy but it works well. If Possible, Do the Cold Call Late in the Afternoon or Early Morning The best time to reach the decision-maker directly is late evening or early morning. Research also reveals that Thursday is the best day for cold calls and Wednesday comes in as the second. The same research reveals that Tuesday is the worst but this can vary from one person to another. Remain Persistent 80% of new sales will come after you make the fifth contact yet most salespersons give up after making the second call. Don’t be the kind of person who gives up so easily. It is good to learn to try again if you really want to make a sale. Above all, practice, practice, and keep on practicing and you will become an expert in cold calling. You will always get better even if you find no fun in making cold calls. With constant practice, you will develop effective selling techniques. Therefore, get your script ready and the call list and begin to reach out to your phone. There are several people out there who would like to do business with you but you need to let them know about your brand first. Read Also: FinTech Is Making It Easier To Shop The World’s Biggest Sales This Is Why Social Media Is Essential In The B2B Sales Process 5 Actionable Mobile Marketing Tips That Drive Sales

How to find the best products to sell on Amazon and some examples

What can you sell online? It is obvious, that you can sell anything online. But here, selling online means to sell a product with a decent profit margin. To become a successful Amazon seller you need to find the right product that has high demand; low competition; and many other characteristics. Once you select a product that has all these characteristics, you can see a decent profit selling them. In this article, some of the ways of finding the best products to sell on Amazon are explained along with some examples. Table of Contents Finding the best product Manual methods of product research Automated methods of product research Popular and profitable products on Amazon 1. Finding the best product There are many ways by which you can find a profitable product to sell. This process of analyzing the current trends in the market and ending up with a good product is known as product research. Product research can be done in two ways namely manual product research and automated product research. These processes are explained below. 2. Manual Product Research This is the process of analyzing the current trends in the market manually through various strategies as follows. Checking Amazon’s bestsellers list – Amazon has its own listings of thousands of products as bestsellers categorized based on their niches. You can just go to this list and check what are all the niches and products that sell well. You can also go through those product listings to find out the special features and characteristics of a product that attracts more customers. The product reviews under each bestselling product will be the bible for you to shape your own product. If you just look at the bestseller list, you will get to see the products with high competition. So, you can go through the sub-categories to find more specific products with high demand and low competition. You can get excellent product ideas from this. Pinterest – Pinterest acts as a great platform for finding different product ideas. It may seem like a social media platform like Pinterest cannot help in developing product ideas. But it is very helpful in finding new products since millions of people are searching and uploading millions of pictures almost in all niches. You can just search your keyword and get thousands of product images to develop an idea from. Contacting your suppliers - If you have traded on Amazon already or you have a product supplier with you, you can get much information on the current trends in your niche. He will provide details about the movement of specific goods and products in that niche. This may help you in developing a product idea that actually sells. Spying on Competitors – Although it sounds like illegal activity, it is legal in terms of an online marketplace. You can look at the strategies used by your competitors; the keywords used by them; their customer service; and many more. You should not try to copy the exact strategies of your competitors since you may not have the same reach and capabilities of your giant competitors. Lookout for bestselling products on eBay – You can get product ideas by looking at the trending products on other e-commerce sites like eBay. 3. Automated methods of Product Research This includes the same processes of keyword research, competitor analysis, monthly search volume calculation, etc. But all the processes are automated using various free and paid tools available online. An example of automated product research is the use of Google trends. It helps to notify you of all the recent trends in the market along with various numbers and statistics. 4. Popular and profitable products on Amazon Some products are there known as evergreen products that will definitely make more money. These are the products with low cost of production; high demand; and high-profit margin. Some of these evergreen products are listed below. Books – Books are always a great product to sell online. Since the online market place is like an open library and the product is delivered directly to the residence of the customer, books are always high on sales. You can easily get books in bulk from any publishers and sell them online at your own price with a profit margin. Accessories and apparels – Although this category is oversaturated with millions of sellers providing the same cosmetics; jewelry; clothes; and accessories, this niche is always evergreen. It is because of the everlasting need for apparel and accessories in modern society. Toys and Games – Surprisingly, this niche is also one of the bestselling categories in the whole market place. Baby products and toys for both children as well as adults are another evergreen choice to be successful. Electronics – Although it is an evergreen niche, only authorized brands will dominate this niche. Read Also: Beginners Guide: How You Can Grow Your Biz With Amazon Your Review of Amazon’s FBA Wholesale Marketing Course

Avoiding Sales And Operations Planning Mistakes

5 Common Planning Mistakes In Sales And Operations

1. Lack Of Executive Ownership

2.Lack of Cross-Functional Engagement

3.Focusing On Just One Number

4.Complexity

5.Not Having Documentation

Conclusion:

What is a Digital Marketing Agency and What Can It Do For You?

What to Know About Location-Based Data

Content Rally

Content Rally wrapped around an online publication where you can publish your own intellectuals. It is a publishing platform designed to make great stories by content creators. This is your era, your place to be online. So come forward share your views, thoughts and ideas via Content Rally.

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The Ultimate Guide To Guest Posting: Scale Your Business In 2022

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How to find the best products to sell on Amazon and some examples

Avoiding Sales And Operations Planning Mistakes

5 Common Planning Mistakes In Sales And Operations

1. Lack Of Executive Ownership

2.Lack of Cross-Functional Engagement

3.Focusing On Just One Number

4.Complexity

5.Not Having Documentation

Conclusion:

Share this Article

What is a Digital Marketing Agency and What Can It Do For You?

What to Know About Location-Based Data

Content Rally wrapped around an online publication where you can publish your own intellectuals. It is a publishing platform designed to make great stories by content creators. This is your era, your place to be online. So come forward share your views, thoughts and ideas via Content Rally.

Leave a Reply

Popular

Follow Us

Recent

Related