I have produced this short video to introduce this article to you.

Recently, I put two articles on my blog that have caused a lot of comments about how to sell to B2B prospects and clients, and promises by readers about using the action steps I pointed out in the articles.

The articles are about showing your prospects and clients their COI – Cost of Inaction – what it is costing them by not buying, and fully utilizing, your products and/or services.

But there is one other group that also needs to be aware of their COI, or cost of inaction. And for you, this is the most important group.

And that group is you and your company!

What is your internal COI – Your Own Cost of Inaction?

What do I mean by this?

First of all some stats.

CSO Insights, a venerable B2B sales research firm, surveys thousands of companies every year on the results they are achieving in their B2B sales and marketing efforts.

In a CSO Insights recent sales performance study, less than half (47.3%) of forecasted business ends up being closed. A third (32.0%) is lost and 20.7% ends up being indefinitely stalled, leading to poor forecasting and many missed opportunities.

So what is causing this lack of accuracy in forecasted deals? What barriers need to come down?

And what does create a positive relationship?

Strong account planning and the ability to drive customer loyalty, a common customer experience objective!

From my own experience and research, B2B sales and marketing people are not getting enough of the right training, and especially follow-on coaching to be as successful as they can be.

Only 10.1% of B2B sales and marketing people really understand their customer’s buying process.

And only 9.2% of B2B sales and marketing people actually exceed expectations for how to build the right business case.

So how can these results not only be improved, but significantly improved, so that B2B sales people and marketers are really driving your revenues and profits?

This can all be done with the right training and coaching!

What measurable sales improvements are results of your sales training investments?

CSO Insights pointed out several practices that were positively linked to sales success:
1. Having a sales process which was very tightly aligned to the customer’s preferred methods of purchase,
2. Having a strong ability to prioritize which prospects to focus on and to allocate efforts and resources, and
3. Having a strong ability to build and to execute opportunity plans.

So what then is your internal COI – your Cost of Inaction?

By not giving all of your revenue generating people – sales, marketing, client service, and especially executives – the training they not only need, but deserve, you are not achieving your full potential of revenues.

What would that mean to you, not only for the growth of your business, but the profits you could achieve, and with the same number of people?

How excited would you be over that, knowing that the shareholder value of your company is growing without any expenditures for more people?

In fact, there is a good possibility you could do it with less people.

So, even before you look at talking to your clients about their COI, you need to look at your internal COI.

You need to look at getting the right training, and especially follow-on coaching, for your sales and marketing team, so you can make your revenue numbers this year and every year. And this coaching should be on-going, all the time. WHY? Because people forget. And that’s why all athletes, actors, dancers, etc. are always getting coached. It never stops!

Have you and your sales and marketing team been given the right training and coaching to make your revenue numbers this year and every year?

If not, STOP YOUR INACTION NOW. Think of your internal COI!

I have found, in my 40+ years of business life, including as a B2B salesman, business owner, and coach/trainer, that training and coaching usually costs less than 10% of the increases in revenue you will achieve. And in many cases, it costs less than 1% of the increase in revenues.

What are you waiting for?

Contact me today, through my email here, to see how you can increase your revenue growth to new heights. Get started now for maximum growth this year, and especially going into the New Year.

Ian Dainty
Kind regards,
Ian Dainty
Ian Dainty’s Email

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