Despite shrinking fees, increasing costs and unavailable prospects, some agencies are still finding ways to increase their profitability. During his “Collection Sales” session at the convention, SearchNet Corp. President Marc Trezza provided attendees with a list of 10 simple questions to assess the quality of their sales efforts:
- Do your sales people use the “beaten to death” canned sales pitch that creditors hate?
- Do you win at least as many bids/RFPs as you lose?
- How well trained are your sales people?
- Do your marketing materials distinguish you from the best?
- Is pipeline management happening and working?
- Do you have a marketing plan? Is it helping?
- Do prospects talk about how professional your sales people are?
- Are your sales people the first line on profit?
- Are your sales people making 80 call attempts a day?
- Are you experiencing a minimum of 25 percent annual growth?
Trezza commended the collection industry on the manner in which agencies manage their collection floor. Unfortunately, this same style isn’t typically used for managing sales. He recommended agencies translate their collection management tactics for use in the sales department.
“Time and time again, the things we do well for collection management, we do poorly with sales management,” he said.
Sales people should be given the same level of training as collectors. They should have the same level of management and resources as collectors. And they should be held to stringent metrics, like collectors.
“The golden rule is if you wouldn’t do it on the collection floor, you shouldn’t do it on the sales floor,” Trezza said.