Stalling sales, what to do?

You have a name in the market, a good product, and excellent people, but sales could be better; what to do?

This article concerns Capital Market software but can be applied to similar industries.

I will give software companies with stalling sales a high-level roadmap to boost sales revenue. However, a roadmap is good if well executed and implemented.

Roadmap to boost your sales

1) Regulatory needs:

The easiest way to boost sales is when a financial crisis pushes for new regulations requiring heavy software development investment.

Ride this wave early on, and work with (lobby) regulators up-front. You will be in a position to be the leader in this particular need and boost their sales.

2) The developed markets:

Identify your most important clients and do the following:

• Build a bank function heatmap such as the example below (not exhaustive).

• From the heatmap, identify areas where your product(s) can drive costs down. Cost is the number one item that keeps banks’ managers awake at night.

• Develop an account management team that will work with the heads of departments to create new selling opportunities:

New selling opportunities can be products but also services. Services can be from H/W hosting to … the opportunities are immense.

3) The emerging markets:

First, identify a market where competition did not establish itself as the leader.

Then work with a local distributor; do not venture alone at the beginning.

Build a targeted story, solution, and catalog. Do not go with your developed market catalog and pricing.

4) Innovate:

Create a story that brings a need for a new product, and be the first to introduce this product, i.e., create a new market.

Not every innovation needs product development; think of repositioning your current offering.

For example, if you are in the reconciliation software, you are considered operations, back-office. However, reconciliation solutions can be regarded as formidable risk management tools that can impact desks P&L. So, change your story to address different users and new markets.

Of course, this is not the only way to enhance sales, but it is a good starting point.

I have been working on these angles most of my professional career, helping companies restructure their sales and product teams to improve sales revenue.

I will be happy to help you if you need assistance in these areas.