What does a master of his craft – a consultant in the consulting field – look like? As a rule, this is a person with sufficient experience in management and business building, with an analytical mind, operating with common sense and iron logic.
His reputation is very expensive, because it consists of a series of defeats and victories, which he received during the period of building his own business. Now his competence allows him to apply his unique knowledge and all his experience to build business processes in a consulting format.
Let’s imagine a picture: morning, a call:
- Good afternoon, I don’t know how to express my need…..
- Tell it like it is!
- I need to increase sales immediately, and I don’t know where to start!!!
The morning call to the consulting firm’s office came from a client who was desperate. It was necessary to get things sorted out. Already in 3 hours a meeting was held in the office. As it turned out, the client was engaged in the production and sale of swimming pools on the territory of several countries in Eastern Europe.
In previous years, managers did not really “rush into action”, as the director and the owner had many sales channels based on agreements from the distant 90’s. As they say, “You can’t drive if you don’t drive. Now the market rules have become much stricter.
An emergency analysis of all business processes and an audit of advertising activity was carried out. The analysis of the work performed showed an unsatisfactory situation inside the company. Business processes were fragmented, employees worked “the old-fashioned way” – they accounted for their activity and sales in the form of an Excel spreadsheet. Production and realization of products, in fact, were separated and were in a state of artificial competition. It was possible to write a saga about marketing activity “The struggle of good with evil…”.
All this had to be put in order. The consultants of the consulting company started with simple and understandable moments:
- building business processes within the company,
- introducing an electronic management and document management system, which allowed for better communication between employees.
Next, a new plan for production and realization of products was implemented. All product lines were structured and ranked by profitability. Those that were not profitable were removed from the assortment. The most profitable products were prioritized for production, and the packaging design was updated.
Also, to increase sales separately was created marketing department of the company, which took over the function of product presentation on all channels, where the target audience, by the way very fastidious and conservative. A new website, social pages, videos, printed materials and other tools to attract customers were launched. The main emphasis in the advertising campaign was made on search networks, which actually managed to attract the audience very quickly, keep it and transfer it to the status of buyers.
It turned out that the consumer was interested in learning about the products in more detail, and even in such a convenient format. As a result, customers began to make a quicker decision to buy, and the number of requests increased.
After 5 months the result was obvious: sales went up and financial indicators began to bring joy not only to the consulting company, but also to the client. By the end of the marketing year, the result of the consultant’s work was a significant increase in sales, both in the regular and premium segments. Or, to be more precise – the pool manufacturing company not only retained its position, but also increased sales by 70%, regaining part of the lost market.
What contributed to the success? As one of the factors – a new look at the business processes of sales and marketing of such a conservative product as swimming pools. Competitors simply did not expect that this was possible. And when they realized it, it was too late to launch a counterattack, so they started copying. But, as you know – the leader does not stand still, and the pool manufacturing company received a strategic development plan for the next year, taking into account the previous experience.