A Manufacturing company based in Northern England had noticed a drop off in sales over the past year.  There had been a change in management at the beginning of this period and along with this change was a cost saving exercise, and anything that was not core to delivering the production of the product was stripped back.  The sales team consisted of a Sales Manager and three sales executives.  The sales team figures were down by 35%, and prior to this the sales team were missing target by a further 40%, so in turn sales were behind plan of 75%.  The company had a strong balance sheet, but cash was now becoming stretched because of the credit terms offered to clients.

After reviewing the business a number of changes were recommended to get the business back on track. 

1) Credit terms with customers were 30 days net, but clients usually paid between 60 and 90 days. 

The answer was to recommend a credit organisation that managed the debtor book on behalf of the client.  The client was initially reluctant to try this route, but once they discovered that their debtor book was in the region of £165,000, which meant they were effectively funding their clients businesses and potentially rissking putting their own business 'out of business'. 

Withn two months of the recommendation the debtor book was down to under £8,000, a manageable amount, and what's more they never lost a single customer. 

2) Revenue had shown a trend of dropping off over the past twelve months which mirrored the tough economical climate the business was trading in.  This in fact disguised the true problem.  The company felt the business was under performing because the economy was under performing.   The reality was very much different.

With the austerity measures put in place by the business what they had effectively done was remove themselves from the 'shop window'.  The number of prospects had not dropped off. The number of opportunities had not changed.  The significant difference was the way the company had altered the way the sales team should function.  

A number of changes were implemented to get the business back into the 'shop window' and over a three month period the increase in qualified sales leads increased to over 80% more than where the business was when it was operating at its best revenue and profit year. 

The basis of the business review was to focus on the three key interests to the business owner.  

1) Increasing Revenues   -  analysis of sales team activity

2) Decreasing Expenses  - identifying the debtor book process failure

3) Improving Efficiencies and Profits - implementing a new plan that got the business performing better and improving profits.