Nov 13, 2014 By Mark Hunter

5 Key Questions for Improving Communication Inside Your Company

What is the percentage of deals that are lost due to poor communication? Not poor communication with the customer, but poor communication inside the company.

It’s far too easy for sales leaders to focus their time leading their salespeople and dealing with customers; but in so doing, it becomes too easy to not see or hear what’s going on inside the company.

The greatest asset of any company is its people. Yet too often, this asset is not properly aligned, due to the lack of clarity as to what is expected of them. Sales leaders owe it to their customers to ensure everyone in the organization knows the objectives.

Sales leaders need to ensure that their customer service groups and anyone else who may have contact with a customer or the sales team know the answers to the following questions:

Who are the company’s top 10 customers?
What top products/services does each of the top 10 customers buy?
Who are the contacts for each customer?
Who are the fastest growing customers?
What significant issues are customers dealing with?

These five questions are just the start of what people need to know. What I have found in working with hundreds of companies as a sales consultant is that few can answer these 5 questions.

Yes, an easy way to get a team up to speed is by merely making the necessary information available and asking everyone to read it. However, this doesn’t get to the reason for knowing. The reason this information is important is because it helps everyone understand the implications when a customer calls or a salesperson makes a request.

Taking the time to communicate the information and the implications is what can make the difference in being able to secure incremental sales from superior customer support.

The superior customer support cuts two ways. First of all, the customer has the reassurance that someone besides the salesperson can help them if a need arises. This in turn offers added confidence to the sales team in knowing their office will be able to handle a customer issue in an informed way.

For those inside the company receiving the information about customers, the ability for them to be “in the know” is huge. Suddenly, they feel much more part of the team, which translates immediately into increased employee satisfaction.

When there is employee satisfaction, there is naturally more productivity and typically lower turnover.

Sales leadership begins with communication, and that includes communication with those inside the company.

Mark Hunter, “The Sales Hunter,” is author of High-Profit Selling: Win the Sale Without Compromising on Price. He is a sales expert who speaks to thousands each year on how to increase their sales profitability. He was named one of the Top 50 Influencers in Sales by Top Sales World. To receive a free weekly sales tip and read his Sales Motivation Blog, visit www.TheSalesHunter.com. You can also follow him on Twitter, on Facebook and on LinkedIn.