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Key Business Issues"How To Identify Key Business Drivesrs To Advance Your Sales Campaigns"The key business issues are the specific areas a business chooses to focus where they want to accomplish their organizational goals. These issues drive the activities of a business and exist in multiple categories such as financial, marketplace, personnel, operational, customer, competitive, and supplier aspects of a business. How Key Business Issues Are Created Executives review their business for the pressures and business drivers that are most pressing to their success in the marketplace. They review these business drivers and filter them against the mission of their company and their goals for the year. There are many issues they want to address, but there are never enough resources to address all of them. The chosen issues are then prioritized. The most important ones are established as the key business issues for the company. These are the top issues that the business will address and pursue for the year. How Key Isuues Propagate In the Business Goals and strategies for resolving those a business' issues are formulated and objectives and activities are set to support the strategy. Goals are the long-range vision of the company, and the strategy helps them define how they are going to achieve those goals. Each strategy may have multiple objectives associated with it, and each objective will have a series of tactics and action items, which drive the daily decisions at all levels of the company. How Key Business Issues Flow Through Organizations Strategies for achieving business objectives flow down through the organization from the top, and they are linked with those issues the executives have deemed important. Business issues and the requirements necessary to accomplish them, permeate all levels of a business organization. At the higher levels of an organization, executives focus on shareholder return, financial concerns, business expansion, and market penetration. As you work your way down in the organization mid-level managers think about projects and operations that will support the view of the executives by creating programs and initiatives. At the lower levels of an organization chart, individuals focus on tasks, activities, and portions of a project. Different people own different requirements, but the fulfillment of those requirements are all connected and reach back up the organization to address and resolve the key goals. Key Business Issues in a Sales Opportunity In a sales environment, you want to address the business requirements of the decision-makers in the evaluation (your key prospect). Understanding their needs will:
Causes That Impact Business Issues The causes of business issues (pains) are situations, tasks, or processes that are not working well and are preventing key goals from being achieved. The causes of business pains are usually the easiest to identify, and the first thing you hear about when you talk with users or first level managers. The causes of the pains are usually due to a lack of capability within an organization due to something being broken, not existing, or being dormant which needs to be activated. Often times employees do not see the connection with the causes of their pains, and the related consequences which impact the key business issues. As a sales person, you can help them see the consequential effect and implications of their tactical pains by relating them to the company's issues. By helping the prospect's employees elevate and connect their concerns to the business' concerns, it helps build their attachment to your solution. People will appreciate you helping them see how solving their immediate problem can help solve the company's larger problems. Implications, Consequences And Effects Of Those Causes If the cause of a business pain is not addressed or solved, it will have consequences and effects within the organization that impact the key issues. Those effects usually come in one of four areas.
How To Create A Competitive Advantage In A Sales Campaign Knowing the key business issues of your prospect helps you focus your investigation and discovery, and helps you prepare and present your solution presentation . It also helps you have meaningful conversations at all levels of the organization. Your discovery phase of sales process are better focused, and it helps create relationships built on trust and capability. In addition, if your competition is not addressing the prospect's key business issues, their solution will not be as impactful as yours. Conclusion As you engage in your discovery regarding a sales opportunity, organize the information that you gather around the key business issues. Look for the causes of the business problems or pains and the effects and consequences of those causes. Focus on how the pains connect to each other and how they connect to one or more consequences and effects. If the pain or business problem you identify ultimately connects, you know your solution has the attention of the prospect's executives and everyone else in the organization. Wherever possible, quantify the impact the pains have on the key business issues. Identify missing or assumed information required for you to get the complete picture. And set action items to gather and confirm what you need to know. Link the cause and effects of the business pain to your unique business value and the positive impact it has on the key business issues when preparing and presenting your solution. Related Articles
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