Idibu strategic growth planPresented by

Steve Anderson28th March 2015

Executive summary.To align sales tools to customer behaviours, revising channel strategies, and improving sales representatives’ access to information. Building the right process, talent, technology and customer capabilities to drive high performance sales.

Aims, Targets & Timelines.A great sales plan begins with a great reason to sell. What are our motivations? Why do we want to get more customers? How big do we want to be and by when? To agree the figures we need to achieve and in what timeline. e.g. £2 million turnover in 5 years. How does that break down into customer profiles, number of sales, conversion rates and length of sales process.

Agreeing budgets.sales and marketing budgets will be aimed at generating qualified customer leads and driving profitable sales. Expenditures fall into four general categories: advertising, channel incentives (such as partner promotions and rebates), sales incentives (such as sales representative commissions and bonuses), price discounts.

Sales strategy.Creating value - Why should customers choose idibu?Better technology, how does our product compare in the market place. If our prospects were to take ‘the Pepsi challenge’ would they choose idibu and why?Reliability, will our products fail or will they last and still be market leading in the near future?Adaptability, when job boards change, can idibu react fast to those changes with minimal disruption to recruiters?Better value: deal pricing, which focuses on bundling offers and aligning those bundles to customer segments, thereby optimising deal profitability via better margins and higher win rates. Or negotiation/ execution. By mastering this pricing capability, idibu can more effectively manage risks and capture contract leakage, and also carry out complex negotiations with greater confidence. This results in better responsiveness to volatile market conditions and a reduction in discounting, as well as administrative expenses.

Driving profitability: First, the need to create awareness and consistently reinforce the importance of profitable sales, not just top line revenue (i.e., every deal cannot be a “must win” deal). Secondly, we should monitor and measure the expected value of respective sales (i.e., We should use analytics to evaluate what’s in the pipeline and the potential profitability of each deal).

Customer profile & Sales.Understanding what today’s customers want and how they want to interact with the business can guide idibu to create processes that place sales reps at the centre of the customer experience. Aligning sales processes to the customers’ needs improves the likelihood that those processes will be adopted, since those processes will directly support the activities that will help reps achieve their goals.

Technology in Sales.Another way to drive excellence in execution is to rethink how technology can improve sales effectiveness. The use of a CRM to track and manage our pipeline and provide ROI through data capture and quality MI, will be effective in driving the right sales activity, behaviour and nurture leads to a converted sale and ongoing account management.

What is changing is the appreciation of the role that technology plays in sales transformation. The emergence of social, mobile and cloud solutions has made it clear that digital technologies and analytics are disruptors of the status quo and can be considered key elements of a differentiated sales strategy.

Leveraging their analytics to understand the needs of the customer, identify cross-sell opportunities or reduce customer churn.

Developing and Managing a sales team.

Using analytics to gain insights that will improve outcomes across the sales talent lifecycle. This approach involves: • Identifying the traits that distinguish high performing sales reps from those that may not be as likely to succeed • Understanding the skills and behaviours that predict success in selling • Identifying the gaps between current and desired performance• Accurately modelling success and prioritising training, management and on-boarding investments accordingly • Developing insights into what each sales rep and manager needs for ongoing training, development and support • Translating what makes high performers successful to the hiring process.

Idibu needs to respond to fluctuating market demands and engage with customers and teaming partners in real time and in differentiating ways. Having the ability to get the right opportunity to the right customers at the right time and seek out innovative relationships to deliver greater value.

So the success of a dynamic sales strategy is based largely on the use of analytics—not just to understand the characteristics, preferences and behaviours of customers, but also to create a dynamic network of external and internal channels committed to delivering consistently satisfying experiences, regardless of the mode of interaction.

Then the willingness to break down the barriers that traditionally separate sales, marketing and service functions with an open, highly integrated, collaborative environment that enables all parties to work integrally to strengthen customer relationships and drive profitable growth.

The importance of this is reflected in the fact that customers today are often more than 50 percent through the buying process when they meet sales representatives for the first time.

Through our nurturing sales cycle we need to Inform and listen to marketing, service and sales reps and managers to build understanding and commitment. Be clear, responsive and engaging, and take advantage of social collaboration and networking tools.

Connect and collaborate: Empower stakeholders and put them in control of the new way they work. Deliver insights and tools to connect them with the customer and each other. We need to look at our approach to leadership in a dynamic sales environment.

Dynamic selling success is measured by so much more than closing a deal. It is about seamlessly managing a complex ecosystem of dynamic channels, processes, digital technologies and customer insights. In the end, it’s all about the customer.

What we need to do next?

We need to add data and detail to this strategy in order to orchestrate a plan of action that is based on real time, accurate management information that is directly related to idibu and our market.

SWOT - Analysis

Understand our Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats. These will need to be reviewed as they will change over time

Understand the market

To build our sales strategy, we need to gather data in the following areas:customer (and potential customer) numbers, profile and mixcustomer perceptions, needs, preferences, buying patterns, and trends, by sub-sector if necessaryproducts and services, mix, values and trendsdemographic issues and trends (especially if dependent on consumer markets)future regulatory and legal effectsprices and values, and customer perceptions in these areasdistribution and routes to marketcompetitor activities, strengths, weaknesses, products, services, prices, sales methods, etc.

Understand the Competition

Where do your potential customers currently obtain the product or service you are selling?

What strengths and weaknesses do those businesses exhibit?

How will you offer a superior product or service?

• Find out why our clients need our company. Find out who they are and the problem they needed to solve when they first approached our business. Identifying why our customers use our business will help to approach new customers.

• Make a list of five or six reasons why customers are better off using our business. Differentiate between our business' features (what it has) and benefits (what it does). Put ourselves in our customer's shoes and try to work out what they are looking for, and then try to match our proposition to their needs. Make sure we emphasise the benefits as well as the features in our promotional material.

• List our clients' similarities and differences to help create profiles for each type of client. Find out about competitors' clients: who are our existing, potential and key customers? Rank the groups in order of profitability to give you an idea of where you should be aiming to spend money.

• If a client is costing us more than we are making from them, make sure we have a good reason for selling to them. For example, if we are selling to a large company, it might be that they are providing us with regular revenue or drawing attention to our business in their promotional activities.

• Analyse our sales costs and try to cut down on our sales costs to unprofitable customers. This might be by using an alternative distribution method or cheaper sales channels.

Decide on your sales channels

Reaching the right customers is easier said than down. Once we have worked out what our market is and how it's broken down, we need to decide which sales channels to use:

• Direct or on-site sales are face-to-face, and is the model used by most retailers

• The internet is a versatile way to sell

• Telesales can be effective for business-to-business and repeat sales, but generally has a low conversion rate

• Direct mail also has quite a low conversion rate but is less intrusive than telesales

We will need to trial several marketing options and monitor performance to establish which produce the best ROI. These campaigns will be targeted to the different sectors .i.e.

Smaller recruiters: Easier to close but low revenue opportunity and high volume in the numbers to market will require a lower budget campaign that will reach this large audience.

Medium size recruiters: Revenue opportunities are higher, so time and money spent to attain clients can be higher. The need for a more personalised approach and direct face to face interaction is required for this campaign. Social media targeted connections, then direct personalised e-mail call to action and telephone for face to face appointments.

Large recruiters: Highest revenue opportunity but typically the longest conversion time and complex sales negotiations. Understanding this customer profile and individual hot buttons, heart burns will be crucial to closing the sale and require extensive preparation, research and excellent client relation skills to manage this prospect from initial contact to close. But will yield the best revenue results.

Different approaches for different customer profiles.

Head hunters that may use their own database and not have any perceived value or use of multi posting, applicant tracking, cv search and MI tools, will require a different approach than a recruiter that currently uses Broadbean or Logic Melon.

We need to tailor our approach and be able to present value options that relate to each individual prospects need and therefore create value by understanding our customer. Once we have collated all the required information we can formulate an action plan using S.M.A.R.T - Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound.

We will use our overall target and aim to work backwards and outline what needs to be achieved by end of year 1, then quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily. We will then be able to monitor through sales activity, CRM updates, market research and data analysis in order to ensure we remain on target and are able to identify changes in the market, spot new opportunities and have the flexibility, knowledge and ability to adapt to a developing market.