My company manufactures and sells a high-tech product to hospitals and healthcare providers. We have a direct sales force that is responsible for 90% of our volume, and some channel partners handling the other 10%. We are so concerned about surviving we are incredibly focused on getting the next sale transaction booked. We care about our customers. Every prospect and every lead is essentially treated equally. We carefully track via metrics our progression from lead generation, to inquiry through to unit sales, etc., yet we are not profitable. My question for you is, how can I tell if we would be better served by adopting a different set of metrics to assure profitability?

Rick in Ohio

 

 

Dear Rick:

You are doing many of the right things by tracking your customers through the sales channel.  I suspect your problem lies in how you are spending your money and whether you are putting your resources around more profitable customers. The clue is in your comment that your treat all of your customers equally. On the surface, that appears to be a fair thing to be doing, yet all of your customers are not treating you equally. Some are more profitable while others are not. Only put your resources behind customers that are sufficiently profitable. A more customer-centric set of metrics and less transaction oriented would serve you well.

Dave

 

 

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