Strategies for Maintaining – and Increasing – Market Share

Strategies for Maintaining – and Increasing – Market Share

Financial services and mutual fund firms continue to feel the pressure of decreased revenues. Options are few-drive revenue growth, keep your clients, and carefully pare back expenses. Our bias, naturally, is to look for revenue drivers.

So what do fund companies and financial services providers need to do to maintain market share and continue to grow sales in a market environment like this? Sales, after all, is a return on investment (ROI) game; the objective is to make the smallest investment possible in the most productive sales channels. Opportunity cost is a factor here as well — no one wants to waste time and money on unproductive sales efforts. Here are a couple of things that firms can do that can directly impact their productivity and revenues in a tough market.

Feed the Hungry. Many firms panic and fall into the spaghetti method of sales management (“let’s throw everything we’ve got at the market and see what sticks”). The problem with this approach is that it doesn’t nourish the most productive sales channels, and it can waste valuable time and money on unproductive ones. Better to run a fast analysis on which channels are really producing (and why) and to feed the productive ones well.

Believe in magic. Another trap firms fall into is not analyzing the sales process – each and every step – and understanding precisely where the sales obstacles occur and how the successful sales are closed. In a market cycle like this it can be easy to believe that sales are off everywhere, and that there isn’t a whole lot you can do to influence new business growth. Not so. Not understanding the sales process for your firm, your distribution channels and your products leads to the creation of unnecessary materials, non-specific sales skill development programs, and a host of other money-wasters.

Knowing specifically where the sales obstacles (a natural step in every sales cycle) occur and remedying them fast is the key to closing more business.