While "sustainable sales" is known as a hallmark of long-term customer relationships, there are as yet few statements on how sustainability can be organised in sales. The latter refers to the totality of economic, ecological and social sustainability in sales. As sales is the decisive tool in customer contact, it has a special role to play in the credible implementation of sustainability activities in the company. With their customer contacts, they demonstrate to the outside world what companies have written into their sustainability agenda. That is why it is so important to start here.
Contents
- Sustainable face-to-face sales
- Sustainable sales: from product to solution sales
- Sustainability in sales: demand from customers is growing
- Taking small steps towards sustainability in sales
- Tips for sustainability in sales
Sustainable face-to-face sales
As a sales organisation, we want to understand the B2B direct approach by sales representatives despite all the variety of customer care options. They regularly visit their customers on site and provide advice to secure or support a purchase decision.
At first glance, the performance principle so often praised in sales and the long-term goals of sustainable management seem to contradict each other. But only at first glance.
In purely economic terms, we know that the start-up phases for customer acquisition can be very cost-intensive. This means that new customers are more expensive than existing customers. And because this is the case, it is always worthwhile turning customers into regular customers with various customer loyalty measures. Building on the customer's positive experience with the company, a larger share of the product range is ordered by the customer. The "share of wallet", the author's favourite KPI, provides a good guide here. We like to refer to this long-term customer relationship as sustainable sales.
In principle, however, it must also be possible in this area of an organisation to incorporate sustainable goals - i.e. economic, ecological and social goals - into day-to-day business with customers. This is all the more true today, as the former "warhorse salespeople" who liked to boast about the annual mileage of their company car are almost extinct.
Sustainable sales: from product to solution sales
Today's smart customers check very carefully who is sitting in front of them and what added value the visit will bring them. Product salespeople are therefore finding it increasingly difficult because they have to face up to solution salespeople whose main characteristic is that it is no longer about the individual product price or its features, but about the solution, which is generally intended to help the customer to do his/her business better. This applies to both the revenue and cost side - usually by taking entire processes off the customer's hands.
Sustainability in sales: demand from customers is growing
Customers are also beginning to attach more importance to sustainable aspects of their sources of supply. The sales department is feeling this at the forefront and is therefore happy to pass on the message that the company should now position itself more sustainably - e.g. via a sustainability report. (An overview of We provide sustainability seals and certificates here.) It is not yet obvious to the salesperson that he/she can contribute in his/her field of activity. This is where a gain in knowledge begins - he/she can also contribute to being perceived by the customer as a sustainable company representative.
The sales staff are aware that they should change something, but some lack the imagination and courage in the face of competitors who fail to do so, which could result in a personal disadvantage through loss of sales. The whole company would have to move towards a circular economy - but how is that supposed to work?
[glossary_exclude]Methods and best practice for sustainability in your mailbox
Sustainability - the task of company management
This is where the management's task of establishing sustainability in all areas of the company and, above all, in the corporate strategy begins. If it forgets to involve parts of the company in a sustainability strategy or considers them unable to participate, it loses momentum. If the company management remains superficial in its implementation of sustainability in the sales strategy, it runs the risk of being interpreted as greenwashing by the smart customer. How a sustainability strategy can be developed, we describe here.
Taking small steps towards sustainability in sales
When behavioural changes are necessary, even small environmental changes can have an effect on people in favour of positive routines. One example of this is the so-called Nudgingwhich aims to achieve a change in behaviour through gentle nudges without further incentives.
It would not be such a small change if the company management consistently aligned the sales strategy with sustainable goals and sales methods. The following topics should only be seen as a pool of ideas. In addition to the long-term customer relationship, which conserves economic sales resources, the following can be further ideas for areas of application - without claiming to be exhaustive:
Tips for sustainability in sales:
Ecological sustainability in sales:
- Reinventing business trips in the company - not every business trip has to be, avoiding travelling does not contradict a good customer relationship, customers can be asked how often and by which method contact is desired. By eliminating travelling times, for example, contact can be maintained with various regular customers on the same day. For example, by eliminating travelling time, contact can be maintained with various regular customers on the same day in order to answer recurring questions, while elaborate presentations for initial contacts are reserved for live visits. Such a division of labour saves resources in all areas.
- Change in car policy with a changed focus on CO2 data for combustion engines (https://www.mobilitypolicy.de/). On the one hand, lower CO2 emission values can be rewarded with a higher budget. On the other hand, the time spent travelling by different means of transport can be assessed differently. This is because routine or idle work such as expense reports or documentation can be processed on the train, while full attention must be paid to travelling by car. Travelling time by train could be weighted more with a factor of 0.75 than, for example, 0.25 when recording working time in a car. CO2 balance in the company here.
- The official Integration of a home office regulation for all sales representatives in the sales toolbox is just as much a part of this as a newly defined official framework for route planning, towards route-saving tours as they are already displayed on Google Maps.
Economic sustainability in sales:
- Prominent naming of sustainable products and solutions in the product range for increased customer awareness of these new focal points.
- Utilisation of technical possibilitiesThis includes the ability to get in touch with customers, training employees in professional presentations (e.g. designing the visual background of the presenter in the video conference and not leaving it to the individual's office activities) or the ability to call in experts who would not be easily accessible without the technology.
- Development of a new pricing model - such as return models using rental methods or rental models instead of purchase, in which the whereabouts of the product are known and an incentive is provided to return the product to the manufacturer at the end of its life, or "product as a service", in which the product no longer has to be purchased to fulfil the purpose, but only the service for the purpose is remunerated.
Social sustainability in sales:
- Change in the commission structure in favour of long-term customer relationships by using long-term assessment benchmarks for the sales performance of the individual. For example, the long-term initiation phase of a sales model may not be aimed purely at closing a deal, but rather at maintaining the customer relationship with the help of a target fulfilment model that is negotiated annually.
- Introduction of working time modelswhich make it possible for older sales staff to retire early, which is often easy on everyone's nerves, e.g. credit balances. Here, the salesperson saves a portion of their salary and this portion can be used without loss (without pension deductions) and insolvency-proof to retire earlier - see also https://www.bmas.de/DE/Arbeit/Arbeitsrecht/Teilzeit-flexible-Arbeitszeit/wertguthaben.html
Conclusion
Admittedly, some of these measures are not trivial. However, they represent design opportunities at different altitudes that will be rewarded in the long term depending on the willingness of the individual company, its employees, management and market requirements to change. Even small steps can bring about tangible, sustainable change.
Guest article
This is a guest article by Rolf Weinkauff. He is part of the plant values network, has many years of management experience and now advises companies himself on environmental management and similar topics.