"Selling" credit services to the sales team (Part I). (Selected Topic).

In order for your organization to maximize its revenue and cash performance, building and maintaining a solid and positive relationship between your credit services and sales teams is key. Until you get both "sides" to realize this fact, your organization will not achieve its full potential. A key technique to accomplishing this is task is to "sell" credit services to the sales team.

Have you ever attended one of those sales meetings? You know the ones I'm talking about: The entire sales team gathers in a room to share the success stories and revenue opportunities for the future. What were you doing while you were there? Did you actually get invited or did you just show up? Well, just showing up is not enough; you must put yourself into a "selling" mode in order to strengthen your credit and sales relationship to increase your company's profitability.

View sales meetings as a unique opportunity to deliver a well-prepared presentation that clearly hits the "hot buttons" of your sales team. In other words, customize your presentation to exactly what your sales team focuses on each and every day. We all know what that is, right? You can bet that 80 percent of their focus is on their customers, their revenue, their commissions and their bonus checks. Period!

The two greatest assets of a company are the credit and sales teams; sales delivers revenue and credit services deliver cash. Companies do not survive if one is missing. Get the sales team to internalize this by emphasizing your commitment to partner with them so that both can be successful. Most organizations don't acknowledge the importance of this link. Use this tool as a means of competitive advantage and catapult your organization ahead!

How to "Get-In"

The only way to get invited (and not have to break down the door to get in) is to sell your way into the meeting. Focus on the items that are important to them and develop a presentation that will knock their socks off. Create a presentation that will intrigue them and make them look forward to your message. It's also crucial to get buy-in from the head of the sales department (or another sales champion in the organization). Get creative on your session title! Try something like "ABC Company's credit services team is in a position to help the sales team grow ...