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We know that taking on management roles in a company is a challenge that can cause anxiety and nerves, but at the same time it is a perfect opportunity to grow and demonstrate your full potential - and what better way to do that than by designing a successful sales process!
Chris Grosser, Tesla 's sales consultant, once said that "opportunities don't happen, you create them. In other words, determination and proactivity will define the success or failure of a project.
The truth is that there is no single formula to create a perfect sales process in every company. This is where leaders must understand their market, its internal dynamics and create strategies that allow the business to evolve, one step at a time.
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So here are 3 steps to help you put together the ideal sales process for your team. Remember, it is not advisable to run before you learn to crawl.
Maintain consistent documentation and action
Crawling is a great feat for babies, as it is a clear step forward in reaching firm steps.
This analogy works perfectly for the design of sales processes, and the first stage will be to start creating appropriate documentation.
The sales process should be detailed in a document called a playbook, and according to Salesforce, almost half of the companies have not written one. Jim Schuchart, vice president of sales at Privi, says that "there is no worse sales process than not having one.
Structured Data > Unstructured Data > No Data
Rather than creating a whole complex guide, the priority will be to select a strategy and have your team begin to know, apply and learn from it.
For example, instead of creating new opportunities in the CRM, focus on taking up lost opportunities, decide whether you will email your prospects or call them, choose the message as well, etc.
After doing so, enter all data into the CRM. This is very important, having structured data will be key to analyze your strategies and offer a personalized customer service. Don't leave any empty spaces!
The sales cycle: Why is it the
backbone of a successful sales effort?
Create sales stages and key activities
This stage could be associated with learning to walk. You already have a breakthrough in your documentation, rules and strategies, so it's time to take on more demanding challenges: creating sales stages and key activities. To do this, follow these rules.
1. Let each stage be self-explanatory
A good technique to ensure that the steps are easily understood is to show them to colleagues in different departments or to new collaborators. If the difference between stage 1 and 2 is not understood, it will be necessary to optimize them.
2. That each stage has easily recognizable differences
It is important to recognize what moves a prospect from one stage to another, for example, when a simple lead will become an opportunity. Does your prospect get an automatic demo or does he or she need to talk to a sales representative first? Questions like these need to be answered.
3. That as the stages progress, there is progress in the purchase decision
The idea is that your prospects know, at each stage, the benefits they will have when making their purchase. It's not enough to just show them in the first stage or wait until the last one. It must be a process of constant attraction.
Following this guide will help you not only to clearly identify each stage, but to make it easier for your customers to understand, and to know how close they are to completing their purchase.
Supports the buyer's journey
With the right information in your CRM and your sales stages in place it's time to take the next step, and start running! This is where you focus more on the customer's buying process than on internal strategies (which are already documented).
Lean on these points:
1. The stages are the buyer's process, not the seller's
At this point we leave aside "how to sell" and our focus will be on "how your customer buys". Identify the key stages and replace items such as "Demo completed" and "Free trial" with "Evaluating solutions" or "Technical fit evaluation".
2. Establishes exit criteria for the buyer and seller at each stage
Not all your leads will make it to the final stage. It details what actions you determine your journey is progressing with.
As for the seller, the exit criteria will indicate when it is time to leave the scenario with a particular lead. 44% of the representatives give up after the first rejection, but the truth is that it takes an average of 5 contacts before a sale is made.
3. Allows buyers to go their own way
Buyers don't behave the same way. Each of them makes decisions in different ways. For example, some may appreciate a technical fit evaluation rather than a demo, but others prefer to see the benefits of the product early on, so it would be ideal to show them a demo or a free trial first.
Rather than establishing an order, it creates a list of activities that must occur to achieve the objective.
Sales processes must be tailored to each company, your teams, your resources and your customers' preferences. This guide will be useful to design a structure that will allow your company to achieve its goals.
At Innova Marketing Solutions we can help you create a robust sales process that allows your team to grow step by step, to offer your buyers an attractive path to boost your sales. Contact us today and get a free 30 minute consultation.