Imagine navigating through a big city without a roadmap or a sat nav system. If you’re lucky and have experience (aka a history of trial and error), or are good at recognising landmarks, you may work out a preferred route, but it may not be the best or fastest route you can take. If you are new to the city or to driving, or if your favourite route is blocked your journey may be more unpredictable, more time consuming, more frustrating, and random.
A sales process provides the same kind of orientation and direction that a navigation system does. It doesn’t tell you where you have to go, but it helps you plan your route, set goals, and follow them through in a systematic and efficient way. It helps you find the right markers, plan each stage, how to ignite and have the right kinds of client conversations, and know what steps you need to take to get to your destination. A sales process is like a modern navigation app on your phone.
An articulated sales process map aligned to your sales strategy gives your salespeople the tools they need to sell better, more consistently and faster.
No more random acts of sales
Before we move further into this topic, it is worth noting that what we call Sales Process can also be referred to as the Client Value Chain, the Selling-Buying Process, the Client Engagement Process, etc. For the purpose of this article, we will be using the term Sales Process.
A Sales Process is a documented “roadmap” of repeatable steps, guidelines, tasks, behaviours and standards a salesperson takes to guide themselves and their customers or prospects from planning to the first point of contact, and all the way through to the sale and beyond.
A Sales Process:
- Provides articulated stages, tasks to be done, tools to be used and behavioural benchmarks salespeople can learn and apply in their day-to-day sales roles and then use to self-correct if things run off the road
- Gives sales leaders a robust induction, training, and coaching process they can train and coach their new and experienced salespeople to; this means sales leaders can observe and then help correct any sales issues long before sales results start to decline
- Helps the whole business understand what customer experience we want to create, and what their part is in this process: everyone is connected to the sales process somewhere along the client value chain
- Is key to making CRM implementation purposeful and effective.
It makes sense to have an articulated sales process aligned to your business however there are some challenges and obstacles that need to be addressed if we want more consistent and higher standards of sales mastery in our sales teams.
Why is having a documented Sales Process vital to the success of your Sales Operations?
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A documented Sales Process is key to making CRM changes or implementation purposeful
Let’s start with a critical question that unfortunately a lot of businesses struggle with: Does your sales team serve the CRM or is the CRM (ideally) supporting your sales efforts?
So, what is the process your sales team follows? If you haven’t mapped and documented a sales process that aligns to your sales strategy and go-to-market action plan, how does your CRM implementation team know where to create the connection points and links between sales operations and CRM protocols? Are your people using a default CRM process as their sales process? Is this the best process for maximising your sales team’s effectiveness? A CRM should serve your sales process not the other way around. A sales process supported by an aligned CRM serves the goals and objectives of the sales operation and sales strategy and benefits our customers and our business.
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A documented Sales Process helps everyone in the business understand their part in creating the customer experience we want
While the Sales Process is the basis of operation for any customer facing teams, the rest of the organisation usually doesn’t see how they relate to sales, customer experience, or client engagement.
A detailed Sales Process shows everyone else in the organisation how and where they are connected to the buyer’s journey and how they can help facilitate it. Showing your people across the business how their work impacts the sale is key to developing a client centric, solution-oriented culture throughout the business. An integrated sales process helps create a positive experience for clients and our teams, and it enhances processes and outcomes for everyone’s benefit all the way through. It brings to life the saying ‘everybody lives by selling something’.
“Our engineers are becoming some of our best salespeople. They’re uncovering so many opportunities…” We get quotes like this frequently when businesses include ‘non-salespeople’ in this process. Their sales teams literally grow with this shift in sales mindset across roles traditionally not considered sales related.
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A documented Sales Process provides quality metrics sales leaders can observe and coach to
Without a sales process, what do you observe and measure to make sure that you are going to get the results you are expecting? What do you induct and coach to? How do you differentiate effective and consistent behaviour from “random acts of sales” that may or may not deliver results?
A documented sales process provides sales teams with a set of standards and behaviours that can be observed and measured. It allows for specific and relevant coaching and development to deliver the expected results.
The sales process is a steering instrument that helps sales leaders guide their teams based on quality behaviours and metrics they can influence in time to impact and improve the customers buying journey and sales results.
No one in your sales team needs to be navigating on their own, making it up as they go. Making sure you have a functional interactive “roadmap” will create a smooth ride for everyone, embracing all the opportunities this environment has to offer for you and your clients.
Remember, everybody lives by selling something.
If you’d like to put in place your own sales process map, contact Barrett and we’ll help you build this into your sales operations. contact us or +61 3 9533 0000
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