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I often am asked why it is important for a company to have a defined and documented sales process.  Many people think that salespeople know their jobs, and think that salespeople don’t like to be “babysat”, so why not just let them do their thing?

There are several issues raised in the questions that I would like to address, and then discuss the value of having a documented sales process.

What is gained with a documented sales process?

First, “why not just let them do their thing?”  In our experience, this comes largely from company leadership not understanding or being comfortable with sales, so they just want to leave the “sales experts” alone.  While this is a very understandable reaction, the reality is that everyone performs better with a system of accountability.

This accountability system does not need to be complex, it just needs to be relevant and consistently applied.  In our experience, implementing a system of accountability improves the performance of all but the poorest of salespeople.  It is important to design this accountability system so that it does not feel like “babysitting” the salespeople.  That means that the activities and results being measured must be meaningful to the real-life sales system, and that the system is not overbearing or clumsy.  It also means that the consequences of missing a target must be appropriate to the level of impact this result has on overall sales performance.  And, there should be training or resources available if a particular salesperson is consistently struggling to meet a particular goal.  In this way, it feels like a balanced approach – expectations are there consistently, and also assistance when needed.

Second, the claim that “salespeople know their jobs.”  While it is true that virtually all salespeople know that they are to sell, and many know a specific quota or target expected of them, that does not mean that they know the various actions and methods required to accomplish that quota.

Sales is comprised of several categories of activities:  interest generation, lead nurturing, and closing.  We have found that there are relatively few people who are great at all three of those categories.  Additionally, we have found that while the top salespeople tend to instinctively do the right things at the right time to move the prospect forward in the process, the same is not true of average salespeople.  We have observed many times when an average salesperson would skip a step or take some action that was not in the best interest of moving the prospect forward.  On these occasions, when asked, they have responded with a “I didn’t think I needed to do that with this client” type of response.  On other occasions, they have responded with a “I didn’t know that was important” type of answer.  Our conclusion is that the average sales reps do not consistently know the appropriate next step to take to move the prospect forward.

Importantly, we have observed that once the average salesperson has been provided with a documented sales process to follow, and trained to execute that process, their results improve significantly.  This is because they would lose prospects that they should not have lost by taking an improper action.  By implementing the documented sales process, they no longer lose those prospects because they are now taking the proper actions.

So, one of the important benefits of having a documented sales process is that the performance of the average sales reps is improved significantly.  Since in most companies, most of the salespeople are around average, improving these average salespeople’s results significantly will improve the sales and profits of the company a significant amount.  It is not uncommon for the company to improve sales by 10-25% with the same sales staff, after implementing a good, documented sales process.

Another benefit of having a documented sales process is that training of new salespeople is much faster and easier, and these new salespeople are more likely to be successful.  This is readily apparent:  the new sales people don’t have to figure everything out on their own, or hope that someone assigned to mentor them is going to actually be helpful in that role.  Because the sales process is documented, the new salesperson simply needs to get familiar and comfortable with the activities listed and they are ready to start talking with prospects.

Additionally, since the sales process is documented and the average salespeople’s performance has improved significantly, the company is no longer at risk of being “held hostage” by the top salesperson’s threats to leave or demands for more compensation.  Because the company owns the sales process and has it documented, they are no longer tempted to over-value the top salespeople.

Another somewhat hidden benefit of having a documented sales process is that customer satisfaction improves.  Since all of the salespeople are “singing from the same book” they are interacting with prospects in a more consistent manner – in a manner that has been approved by the company leadership.  Therefore the customer experience is improved.  Because customer satisfaction is improved, referrals are more easily obtained, and referrals are typically the best quality leads.  This effect leads to further sales growth.

How to create a documented sales process

Creating a top-notch documented sales process is not easy, and it is not a one-size-fits-all type of activity.  While there are universal best practices, each company and each industry is unique, and it is important to ferret out the true best practice steps for each specific company, and document them in as simple of manner as possible.

Part of why this is difficult for many sales leaders to put into practice is that (in general) salespeople are not typically process-oriented.  Salespeople are much more likely to be rather free-wheeling in their approach.  It takes someone with a process-driven approach to both identify and document these best practice steps to the sales process, and also to communicate to the sales staff why doing those activities in the right order is of value to each salesperson.  So, if you are trying to do this in your own sales organization, you may find it takes someone from outside the sales staff to pull this off – someone who is process-oriented.  The best person to do this work is one who has both process-oriented and sales skills, since it is vital to capture both the process and the necessary sales steps.

It is important to identify all of the various places where a new prospect might enter the sales funnel:  walk-in, web lead, phone call, cold call, physical visit by the salesperson, etc.  Then, document the actions taken and the resources required with each of those.  Often, you will find that paths may merge and diverge, and possibly even recycle, as the prospect moves through the process.  It’s important to identify places where a prospect may be lost, and the activities or resources needed to prevent that occurrence.  It is also quite valuable to score lead quality as early as possible so that effort is not wasted on poor quality leads that could be provided to high quality leads.  The better job that is done in identifying all of these steps, the better the sales improvement will be once everyone is implementing the newly documented sales process.

So, having a documented sales process will pay significant dividends to the company.

For more information or to have discuss how we may help with your sales process, please contact us.

Business owners and leaders often ask “How do I get my average sales people to perform at a higher level?”  It turns out that no magic is involved, and the best answer is not to steal the superstars away from the competitors.

A documented sales process

In our experience working with thousands of businesses, we found that one of the most effective ways to raise the performance level of the average sales rep is to provide that salesperson with a proven and repeatable sales process to follow.  To understand why, it helps to understand some of the issues in play.

We find that the top salespeople do the right things in the right way at the right time out of instinct.  It is just “natural” for the superstar to say “just the right thing” at the right time to move the prospect forward.  Because of this, many people conclude that some people just “have it” and others don’t.  But, by analyzing what these top salespeople were doing and saying, we realized that “just the right thing” is not magic, it is something that can be identified, documented, and put into practice by every sales rep.

Interestingly, these top salespeople often don’t realize what they are doing differently from the average rep, which is one of the reasons that promoting a top salesperson to manager is generally not a great idea.  What they do is often so natural and instinctive to these top salespeople that they can’t explain it.

It turns out that many times the average sales rep isn’t sure what to do next.  He may be unsure how to communicate information that the prospect needs.  She may be unsure of what action to take next to move the prospect forward.  They may be afraid of a decision point because they are not confident that the prospect will choose their product or service, and therefore delay taking any action.  They may be unsure of how to respond to a myriad of possible objections and so avoid the conversation altogether.  The average sales reps are also often skipping important steps in the sales process, during which they can lose prospects that should not be lost.  There are countless examples of how a sales rep might be unsure of how to proceed, or take the wrong action for this prospect at this time.

Creating a documented sales process provides great assurance and instills confidence in these average salespeople.  It allows them to focus on just the one next step in the process (eat the elephant one bite at a time, as I’ve heard countless times).  They don’t need to know the best response to all possible objections, just to the likely objections at this point in the process.  They now have a path showing them the next step toward the eventual sale.

And, if the documented process identifies and incorporates all the “just the right things at the right time” that the top salespeople do, and if it incorporates the numerous best practices that we have identified, then it provides the sales rep with a virtual road map of how to walk the prospect through the sales process with the best possible opportunity to close the deal.  All the salespeople can perform like the top sales reps because they know the plan!

Impact on the company

You may be wondering, “How much can this really impact sales?”  Let’s take an example company with 10 salespeople, and we’ll say 2 of them are outstanding and performing at a 10 level, 6 of them are average and performing at a 6, and 2 of them are poor and only performing at a 3.  Implementing the proven and repeatable sales process will typically take the average performers from a 6 to at least to an 8;  it may have no effect on the poor performers and only a small positive impact on the top performers.  Taking the 6 average performing reps from a 6 to an 8 will result in a 20% increase in sales!  And if the 6 average performers get to a 9, then the increase is nearly 30%.  If our example company eliminated or redeployed the 2 poor performers, sales would still be up 10% while the sales expense would be down.  Here’s another idea:  replace the 2 poor performers with another average (now well above-average) performer.  The possibilities are extensive; the point is that this can truly improve your company’s performance!  Think how pleased everyone would be if sales were up 20% without breaking the bank!

The benefits of creating this proven and repeatable sales process are numerous:  The organization owns the process, and is not at risk of serious decline if the top sales rep leaves; the organization experiences increased sales and profits because all the sales reps are delivering results at a high level; the clients have a more consistent and predictable experience and customer satisfaction improves; the time and cost to get a new sales rep onboard and up to speed are reduced significantly, and their chances of being successful are greatly improved.

The challenge

Creating a proven and repeatable sales process is not trivial.  It takes significant effort along with the expertise to identify the critical steps and the resources needed to execute them.  If your business doesn’t have a proven and repeatable sales process, please contact us to discuss how we may help you.

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Contact us for more information on how we can help your business grow efficiently.

When cold calling, what is the objective of your greeting?

The greeting needs to accomplish 2 things:  1. it needs to communicate to the prospect who you are, and 2. it needs to earn you the opportunity to a few minutes of time from the prospect.

The first is obvious, the prospect needs to know who you are and who you represent.  Every salesperson I’ve ever met has had no problem getting that accomplished in the greeting, so we won’t dwell on this.

The second is not obvious to many salespeople.  The prospect doesn’t know you from Adam, and he/she does not owe you anything – they certainly do not owe you the time to listen to your pitch.  Therefore, you must earn the opportunity to that time.

To earn their time, the greeting must communicate something intriguing or compelling of interest to the prospect, enough so that they become willing to trade some of their limited time to listen to you.  In short, you need to communicate your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) in one or two sentences at the greeting to earn some time from the prospect.  Unfortunately, there is a very small window of opportunity to earn that time.

For example: “Hi, I’m Bill from ABC Plumbing Supply.  I’d like a few minutes of your time to discuss how we can be of service to you.”  This is a professional greeting, but it is almost totally lacking in anything intriguing or compelling to cause the prospect to give you some of their time.  Unless you happen to be talking to them right after their current plumbing supply house messed up an order for the umpteenth time, you are likely to get a “We’re happy with our current supplier” type of response and no more time from the prospect.

Here is another greeting: “Hi, I’m Bill from ABC Plumbing Supply.  We have the largest inventory of Kohler products in the metro area.  I’d like a few minutes of your time to discuss how we can be of service to you.”  This professional greeting has at least some potential to be of interest to the prospect, but it’s not very strong.

Here’s a third alternative: “Hi, I’m Bill from ABC Plumbing Supply.  We have the largest Kohler inventory in the metro area, and our warehouse is open 24/7 for your needs.  We can even messenger items to you after business hours if needed. I’d like a few minutes of your time to discuss how we can be of service to you.”  This professional greeting has a much higher possibility of communicating something compelling to your prospect – if your USP is that you are the only plumbing supply house in the metro area whose warehouse is available 24/7, you’ve communicated that succinctly in one sentence right up front, and most likely touched an area of need, since plumbing issues don’t occur only during business hours.

For successful cold calling, it is vital that your greeting communicate something compelling or intriguing to the prospect, to earn you a few minutes of their time to make your pitch.

Do your salespeople realize that they are “on stage” every time they are interacting with a client or prospect?

The recognition that an actor/actress who is on stage is not necessarily doing something that comes naturally to them is important for the salesperson.  The actor is delivering scripted lines in character, which may not match up to their natural character at all.

There are two important aspects to this that will help your average performers become top performers:

First is the recognition that the salesperson also has “lines” to deliver:  the right information to move the prospect forward at that point in the sales process.  (I prefer outlined rather than scripted lines, so it flows as naturally as possible.)  Note that there is nothing disingenuous or lacking in integrity about providing the right information to move the prospect forward.  (In fact, providing false or misleading information will likely derail the process.)  The point is that your salesperson may have to say or do something that is not “natural” for him or her to do, but does it anyway because it’s the right thing to do at that time.

Second is the recognition that “the lights are on” and people are watching, so they need to be in character – they need to be spot on with their posture, voice inflections, manner, grooming, dress, and professionalism (in line with whatever those expectations are for your business and industry).  It is an unfortunate reality that a prospect can be derailed very easily by something as simple as an off-hand comment completely unrelated to the prospect or their business needs.

The salesperson must be “in character” and not stray from “the script” to avoid any of these (even small) errors that can blow up the entire sales process.

Reminding your sales staff that they are on stage whenever they interact with a client will help them be more successful and result in higher customer satisfaction.  To learn more, contact us.

Most smaller businesses cannot afford to hire a top-performing sales manager. Yet those same businesses desperately need the expertise and results of that top-notch sales leader. A quietly-growing trend is for those smaller businesses to engage an outstanding sales manager on a part-time basis (fractional sales management) to allow the business to gain the expertise of the sales leader without breaking the bank. This allows the business to gain the documented sales process, optimal prospect generation methods, clearly defined lead flow, salesperson accountability and feedback that are required for a sales staff to operate at peak efficiency, but only pay a fraction of the cost of a full-time sales manager. We have the skills, experience, knowledge, and mindset to provide dramatic improvements in how a small business’ sales organization functions.

Contact Fred to explore how this may help your business!

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