Even companies that enjoy the luxury of clearly superior products, realise that those products will not sell themselves. As a minimum, companies need a sales force comprised of skilled professionals who understand the application of the product range, have an in-depth knowledge of their customer base, market sector and of course the competition. But even all these elements together are not sufficient to ensure optimum performance levels and profitable sales.

So What Exactly Is a Sales Process?

Put quite simply, it is a set of procedures, which determine how a company wishes its sales team to operate – “The way we do things around here”

The most successful organisations have implemented a process and an all-encompassing framework for defining performance standards. This involves assessing, appraising, developing, reviewing, providing continual feedback on performance, as well as implementing efficient and relevant process tools

Lack of Direction

Far too frequently, competent salespeople are expected to channel their own activities into the areas that will produce the quickest wins. Unfortunately, left to their own devices, they don’t develop and pursue a formal strategy for moving a sale tangibly forward during each prospect interaction; neither do they have a clearly defined set of goals against which to measure the progress they are making.

Typically, their judgment is based on gut reaction and is purely subjective i.e., “Oh yes, I’ll get that order, he likes me”, because salespeople have to be optimistic by nature. They end up “dancing around” with prospects, in the hope that eventually they will get to their chosen point on the dance-floor i.e. -the sale. In this scenario, the customer has complete control.

Developing a Consultative (Collaborative) Sales Process

From the Sales Director’s perspective, developing a consultative sales process means developing a comprehensive, formal, realistic and step-by-step outline of what salespeople are expected to do. This is just as appropriate for internal and totally reactive sales teams as it is for external pro-active ones. This outline includes the activity and calls they must make, the relationships they should establish with prospects, the documentation they should use in sales calls, the issues they must discuss and resolve with prospects and the tangible goals they must achieve in sequence along the path to each sale, in order to achieve maximum effectiveness.

It’s only when such an outline is in place that sales management can be in a position to:

• Monitor the sales force’s activity, progress and results,
• Assess issues as they arise and take appropriate action,
• Redirect individual sales representatives’ efforts efficiently.

Although many organizations appreciate the importance of being customer-focused and talk in vague terms about their “consultative sales process”, surprisingly few sales leaders invest the time and energy required to develop a formal sales process – a process that is at once detailed and resilient enough to guide their salespeople and permit effective management of their efforts.

Finally, I would say this: You cannot possibly hope to manage external events if you do not have control internally!

Even companies that enjoy the luxury of clearly superior products, realize that those products will not sell themselves. As a minimum, companies need a sales force comprised of skilled professionals who understand the application of the product range, have an in-depth knowledge of their customer base, market sector and of course the competition But even all these elements together are not sufficient to ensure optimum performance levels and profitable sales.

We must have a sales process.

So What Is A Sales Process?

Put quite simply, it is a set of procedures, which determine how a company wishes it’s sales team to operate – “The way we do things around here”

The most successful organizations have implemented a process and an all-encompassing framework for defining performance standards. This involves assessing, appraising, developing, reviewing, providing continual feedback on performance, as well as implementing efficient and relevant process tools.

From the Sales Director’s/VP Sales perspective, developing a consultative sales process means developing a comprehensive, formal, realistic, and step-by-step outline of what salespeople are expected to do. This is just as appropriate for internal and totally reactive sales teams as it is for external pro-active ones. This outline includes the activity and calls they must make, the relationships they should establish with prospects, the documentation they should use in sales calls, the issues they must discuss and resolve with prospects and the tangible goals they must achieve in sequence along the path to each sale in order to achieve maximum effectiveness.

It’s only when such an outline is in place that sales management can be in a position to:

• Monitor the sales force’s activity, progress and results,
• Assess issues as they arise and take appropriate action,
• Redirect individual sales representatives’ efforts efficiently.

Although many organizations appreciate the importance of being customer-focused and talk in vague terms about their “consultative sales process” surprisingly few sales leaders invest the time and energy required to develop a formal sales process – a sales process that is at once detailed and resilient enough to guide their salespeople and permit effective management of their efforts.

 Overcoming Implementation Inertia

Even when a consultative sales process has been developed, understood by sales managers, written down and circulated, it’s often not enough. No matter how brilliant, a sales process will only be effective to the extent it is followed and used by front-line sales staff. And this is where most organisations fall down: overcoming inertia – among managers and salespeople alike – and implementing the process. The hurdles that must be cleared in order to get people throughout the organisation to actually implement it, are enough to cause Sales Directors to tear their hair out. But a select few, of the very best, have found some innovative strategies that have enabled them to achieve the Holy Grail: Sustained sales growth achieved efficiently, reliably and by design.

Can there be a downside to sales process? Yes, if it restricts, and if it suffocates creativity, and if it removes individual identities.

Far too frequently, competent salespeople are expected to channel their own activities into the areas that will produce the quickest wins. Unfortunately, left to their own devices, they don’t develop and pursue a formal strategy for moving a sale tangibly forward during each prospect interaction, neither do they have a clearly defined set of goals against which to measure the progress they are making. Typically, their judgment is based on gut reaction and is purely subjective i.e. “Oh yes, I’ll get that order, he likes me” because salespeople have to be optimistic by nature. They end up dancing around with prospects in the hope that eventually they will get to their chosen point on the dance-floor i.e. -the sale. In this scenario, the prospect has complete control.

This lack of a plan is often fatal, because, as recent research from The Results Corporation PLC shows:

• 60% of clients buy after five “No’s” and yet …
• 44% of salespeople give up after the first “No”
• 22% after the second “No” and
• 14% after a third “No”

A well-known oil company discovered that it took their best salespeople an average of three visits and five follow-up calls to convert a prospect into a client. Yet, their average sales performers only visited prospects twice and then gave up, costing the company millions of dollars in wasted sales effort and even more in lost potential sales opportunities.

When their efforts don’t pay off immediately, even experienced salespeople tend to become discouraged. They spend more and more time struggling to meet their sales quotas and working less and less efficiently.

Feeling increasingly powerless to influence prospects, they may also begin to press for a sale in ineffective ways – for instance, by arranging full-dress product presentations to prospects that they have not even qualified or who haven’t yet agreed that they need the solution being presented. They allow prospects to milk them for information without getting a commensurate commitment first, and even worse they fail to defend margin and make unprofitable sales in order to achieve quotas.

The details of what goes wrong differs for each individual salesperson, but the net result is always the same, a discouraged sales force, diminished sales efficiency (i.e. wasted investment of sales time and resources that fail to produce high quality sales) and, consequently, increased cost of sales which inevitably drastically reduces net profit.

What’s the bottom line? Sales never result efficiently and with maximum revenue unless the sales process is continually and closely managed. But before the sales process can be managed, it must be manageable.

However, a word of caution …

But, and this is a very big BUT, it is not uncommon for an organization’s sales process to restrict and even stifle success by being far too rigid. In many scenarios, creativity is discouraged, and the rules are very black or white.

I have encountered many companies who insist that the sales team must achieve certain goals on a daily/weekly/monthly basis: They place great emphasis on quantity rather than quality and as a consequence, they typically attract lower margin business.

In my opinion, a sales process should act as a “guide” particularly where activity is concerned, and always be flexible enough to accommodate individuals who sometimes need to work outside of the “boundaries”

The formula for calculating value is quite simply the benefit minus the cost of achieving or acquiring the benefit i.e. value + benefit – cost. So it is important that we always use rigorous questioning techniques to uncover as many needs as possible, for which we can offer benefit oriented solutions.

The more needs we can uncover, the more benefits we can deliver, the more benefits the greater the pay back, the greater the pay back the higher the value, the higher the value the better the chance to up sell and cross sell.

Questions will uncover needs – if they are there to be uncovered – however, it is one thing to uncover the need, it is another thing to prove that there is adequate pay back and value in fulfilling the needs.

Having uncovered the needs we must probe and find out as much as we can about those needs and the implications to the customer if they are not met or fulfilled.

What we are trying to establish is the difference between what the customer used to do and how he does it now. If we can establish this then the comparison between what they are presently doing and what they may be able to do based on our solution, will be easier to grasp. This is important, because the difference between them doing something and not doing it is the “value gap. We need to find value gaps that we can attach a price to, so that we can justify the benefit in terms of added value.

Let’s take an example:

Your support customer used to have a manual stock and inventory system. Using your database for an automated system has enabled them to increase shipments by 20% per day. With the shipments of goods totalling $10,000 per day, the value gap i.e. system or no system, is $2000 per day. If the system is down it would cost $200 to $400 in lost or delayed shipments per hour. Staying as they are or going for a support agreement that would reduce down time is the value gap opportunity. That gap is worth $200 to $400 per hour..

The best product at the best price does not always win the order; we have all been outsold by a competitive salesperson probably offering less of a solution and sometimes even at a higher price.

I do hope that we no longer think about features and benefits, buy rather value.

I can only repeat that the only five words that time-constrained key decision makers want to hear today are: “Save” “Gain” “Increase” Improve” and “Reduce” – these are, or should be, high value statements, but they must be proved!