It is almost impossible to overstate the need for every sales organization to have a well thought out and achievable sales strategy. It is a plan that guides and steers the sales team through a specified period of time and keeps them on course. Not having such a strategy can be likened to taking a long and unfamiliar road trip without a map or satellite navigation – you might arrive at your destination … eventually!
Clearly, the pandemic has required us all to adjust our strategies and sales processes to allow for the transition to remote working and selling. From the sales leader’s perspective, creating a 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 is 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 representative’s efforts.
Although many organizations appreciate the importance of being customer-focused and speak 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 to permit effective management of their efforts.
Be assured, an effective sales strategy and sales process is much more likely to achieve sustained sales growth achieved efficiently, reliably and by design.