Lots of company’s think of sales process as being a sales technique, such as spin selling, solution selling, or push selling or those kinds of strategies. But in fact, a sales process is completely different than that. A sales process is something that every good company needs to be able to define and master in order to boost their sales performance and accelerate their overall top line growth. Sales process really becomes, by definition, repeatable and scaleable sequence of events that yields to consistent sales results.
Sales process is broken down into a number of different aspects, including what is the selling model. In other words, is your company’s selling model transactional? Is it enterprise? Is in consultative? Those are probably the three most common sales models. In addition to that, the sales process typically defines the actual sales work flow as it relates to movement of prospects through the sales pipeline from prospects to being qualified to being fully developed and then to closing the sale. A sales process will typically provide a work flow which includes a process map and a break down of the definitions of different stages of the sales process as it relates to sales forecasting and probabilities. And typically, these tools are put together and automated into a CRM system, customer relationship management system that will allow a company to actually automate the work flow using CRM tools such as salesforce.com or other leading tools.
So companies that do a good job of defining their sales process and integrating it into their CRM tools realize a number of benefits.
First, they can grow faster.
Second, they can train people and bring them up to speed and get them producing sales a lot more quickly.
Third, the rest of the company’s departments can easily understand be bought in to the sales process and support the sales process, whether it be customer service, whether it be marketing, whether it be operations, finance or human resources.
Another benefit of having a well defined sales process is it makes it very easy for you to develop matrix both in terms of activity and results that allow you to measure your sales people to ensure that they are producing the results that you’re looking for. It also helps you to further define the accountabilities related to the sales process and make it easier to develop a sales performance management system.
Good sales performance management is based upon holding sales people accountable. Building a sales performance management system is the key to supporting a scaleable sales process that’s repeatable and also defining clear expectations with your sales people and managing them to those expectations. A sales performance management system consists of a number of different components which companies need to build in order to be successful at managing their sales people and achieving the desired sales results that they’re looking for.posted by cubemanagement 0 comments
What Should Be In Your Sales Process Matrix? Sales process typically does include a complete breakdown and often times a matrix that will actually describe the following:
1) What is the definition of the different types of prospects and customers that you’re targeting?
2) What are the actual steps in the sales process that need to be followed by the sales team?
3) What are the goals at each step or each stage of the sales process in terms of advancing the sale?
4) What are the tools that are used to support that sales process at that point? It could be marketing collateral, could be lead generation using internet marketing, could be outbound telesales, could be direct mail, could be sales presentations or product demonstrations, all of those things are sales tools that get integrated with the sales process and used as appropriate at different stages in order to advance the sale.
Next in your sales process matrix typically would be a description of what the timing and delay is for each of the different stages and what follow-up items are being taken place at each stage of advancing the sale as well.
So a good sales process map often includes a matrix with an actual description breakdown and definitions of the different stages of the sale and what steps are being taken and what tools are being used. It also typically will include a sales process map that becomes a logic diagram to show exactly how the work flow looks. And then typically once a sales process is modeled properly and de-bugged it will be automated using CRM tools such as salesforce.com to actually automate all the different steps that take place in the sale and to provide repeatable and scaleable process that can be rolled out to across a large number of sales people.
Many companies don’t understand the importance of having a well defined sales process as a basis for their success. As a result of that, they leave selling up to individuals who they bring on to their team and expect them to sell however they sell without following a company’s particular set of rules or disciplines. This can lead to stunted growth, stagnant sales and too much dependency on the individual that’s hired into the sales job and not enough dependency on the process, which in more professionalized firms is well documented and defined and allows a company to easily hire people in and train them to the process.
About Cube ManagementCube Management (http://www.cubemanagement.com) provides sales acceleration services to emerging growth and mid-market companies in the technology, manufacturing, healthcare and business service sectors. The experts at Cube Management work across the entire spectrum of marketing, sales and business development to provide customized solutions that drive revenue and profit growth. Cube Management combines Strategy, Process & People to produce winning results. Read the Cube Sales Blog