The term “Sales Process” gets used a lot but, I find that many business owners, sales managers and salespeople have trouble defining it.
Sales Process = Steps Followed by Salespeople
For outside sales teams, the sales process is typically something like:
- Target strategic accounts
- Identify decision makers within those accounts
- Make outbound calls to set appointments with those decision makers
- Conduct discovery meetings with the decision makers to identify needs
- Prepare proposals for some of those
- Make presentations to some of those
- Follow up, negotiate and close those
For an inside sales team dealing with incoming inquiries, it’s more like:
- Qualify the lead
- Answer questions about the products or services
- Ask questions about the customer to determine specific needs, budget, etc.
- Suggest solutions
- Quote prices
- Ask for the order
- Follow up and get the order
These are very simple examples of sales processes that are a bit too generic to be really useful but, they’re typical of what most people would describe as their sales process when asked.
Sales Process Ensures Consistent Response to Opportunities.
Sure, if there is no defined sales process, each salesperson will be doing slightly different things and that inconsistency will lead to difficulty ramping up new sales reps successfully, spotty sales results and other problems related to the following:
Common problems
- Salespeople don’t follow up enough
- Salespeople treat every lead the same and scare off those not ready
- Customers only hear about some of the products/services you offer
Measurement
- Your sales process becomes the framework for managing salespeople.
- You’re able to see problems early while there’s time for adjustment.
- It’s easy to set goals for salespeople – “have X appointments per week and you’ll hit your quota!”
Here’s a great article on Sales Hacker that goes deep into developing each step in your sales process.
Multi-Dimensional Sales Processes
Layering in Lead Nurturing
One of the fundamental problems with a sales process that’s purely about sales is that no every customer makes a purchase and salespeople are generally not great at following up, especially over the course of months.
If a lead has interest but, the timing is not right, having a simple drip marketing campaign that keeps your brand in front of the lead automatically increases the likelihood that they’ll contact you when the time IS right. Lead Nurturing campaigns typically add 15 to 25% to marketing ROI!
Create lead nurturing campaigns for these scenarios and add them to your sales process:
- Hot Lead – lead nurturing in your sales process ensures every lead knows everything that makes your offering unique and valuable.
- Lead Not Ready to Buy – “I can use your product and it seems like a good fit but, now’s not a good time for me.” Keep in touch and educate them about the ways your product will improve their life.
- Lost Opportunity – despite best efforts, they purchased from someone else. In most businesses, that means in a few months or years, they’ll be buying again. Make sure you’re on that list.
Different Sales Processes for Different Markets/Products
For many businesses, the sales process may need to vary depending on the industry of the customer or the product they’re interested in. Be sure to work through the specifics of this. Don’t make your sales team treat every lead the same if they’re just not.
It may also make sense to create different sales processes for different marketing campaigns or sources of leads. For instance, an inbound lead from your website or a customer that calls in needs far greater urgency than a strategic account that you cold called and are educating about why your solution makes sense.