GUEST POST by Scott Tappan from Strategic Sales Solutions
Is your sales process effective and efficient?
Or is it missing critical factors that could help accelerate your sales growth? If you aren’t sure how to answer these questions, your sales process – and your company’s overall sales performance – could suffer. Here’s a closer look at some commonly overlooked sales process essentials:
Sales Process Definition
In order for your team to make the most impact with their sales efforts, they must first understand the organization’s long-term sales goals – or your Sales Strategy – as well as be provided a clear roadmap that will inform every step they take – a Sales Process. For top sales performance and results, your sales strategy should be…
…a well-defined, goal-focused, clearly communicated, and mission-oriented plan that positions your solutions (i.e., your products and services) uniquely in the minds of your targeted customers while also providing actionable direction for your sales organization.
Naturally, it follows that an effective and efficient sales process is the mechanism by which your sales strategy gets accomplished. In particular, a sales process is…
…the series of steps necessary to complete stages in your sales cycle; that is, ideally, to turn a lead into a prospect and a prospect into a customer.
The best sales process is:
- Well-defined and goal-oriented with meaningful benchmarks and milestones
- Clearly communicated and understood within your sales organization and can be consistently executed by all members of your frontline sales team
- Measurable, with results having a direct correlation to stages in the process so improvements can be made when appropriate
- Customer-focused, with the end goal of solving a customer pain point or satisfying a want or need
Improving Your Sales Process
Before you can start streamlining your sales process, it’s important that you establish clear objectives. What do you want to achieve? Are there any specific goals or milestones that need to be met? You should also think about what resources will be needed to reach these objectives. Once you have established these objectives, you can begin creating a plan for achieving them.
Of course, I understand it’s easier said than done, so if you are unsure where to start, here are a few best practices to steer you in the right direction:
- Fail fast. See what works and what doesn’t. “Holding on to an unreliable, losing methodology too long keeps you from hitting your goals sooner.”
- Document your sales process. Even if you are unsure if the process has all the necessary stages, it’s important to put it on paper so you can improve and build upon what you have. Beyond this, make sure your customer relationship management (CRM) system matches your sales . . .
This article excerpt is republished from Strategic Sales Solutions. Read the full original article.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Scott Tappan
I am a senior sales executive with over 30 years leading teams in numerous industries. My business is Strategic Sales Solutions, and I am a licensed Advisor of Sales Xceleration. I leverage the power of Sales Xceleration’s proven growth management systems to help small and medium-sized businesses, saving them time and improving their sales bottom line. Working with the world’s largest Outsourced Sales VP company, I utilize my vast sales experience to build sales infrastructure and processes to generate sustained revenue growth.