In Sales, Process is Everything…

In Sales, process is everything. By nature I am not a process-oriented guy, I am more of the fly by the seat of my pants gut-reaction type. However, not everyone works well like this (including me). I learned early in my sales career that processes, as much as I hate to admit it, are vital. They work as a road map to help us get to where we need to go. Having a process gives us the ability to look for areas of improvement and fix them. Sounds obvious, right? Not always.

The first key is to remember that in sales your process is dynamic and not scripted. For example, let’s look at golfing. You will swing the same way every time and get better and better at that swing. However, as you golf you will encounter different variables along the way. You wouldn’t use a putter for a long drive would you? No, and you wouldn’t grab your nine iron and whack away either, you would carefully select the correct club and then just like you practiced execute the perfect swing. You need to be willing to redefine the process as you move along. You need to learn to continuously develop your process along the way.

The first step to developing your process is to sit down and break your big process into steps and then break those steps into smaller steps.

A telemarketing process for technology education it would look something like this:

Rapport: To lay ground work for harder questions later.

Admissibility: Is this person illegible to go to school with us? (Why waste time?)

Motivation: Why does this person need this product?

Payment: How are they planning on paying for school? (Ignore this and people who are not sure are likely to no-show) Payment is NOT price.

Start Date: Build a sense of urgency and suggest next possible start date.

Set appointment That’s what we are calling for right?

Referral: Who would they like to have in class with them?

The process of doing this is the same in any industry, and could just as easily be done face to face with slight modification…  90% of the sales training with my team is how to navigate this system.

The advantage as a manager to this is it makes it much easier to coach because I can easily see where the issues are in your efforts, and we can train and role play around specific parts of the call instead of saying “I need to work on my telemarketing skills”. Moreover, they make it easy to track and measure metrics and identify trends and opportunities for improvement. If you are just out “winging it”, it is very hard to identify potential issues because no two calls are ever the same.

So even though I am not a process guy by nature, I still recognize that processes are vital to any sales organization. They help us to stay focused and on track, and they help us improve.

To implement:

Do you have a set process you take clients through or do you just go with the flow?

What are the steps involved in moving someone from prospect to client in your organization?

Can any of those steps be broken down into smaller steps?

Are there metrics you can watch to make sure your process is efficient?

If you have a process when was the last time you reviewed it? Is it getting stale?

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Related posts:

1. Taking The Mystery Out Of The Sales Process
2. Sales Process often stifles sales
3. The Secret to a Wildly Successful Sales Process
4. Give Your New Sales Process Plenty of Time Before Giving Up on It
5. The Sales Process: Working with Customer Responses