The power of process

An efficient sales process is good for business, says Richard
Higham
 
 
 

Until recently ‘sales’ and ‘process’ seemed for many a
contradiction in terms – and in some organisations sales is still
regarded as ‘the mysterious domain of talented individuals’, a
‘black box’ it is impossible or unwise to look into. But sales
processes are increasingly common. The general rise in the
application of business processes, Six Sigma’s journey out of GE
and the general professionalisation of sales management have all
helped.

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To achieve a truly effective sales process, begin by assessing the
risks and benefits.

The risks
There are five main risks.
Firstly, your sales process plan, once developed may (like so many
plans) sit on a hard drive, unused but providing a vague sense of
comfort. This is about as logical as collecting a prescription but
not taking the tablets, in the hope that their very presence in the
bathroom cabinet will ward off illness.

Secondly, the process may be over-engineered: very thorough; very
worthy – but totally unusable. This discredits the concept in the
eyes of the salesforce and plays into the hands of the cynical and
‘random approach’ school of selling.

The third risk is that the process constrains the flexibility and
effectiveness of the salesforce. If, at a first meeting, when the
customer says “OK let’s do it!”, the salesperson thinks: “I’m only
at stage 1 of the sales process, ‘explore and understand’, not
stage 4, ‘close’,” and hesitates or even refuses to close, the
opportunity is lost.

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 The fourth risk is that the sales process has been
insufficiently tailored to the business. A common example is
installing a CRM system before the process it supports has been
defined – with the result that the organisation’s market approach
is determined by an IT supplier.

The fifth risk is that the process is simply wrong. Perhaps it
requires sales people to pitch too soon, before they understand the
customer’s full requirements, or it demands that documents are sent
out when a phone call would have been better. Here the process can
derail sales or lead to management focusing on the wrong
things.

The benefits

What happens when a business gets it right? An effective sales
process helps sales managers improve the way they do things,
identify obstacles and ways to overcome them. The transparency a
process brings allows them to spot problems in individuals and
teams early – for instance, when a market changes.

A robust sales process allows management to examine best practice,
using the best performers as their benchmark. For example a sales
team may have an average conversion ratio of 3:1 from
proposal:close but still include some salespeople who achieve only
2:1. By working out with them what they are doing at each stage of
the process, sales can be greatly improved.

 A good sales process can also be used as the basis for highly
targeted coaching and training. For example we worked with one
consumer finance business to define its sales process, identified
the benchmark ratios between each stage, and designed a toolbox to
address specific problems at each stage. Rather than wait for the
next, irrelevant course, field sales managers were able to use the
new tools quickly to get salespeople back on track and into
profit.

The author is global sector head – financial and
professional services at Mercuri International