GET A SALES PROCESS NOW!
What is your lead time between first contact and a sale? A month? Two? Four? More? Are you tired of chasing after your clients to get appointments and give you information? Wouldn’t it be great if your clients just followed your direction?
If you answered yes to any or all of the above, welcome to the club. One of the most common obstacles salespeople have in increasing their revenue is they have too long of a sales cycle. What should take a month or two usually turns into twice that long if not more. Why?
Control
The number one reason without a doubt is you are not in control. Does this sound familiar? ‘Call me in a few weeks’ or ‘I’m not ready yet email me in a few months’ or ‘I’ll get back to you’. You have relinquished control to your client. You are at their beck and call. Now you have to go chasing them down to get back in the door. How stressful and unsatisfying is it to see the name on your pipeline month after month?
You want to be in control? Shorten your sales cycle? be more productive? GET A SALES PROCESS!
Yes I know, I can hear some of you saying I have one. Well I can almost guarantee two things
- It’s not done the right way, and/or
- You don’t implement it
7 Benefits of a Sales Process
- Keeps you focused and on track
- Keeps your client focused
- Client sees you as a PRO
- Shortens your sales cycle considerably
- Allows you to delegate specific tasks
- You are in control, not your client
- Gives you confidence
Having a Sales Process is just like a football team that has a playbook. Where would the team be without one? It’s like going to the line of scrimmage without knowing what play to run. So why as a sales professional would you go to a client meeting with no direction, plan or objective? (See previous post Objective vs. Outcome.)
‘…. (a Sales Process is) a roadmap for the salesperson in those interactions, to guide them through identification of customer needs, selecting the best offering for those customers, articulating and proving the value that the customer will get from those offerings, and then reinforcing that value to the customer.
Ty Curry
I know creating a Sales Process is time consuming and takes a lot of effort. But do you want to be common and status quo or do you want to be UNCOMMON and successful? Besides, you only have to do it once. (Yes, you should always review and revise when necessary)
Now I’m giving some real good stuff below. This is something I have cultivated over many years, with many clients and with great success. 
Sales Process Components
The most effective sales process should contain the following:
- Description of each meeting you have with a client
- What kind of meeting is it? Introductory, Educational, Planning, Implementation?
- Topics to cover
- Your objective and outcome (again see previous Post)
- What happens between each meeting
- Summary Email (see future post)
- To do list
- For you
- For your client
- How Long/When
- How long between each meeting
- When to send Summary Emails
- Client Review
- When
- How often
- Referrals, Referrals, Referrals
Of course there is a lot more detail going into a Sales process. And yes it differs from industry to industry. However the above are the main components and more than enough to get you going.
NOTE: All the above should be bullet pointed. No long dissertations. Each section should be short, concise and to the point.
I urge each of you to create or review and revise your Sales Process. This is a must do to be great!
Tips from this article
- If you do not have a Sales Process create it now
- It’s like your playbook; follow through and implement
- Allows you to shorten your sales cycle
- Keeps you focused, on track and in control
- Client sees you as a PRO