We all know how it works for many companies. The company goals are vague, lead and client data is just a huge mess, and… yeah, everything is on fire. So, what is an effective sales process?
A sales process consists of a series of repeatable steps that a salesperson follows to move a prospective buyer from the awareness stage to the closed sale stage.
Here are a few tips on what you can do to make your internal process a little bit smoother.
- Define the stages
Great sales process is a smooth and well-tested sales process. Many companies don’t bother putting much effort into defining their sales process stages. Every sales rep there sort of knows how it should work, and that is it.
The first thing you should do when starting building the sales process (any process, actually) is to map out that process and clearly define its stages from prospecting to closing deals. Not only can you define those stages, but assign a responsible person who enjoys making processes working and can act as a sales educator for the team.
- Set clear goals and split them into a few smallest ones
That is what many sales teams are struggling with: goal setting. Write down all activity goals you are aiming to achieve – meetings per week, proposals per month, or number of referrals. Set result goals as well: number of sales per month and per quarter, the average amount of money per deal, number of clients… Make sure those numbers are clear to every team member and everyone can contribute here bringing up ideas on how to increase sales.
- Spend some time (and money!) to build your internal sales training
It’s sometimes really difficult to find the right people with the right skills that fit your company needs precisely. They might have tons of experience as used cars salespeople but not in virtual sales and vice versa. So invest in the specific internal sales training that will help you to bring the new stuff up to speed.
One of the best options here might be to create a series of virtual training videos that explain your company goals, value proposition, and the sales practices the company has been using. Also, make sure that team members are familiar with all internal tools and applications they should use on a daily basis.
- Automate and clean your CRM
Probably one of the most important things about the whole sales process is to keep all your data in order. Yes, we mean it – to keep your data in the CRM that has been automated and adjusted to your company needs. Every time you need to update information about deals manually, you’re just wasting time that you could spend reading a cool article on best sales techniques or… well, drinking coffee.
Make sure you spend a few hours every month on making your CRM look good. All deals should be updated, all the notes from meetings or calls should be in the right place, so a new sales representative that will join your team next month would not curse you.
- Don’t forget to measure the KPIs
When implementing new sales strategies, make sure you measure the KPIs properly. With the new sales process in place, constantly compare these new strategies to what you had done before. To do this most effectively, define the key performance indicators that are crucial for your company. Numbers of meetings you’re getting. Numbers of deals you’re having closed.
Once again: start with defining your crucial indicators and what you would like them to look like, then compare your “old” sales strategy with the new one.
