Your sales process will drive your sales results. That can be a great thing or a disaster. New sales are the key to the growth of your company. Slow or inconsistent sales present the greatest threat to the very existence of your business.
Every company has a sales process that runs day in and day out. Is your process an effective one, does it bring in new clients and customers and fuel your growth? Is it clear and well documented enough so you can easily expand and train new people?
Here are the 5 steps to get your sales process to killer results.
When managing your leads there are several aspects you need to know, two of the most important are; where in the sale process a lead is (sales funnel), and what is the status (closed or alive)? Knowing these elements will help you optimize your sales process.
In a CRM there are all sorts of statuses and those statuses should be kept simple and descriptive.
Just as importantly, lead and contact statuses are more effective when they match the language that your team already uses. Remember all fields in a CRM are editable, including the default field labels.
An effective sales process keeps your customers in mind and keeps the focus on their needs. The sales script will focus on their pain points and how your product or service will help to solve them. Many times, a poorly written sales script focuses on what the salesperson wants to sell, not the way the customers want to buy. Ask questions that will let you tailor what you offer so that you are meeting their exact needs.
Look at your customer base. What helped close those deals?
Looking at what worked before will help you put together a solid script to close new deals. It is about a sales script that is powerful and can be modeled by new employees with a message that sells.
Is your sales compensation driving your salespeople? Compensation and bonus structures will drive and motivate them to hit their sales goals. Celebrate individual and team wins. Recognizing your top performers sets the bar and makes all salespeople more motivated to win for you.
More sales means more profit for the business.
By creating a reward system, the salespeople who push themselves will earn additional compensation and it will encourage them to keep going. Thus, creating more success for the company.
The first question with non-performers is do you have an effective sales training plan in place. Your sales team should be your greatest strength. If they are not, then you have to decide, is it the people, the culture, or the training?
Start with a solid sales process. Then add a training system to get the best out of the salespeople on your team. Assess your sales training as well as your sales platform training. It may be that they do not have the tools to be successful.
Some of it is purely personnel, do they have the drive to learn and be the best? If you find that you still have a non-performer, then they may not be cut out for sales. It is a job that not everyone thrives at. If most of your team gets it and is performing and a few are lagging, replace them.
Sales platform selection comes next. Once you get the process in place, you know what you need to track, and more importantly, you know the capabilities you need in a platform. A productive sales platform can help aggregate and analyze customer data. With that information, your sales team is armed with accurate information in real-time that best turns prospects into sales and repeat customers.
For a sales manager it also helps track key performance indicators and metrics, so to see what and who is excelling and what needs more attention.
If you go through these steps, you will find that your sales team will have more successes and lead your company into a more profitable future. If you need help assessing your salespeople or setting up a training system or sales tools, GoMcIntyre can help. We have worked with thousands of companies. One thing always holds true, once the system was in place, they all see an increase in lead conversions profit.
Contact us today and find out how we can help you reach a more profitable year-end.