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Sales Process Management

Managing the Sales Process:
Welcome to Sales Process Management (SPM)

Suddenly “selling” matters again. I’d be surprised if the topic of sales and selling hasn’t been in your conversation of late. Many owners, VPs and managers have begun preaching the “sales message” to their salespeople. But, in most cases, it will never go beyond the preaching. Why? Because, unless you have a sales process in place, you’ll end up making a few fast and furious moves that will fade away like New Year resolutions.

What is a Sales Process?

Well, it’s not “CRM” or some fancy, complicated and bloated software. There are at least 50 pieces of sales software on the market and very few companies have anything to show for that investment. In fact, most sales operations really don’t use the stuff once it’s installed.

An intelligent sales process gives you 4 things:

1. It gives you a common language that sets the rules and standards that salespeople need to operate to. These are not vague, “it depends on the person” rules. These are agreed between the manager and the salespeople – but set by the manager.

2. An intelligent sales process gives you simple and powerful reporting that tells the salesperson and the manager how close they are to hitting the target based on NUMBERS and DATES and not based on opinion, hope or conversation. The DEI process applies a very high standard for determining “what is a prospect” and it’s this high standard that leads to daily – and physical - behavioral change.

3. An intelligent sales process gives you the practical tools for planning and executing sales - tools that MUST be used in order to consistently deliver the results. Selling is a practical art; the salesperson needs to use certain tools to do it. (Conventional wisdom has it that the “right salesperson” will do it anyway. Interestingly, the “right” salespeople instinctively use these tools.)

4. And finally, an effective and intelligent sales process gets the salespeople to “self check”. It provides a framework for the salesperson to benchmark their performance against key outcomes and leads to small, but significant, daily, weekly and monthly adjustments in activity and skills that leads to stronger pipelines and more consistent results. In a real sales system, the salesperson actually develops into a much stronger performer, with credibility and standing in their marketplace.

Here’s a key thought for you:

Most sales training focuses on “how to sell”. “How to sell” is actually not the issue at all. The greatest “skill” a salesperson can possess is knowing how to hit a target – on time. Most salespeople lack this skill, because they never learnt it and mainly because – up to now - they didn’t need to learn it.

Hint: Have a look at how some of your salespeople spend their time and how their day is structured. It will begin to highlight the presence or absence of a structured – and shared – sales process.