It is not a trick question…. Like any other processes in your business, a sales process is there to standardise and improve sales performance in your business. Every company will have unique steps and stages that need to be put in place. What are yours?
Not having a well-structured and comprehensive sales process can result in the following… perhaps you can recognise some of them?
- Not being able to forecast future revenue from new business
- Salespeople are left to their own devices to bring in new business – i.e., they do their own thing
- Conversion rates and successes/losses cannot be analysed …. many prospects just fizzle out or are permanently “unavailable”
Creating and mapping a sales process will make an enormous impact on sales efforts in any company whatever the size. They will be able to convert more opportunities and close more deals.
Let us look at each of these in turn.
Forecasting
If you have a good sales process, then you will have a magnificent view of all your sales opportunities in your pipeline. Knowing where and what the high probability opportunities are in the stages of your process will allow for much better forecasting of revenue and expenditure for the same.
Sales Confusion
Even with the best salespeople or training, if the sales process is not defined well, they will interpret what is required and do their own thing. This will result in your prospects experiencing the process differently. This could jeopardise the consistency in sales performance and prospect expectations.
Also, we map out the process so that we can deliver specific objectives and goals for the sales team, like for example a 50% increase in sales of a particular product. Without this focus, we cannot expect the right delivery from the sales function in our business.
Increase Conversion Rates
Once we have mapped it, detailed the steps and stages for both your process and the buyer’s journey then we can test and measure the results (we cover all of this in our training). This will allow you to optimise and review the process… where are the blockages? Why did we win/lose the business?
All this analysis will only lead to one thing… better conversion rates! More Won Business!
If you already have processes in your business, you’ll know why they are so important. If you need any help mapping out your sales process, then please get in touch. We would love to talk it through with you and make suggestions on how you can implement this into your business.
