Why You Need a Sales Process?

Do you really need a formal sales process?

Your company is on the move. Customers want your products and you’re making them as fast as you can sell them. You’ve got your share of problems, but because your business is growing rapidly, they’re the “good” problems.

Not really. Problems are just problems. And yes, you do need a sales process. Right now.

Rapid growth of your business can mask many ills. Your employees are going as fast as they can, solving problems every day, and celebrating successes one right after another. But if your company is constantly making the diving catch to satisfy customers, or if your customers must painfully navigate your unrefined processes, you’ve got serious issues that will scale with your growth. They’ll become bigger and eventually stall out your ability to sustain your company’s growth trajectory.

A great place to start setting your growth foundation is with a formalized sales process. I didn’t say complicated. I said formal.

So, what is a sales process? Simply stated, a sales process is the series of steps that must be completed for your organization to declare a sale to a customer completed. By definition, a “process” is a set of sequential steps that are consistently followed to complete a task. By everyone. Each time. It is not just the set of steps in the instruction manual that you pull out of the drawer when you get stuck.

Many firms who are growing just fine tend to turn a blind eye to how their sales and their successes actually occur. After all, there is often no time to diagnose how things are working when you’re making so many trips to the bank. But failing to institutionalize how your sales get completed can affect your long-term relationships with customers, your efficiency to fulfill orders, and the collective performance of your sales team.

A sales process can be simple or it can be complicated. Simple is better. It should define each stage, each milestone, that must be completed before the salesperson can move the sale forward to the next stage. Within each step in the sales process is a set of activities that are to be performed to complete that step. Here is an example of a basic sales process:

1. Lead Generation – Prospecting, lead qualification

2. Opportunity Identification – Lead activation, planning, engagement

3. Discovery – Needs assessment, due diligence, solution development

4. Presentation – Present solution, surface objections and additional needs, refine solution

5. Negotiation – Finalize offer, negotiate pricing and terms, secure agreement

6. Delivery – Deliver solution, activate products, payment

7. Complete Sale – Confirm product performance, resolve issues

This process is one I’m familiar with, but there are as many different sales processes as there are companies selling products to customers. The specifics within your process are less important than having a formal process and getting your entire team, not just your salespeople, on board to execute against that process.

There are distinct benefits to establishing your sales process.

Develop a Common Language

First, you’ll develop a common language throughout your company. If you’ve established your process within a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, everyone will be able to see where each prospect has progressed along that process. No longer will there be a mysterious fog that blankets the prospect between the initial lead and the final sale. A fog that only reaching out to the salesperson can cut through. Your salesperson will no longer hold all the cards and all the power in determining when sales will occur. Your organization will become empowered and activated to satisfy more customers in a more responsive fashion.

Improve Planning

Second, your organization will have a better opportunity to plan across all customer opportunities. A robust sales process informs the organization about which customers reside in each stage of the process. Conversion rates become tighter and more predictable. If prospects are falling out of the process more frequently at a particular stage, perhaps negotiation, the company can address that stage with training for the sales team or by tweaking the standard offer to customers. Once predictable probabilities and timelines are developed across all stages, the company can apply insights to production and product pipelines to optimize fulfillment and customer satisfaction. This expands customer confidence and reduces the need for continual diving catches.

Standardize your Selling Approach

Finally, and perhaps most importantly for the sales leader, a sales process can serve as the great equalizer across your diverse sales team. Let’s face it, your sales team consists of unique individuals who bring a variety of selling styles to your business. You have the high energy salesperson who likes to sprint to the finish line with each prospect so he can move on to the next one. You have the highly technical salesperson who wants to spend as much time as she can explaining the detailed virtues of your product to the customer, and may forget there is a finish line at all. You have the hopeless optimist who never gives up on an unqualified lead, only to clog the sales pipeline and prevent worthy prospects from becoming customers.

A formal sales process like the one described above makes it clear to your sales team that each step is equally important. While some may take longer than others, no single step can be skipped and you can’t live in any single stage. Defining the sales stages also helps the salesperson recognize when that set of tasks is done. When it can be declared completed. Salespeople like finish lines. Your salesperson now has a series of finish lines to cross, not just a single final one. That can be very motivating. The sales process also helps you, the sales leader. Performance management becomes more tangible. Training opportunities become more evident. You can direct your coaching in a more targeted way. You can become more effective as a sales leader.

Step up your game as sales leader by getting a sales process in place with your team and your organization. Bring more value to your company. Your people. Yourself.

Cut through the fog about how your company sells and grows and satisfies customers.

It isn’t rocket science. But it is science.

Lead well.

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