In a recent study, PDAgroup discovered that 7% of respondents currently operate without a defined sales process. Of the companies that utilize a framework, 46% shared that it is improperly implemented.
Interactions between sales teams and their customers can be complex. Designing an effective, end-to-end sales process will assist in aligning activities and data along the entire buyer and customer journey. Navigate your frontstage and backstage team members using a replicable framework of best practices to guide your customer through a positive and memorable buying experience.
Consider the customer’s and buyer’s experience in all tasks throughout the sales process
Katherine Barchetti perfectly described the sales paradigm on customer focus: “You want to make a customer, not a sale”. Sales is centered around building meaningful and empathetic connections with your customers. When executed successfully, instead of celebrating a closed sale, your team will be rewarded for forming a valuable relationship.
A well-defined, customer-centric sales process can ensure that your salespeople are prepared to prove the worth of your solution and articulate value in the context of your client’s situation. Empower them by using suitable techniques to guide customers closer to a deal and further enable the buying process.
Equip your salespeople with informative personas to help them to understand your customer and visualize them as business peers. This tool is crucial in supporting your sales team to coordinate their behavior to correspond with the attributes of a particular customer. This is highly valuable in having sincere conversations and building mutually beneficial relationships.
Define the sales process for your sales team, aligned with the customer and buyer journey
The sales process can and should be a smooth and effortless task. Prospecting, demonstrating value, negotiation and delivery are typical stages that should be directed and comprehensibly defined. Introducing a routine into the work life of your salespeople and automating some of their tasks allows them to maintain their focus on their relationship with their customers.
Your sales team can identify their exact location in the sales process when they use a structured framework with internally agreed milestones. Each stage should have a clear definition of the tasks and techniques to help salespeople present valuable solutions and guide their customers closer to a deal. However, on the occasion that the customer-solution fit is irreconcilable, a set of criteria for an exit strategy should be provided to diffuse the deal in a fair manner.
Reduce the ramp-up time of new hires
It is costly to educate new talent on the revenue-generating processes of your company. Creating a detailed and thorough sales process can decrease the time needed for the onboarding process. New hires can start contributing to the bottom line sooner, thus increasing the productivity and performance of your sales force.
Target your improvement and enablement plans, such as coaching opportunities
A structured and transparent sales process can produce more effective improvement initiatives driven by sales leaders and managers alike. Revenue results and data from multiple touchpoints along the entire procedure can be used to pinpoint areas of improvement. This is a financially efficient and time-saving way of optimizing internal processes and elevating performance to the next level.
This is particularly helpful when planning targeted coaching and internal enablement initiatives. Your enablement representatives can focus their actions on individuals in the customer-facing team to uncover their potential.
Smooth handover from sales to customer success
Delivering and fulfilling the needs and expectations of customers is not the end of the sales cycle. Their experiences from using and living with their purchase is paramount to the reputation of a company. People are quick to judge and equally as quick to share their reviews online. The up-and-rising importance of the customer success team confirms this.
The information flow from sales to customer success should be undetectable and seamless. As a result, your customer-facing teams will start having ongoing communications using a common language and knowledge base. The consequences will materialize in increasing your chances to upsell, cross-sell, and lead to referrals.
Although it’s a process, don’t forget to be human!
A sales process can sound regimented and monotonous, but we are the ones to decide how to interact with a customer. In these critical times, people are searching for honest conversations that display true compatibility and empathy.
Use your sales process to help streamline your sales process and truly cooperate with your customer. Your company will differentiate itself as the well-equipped, readily prepared counterpart that delivered on their promises along the buyer and customer journeys.
Do you need support to develop your sales process? We can work alongside you to review and optimize your sales process.
Hit the ground running with us and our technology partner, Membrain. Use the chance to test the tool with a free trial. Integrating their sales process tool will stimulate the identification and sequencing of your best practices.
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