What sales process do you follow?

How well do you know it – well enough to sense when something starts to break?

Most who sell follow some sort of process, or try to.

Maybe it works well because you follow it, or maybe you follow it because it works – but both have to happen - consistently!

Taking the process apart to look at it can be very productive.  Who knows what you might find if you do?

Maybe there’s a step that just doesn’t work.  The results or outcomes you want just don’t happen when you follow that part of the process.  That’s GREAT news!  The first step in fixing a problem is finding it – and if you find one broken part in your sales process, that may be what’s holding you back.

Maybe there’s a step that’s often skipped, like a follow-up note.  When you skip a step, you’re breaking the process yourself.  How many sales are lost for a simple missed step? 

 

Maybe there’s a step that only a very few can do with any skill.  That’s great news, too!  Just isolate and model how the best do exactly that part – and then "clone" that excellence for others.  (The cloning's a separate skill from selling, which I'll cover in another blog)

 

On Jan 23 Scott Plum and I are going to walk through some sales processes we each know, from various sources, so everybody can see -- they’re all built on the same frame, in theory at least. 

 

The difference is in execution -- how whatever process really gets used.  What matters is what the salesperson actually does "in the moment" - and that's not always the same process they espouse.

Then we’ll take a volunteer from the participants, and do “real-time mapping” to document exactly how his/her sales process works.  I’ll use XSOL software to do this rapid redesign exercise so everyone can see how the process fits together and works.

What usually happens in a conversation like that, about how a process really, really works, is this:

As it gets more specific, some things just pop out as obvious opportunities for improvement.  Some things might turn out to be broken, redundant, or waste.  Sometimes there's a Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious - which can be really valuable.

 

Or it might be that one attendee will be absolutely vindicated that she / he has the perfect sales process, combined with flawless execution.

And if that happens, I’ll wonder why they’re in a sales process workshop, instead of on a beach in Cancun…

Here’s a link to register for it: RSVP – Click Here