Do You View Your Sales Function Like Other Functions of Your Business?
It’s surprising how out of step the Sales Function can be relative to other business functions, especially when you consider how important it is to the overall success of the business.
Take the Accounting Function or the Warehousing Function or the Manufacturing Function, think about how they work and the people who work in them, and compare them to your Sales Function. What differences will you find?
Systems
Systems, or the lack of them, is the first thing you will notice. Other functions operate efficiently and effectively because there are specialised systems in place. Accounting Packages, Warehouse Management Systems, Manufacturing or Enterprise Resource Planning (M/ERP), etc. and these systems are aligned with established practices.
In the Sales Function, you will find a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System. However, CRM Systems out-of-the-box, no more than an ERP System out-of-the-box, borders on useless, unless you are looking for a glorified contact database. Unfortunately, a lot of CRM installations are just that.
People
People use systems and adhere to established practices because partly it’s the right thing to do, supported by peer pressure. But also, because the systems don’t allow them to stray too far away from the established norms.
You will also notice that if a person moves from their current position, either because of promotion, reassignment or departing the company, a replacement is found who, after a reasonably short period of time, slots into place, and the system continues to function as it was intended.
Salespeople, on the other hand, can enjoy the privilege of doing their own thing, after all, it is a perk of the job to be independent and free to exercise their creative flair! And you don’t want to lose them because replacing them would be traumatic.
Can you relate to this scenario?
So what? you might say. Sales are coming in, everyone is happy, so why fix it if it isn’t broken? I couldn’t agree more (Except, of course, I love a good argument!!). Or maybe you’re not so happy, you might be experiencing lower than expected revenues, preventing you from expanding your business. You may be experiencing revenue peaks and troughs that are screwing with your cash flow projections and your stress levels.
If things could be improved, what would it take?
The straight-up answer is 'not much'. Sales is not an exact science like Accounting or Engineering, and therefore the systems can be relatively loose and flexible. Exact is the operative word because sales is a science as well as an art. So, let's see what can be achieved with very little disruption or expense.
Sales Process
Selling is a process, you start with Prospecting and finish with a Closed Deal, and along the way you Qualify, Engage, Discover, and Present. But do you have a definitive process for your business and do salespeople follow the process every time?
It doesn’t cost anything to create a process, all you need to do is examine a number of deals that you were successful with and look for common ground. A little bit of teamwork and brainstorming will produce a model that everyone can agree on. You then draw it up as an infographic and post it on your wall with a header:
“This is How We Do Business”
Now that wasn’t so painful, was it?
Prospecting
Depending on how established you are, and how big your marketing budget is, will determine how much prospecting your salespeople need to do. But you can be sure of one thing, they do need to prospect!
Only very good salespeople like to prospect, they understand the importance of it when it comes to them being successful. Others (the majority) avoid it like Covid-19! They will use every excuse possible to be busy doing something else.
If you’re struggling with this problem, you can implement a simple solution, the Salesperson’s 5-a-Day. You establish a rule, that every salesperson must reach out to at least 5 people every day. You can be more strict if you wish, and insist that 3 of the 5 for example, must not be customers. It’s important that you put some sort of a system in place, but keep it simple, at the end of each day, ask for the number of touches and a single narration, something like:
3 – busy with generating proposals
Keep track of this feedback for future analysis. 5 touches a day amounts to about 1,000 a year, If someone is averaging 2.5, it would make an interesting conversation about what could have been achieved if they engaged with another 500 people this year and next. The narrative is also important, being busy with other things creates another conversation about how to get away from doing the other things that keep popping up. Busy doing proposals is great, so now examine them to see why the targets are being missed.
Soft Skills
We can also use systems to help with soft skills, not so much the skills themselves but the outcome of the engagements. Every CRM system has a Deals or Opportunities section and typically it holds the Account, the Opportunity itself, the expected Value, the expected Close Date, and at what Stage of the Sales Process has it just passed.
For key opportunities, it is worth going deeper to understand more about what’s going on. Draw up a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) that the salesperson must report on. Things like the Buying Circle, who are the influencers and decision-makers. Have they had direct meetings with these people, and have they received certain commitments from them? What are you up against, both internally and externally? Is there finance in pace or is there a budget allocated? What are the implications if they do not proceed with the project?
Another analysis of Won Deals and a brainstorming session will produce a definitive list of questions, which can be developed into a template for everyone to use in the future for qualifying opportunities.
If you need help with improving your sales function, I would be delighted to hear from you.
https://calendly.com/proactivepipeline/30-min-enquiry-call
Brendan Dunne
Founder at Proactive Pipeline