Simplifying The Buying Stages of Your Sales Cycle

I have heard so many salespeople tell me how dysfunctional the sales stages they must follow in their CRM are. When I ask why most have the same answer. They say, "Our prospects do not buy that way". The salespeople that say this are spot on, and usually the better performers.

I tell them that they are right the buyers process is not logical it is emotional. The actions the buyer takes to go through those emotional stages are varied. The way they want to buy is varied. But the emotions are the same. These stages are Awareness, Curiosity and Interest, Desire to solve, Proof or Conviction that the solution will work, Decision and Close. The "A" players and good salespeople agree with this. Yet when I suggest to their managers that these should be the stages in their CRM they break out in a rash. lol!

Mostly i hear you can't track emotion! How are we supposed to know what the prospect is feeling? (that is a big part of a salespersons job lol). How do you measure emotion! (You don't have to measure it just be able to identify it. Another big part of a salespersons job). We would have to change all our processes (no you don't). Our SFDC is not set up to support that kind of cycle. (true, mostly because it is 25 years old and set up as a system of record and not as a sales engagement system) using SFDC the best you can with the right stages is better than using it with the wrong process. When you set up the stages right you will use the functionality in SFDC you can until a solid sales engagement product front ends it.

The key to implementing a buyer’s process is simple right now. Here is how you do it. Take the emotional stages of the cycle and make them the CRM stages. Then take your existing process and map it to those stages. You are still executing the same process but now you see it in terms of how the client buys.

If you sales process is lead gen, lead qual, interest gen presentation demo, POC, proof, negotiation and close here is how it maps. Awareness - lead Gen. Interest and Curiosity (lead qual and interest gen) Desire to Solve (presentation and Demo) Proof (demo and POC or ROI etc.) Close (negotiation and contract signing) This is a very simplistic example. There are often more activities and processes in a complex cycle, but this is a simple example.

Consider the fact that the buyer is doing things or not doing thing that are strong indicators of where they are in the process. IE if they are not engaging and have never engaged you, you must assume they are not aware of you. This means the activities you should be executing as a salesperson is to get then to engage with you (campaigns reach out). When the prospect has opened an email, downloaded something etc. they are now aware of you and at least a bit curious) The activities the sales team now executes are those that are meant to increase curiosity and develop interest. (different campaigns and reach outs) Once the prospect connects engages they are interested and you want to strengthen that interest and get them to want to solve ( you might execute a number of different activities here such as deeper discovery, presentations, conversations about the problem size and value etc.). Once they start to commit resource to presentation demos, and they want to prove the solution you execute different activities yet again (reference checks, ROI, Business case, POC etc.) when they have decided you execute closing activities (paper chase, signatures, PO etc.)

I am using simple examples to illustrate the point that activities executed in the right emotional stage of a sales cycle are far more effective that activities executed with no regard for where the buyer is. Secondly, i want to point out that you are not measuring the buyer’s emotions but simply identifying them from what they are doing. Third you can now group all the activities you currently call a sales cycle underneath each phase of the buyer cycle. You do not change what you do! However, you change when you do what you do to align with the buyers emotional buying journey. Buyers make emotional decisions and support them with logic you now have a far more effective and productive sales cycle. The activities you sales teams execute are there to provide the logic to support their emotion such that the buyer feels good about and confident in the decision.

Think of all the non-productive things you would stop doing. Would you have SDR's slamming prospects that they have never met for a presentation and demo on the first call? No because you would realize you need to get theme curious and interested first. Would the objective of your campaigns be a presentation demo or a conversation? Would your presentations be based on discovery and the problem the prospect has or some generic presentation that assume you already know their problem? These kind of issues permeate the entire cycle, of most companies but you get the idea.

Once you have done this simply align the resources at the salesperson disposal to the stages and activities IE Awareness, Marketing, SDR, Curiosity and Interest DSR. BDR Marketing, Desire, Salesperson and SE, Conviction SE and Salesperson, Partner. Decision and Close, Legal Team, Executive Team, Sales Ops. Again, this is not finite there are other combinations again, you get the idea.

This new process changes virtually nothing you do now. However, you now have a sales team that most often executes the next best activity with the correct resource to move the prospect to close. Taking the most productive action with the correct and most effective resource is the essence of productivity!

The best thing about this is that when you make this simple change your sales productivity skyrockets! My first-hand experience is a massive gain in revenue and a massive gain in revenue per resource. The reason is that your salespeople know what to do when and with that resource.

I am exhausted listening to all these sales trainers talking about sales training and skill development. I am not saying there is not value there. But what I am saying is that all the sales training put together will not drive as much productivity as understanding and executing with the above. Sales skills are important but irrelevant if you have no idea how to apply them to a sales process correctly. That is the Brutal Truth!

My final word is about another Brutal Truth and that is how awful you CRM is for your sales productivity! The truth about the CRM and most especially SFDC is that is has no mapping capability the way It needs to , it does not support the alignment of activities and resources well, it does not present ?data in a way that support a salesperson's ability to strategize a deal. It really has no way to test the strength or weakness of a forecast. Key pieces of data are missing and the data that is there is disjointed.

However, SFDC and other CRM give you the ability to create, manage, measure and scale. But having automation that can scale an inefficient process, measure and manage it is not really where you want to be!!

You want to scale a process that drives success and sales. You want to automate and measure as much of the right process as you can. Setting up, automation, measuring and scaling the wrong process just because its easier for you to manage and measure is not the right way to go.

I can show you haw ti set the stages in your CRM. I can show you how to group the activities your sales teams execute today under each stage. I can show you how to align your resources to those stages and activities. I can show you how to set up the opportunity so that the salesperson is not so burdened with entering useless data. Finally, I can show you how to do ab account review with the right information. I can also show you metrics for understanding the true strengths and weaknesses of your sales teams and individual team members.

CRM is not the right tool to do all of this is because it is not set up to be a good sales engagement system. You want a sales engagement system that maps activities automatically, presents data in terms of deals and deal strategies, uses AI to recommends next best step, Ai that considers both the prospect and sales teams’ behavior in improving forecast accuracy. A solution that implements and automates a sales engagement method like MEDDICC.

This kind of technology is around the corner and will when released give the market a real sales engagement product that updates the CRM and uses the CRM as a system of record only. Get ready for it and start adopting prospect centric sales process and measurement. Do you really think that AI is going to provide value around sales centric activity and behavior? Perhaps some right? But the real value of AI will be realized around insights into buyers’ activities and behaviors! This is why a prospect centric sales process is so important! AI without this is just going to put you further behind!

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