We believe that a sales process, like any other process, is a series of ordered and value-added steps towards a predetermined goal or outcome. If you were a baker then your outcome might be a tasty batch of cookies. If you were designing a sales process then your goal would be the sale.
Ask most CEO’s of privately held B2B companies to describe their sales process, and and they will often begin by responding with something like the following: “Well, once we have a lead we try to follow-up by…” and so on, and so forth. They know with good detail everything that is occurring to the right of the lead, but are vague on everything upstream, and don’t really know why.
This CEO is talking about the most common and visible baton pass between marketing and sales – the lead. So it is also easy to understand why so many business owners conclude that if they just had more leads, then they would have more sales, but yet never are able to design marketing programs to produce them at a rate that would help them scale operations.
In order to do that they would need to step back and re-define what marketing is inside their company, how they are going to leverage it, and why their approach is going to work. They don’t do this. Instead, they design a process where the first step is a lead that never comes. Frustrating. But a lot less work.
Yet, if you are serious about creating a more predictable flow of selling opportunity inside of your company, then the first step in designing a sales process is creating a more accurate definition that redefines what that process is, and where it really begins in the mind of the CEO so when it breaks down you have a shot at fixing it.
Sales Process Definition
We believe that a sales process, like any other process, is a series of ordered and value-added steps towards a predetermined goal or outcome. If you were a baker then your outcome might be a tasty batch of cookies. If you were designing a sales process then your goal would be the sale.
Ask most CEO’s of privately held B2B companies to describe their sales process, and and they will often begin by responding with something like the following: “Well, once we have a lead we try to follow-up by…” and so on, and so forth. They know with good detail everything that is occurring to the right of the lead, but are vague on everything upstream, and don’t really know why.
This CEO is talking about the most common and visible baton pass between marketing and sales – the lead. So it is also easy to understand why so many business owners conclude that if they just had more leads, then they would have more sales, but yet never are able to design marketing programs to produce them at a rate that would help them scale operations.
In order to do that they would need to step back and re-define what marketing is inside their company, how they are going to leverage it, and why their approach is going to work. They don’t do this. Instead, they design a process where the first step is a lead that never comes. Frustrating. But a lot less work.
Yet, if you are serious about creating a more predictable flow of selling opportunity inside of your company, then the first step in designing a sales process is creating a more accurate definition that redefines what that process is, and where it really begins in the mind of the CEO so when it breaks down you have a shot at fixing it.