When you are driving someplace, certain tasks will be second-nature to you. You’ll already know how to get in the car, start the engine and put it in gear. You’ll know how to brake and when to accelerate. You’ll know when to change lanes and why it’s important to signal your turns. You have, after all, done these things thousands of times. But just because you can handle the “mechanics” of reaching your destination, do you truly know the best way to get there? Wouldn’t a GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) unit help? Isn’t it comforting and reassuring to have a system that reliably tells you 1) where you are, 2) where you’re going, and 3) the best way to reach your destination? It’s really no different with sales. Here’s why:
A defined and carefully crafted sales process can serve as your “Sales Process GPS” to help each member of your sales team navigate the best and most efficient path to the destination – successfully closing the sale to provide a product or service to the buyer. Why is a defined sales process so critical to your sales organization? Read on for five key reasons.
With your properly programmed Sales Process GPS in motion, your sales process:
- Becomes a predictable, repeatable and scalable sequence of events. It removes the guesswork and uncertainty from selling. There is no longer a need to “wing it” and take unknown or unproven detours that might or might not enable you to reach your destination at the right time.
- Employs a common language (throughout the entire company) for the sales journey and each step along the way.
- Establishes the mile markers (milestones) by which your sales team can monitor progress throughout the sales journey. These mile markers are the questions that must be answered and the tasks that must be completed in order to continue advancing toward the sales goal. Your Sales Process GPS will make it clear just how and when to navigate from one mile marker to the next. Your company’s Sales Process GPS might even indicate a change of driver at defined mile markers. In the long run, as tasks are completed, goals reached and mile markers passed, your entire sales team can be certain of progress toward the completed sale.
- Helps your sales organization forecast future sales activity and revenue based on past ability to reach sales destinations.
- Makes it easier for new sales team members to get quickly up to speed as they learn how to reach prospects and turn them into customers.
Unfortunately, the best and most reliable Sales Process GPS for your organization is not an off-the-shelf item. Your best sales process must be defined and built specifically by and for your company and your sales team. Once your Sales Process GPS is built, programmed, tested, refined and updated as needed, it can keep your sales team on the best and most efficient path to successful sales, day in and day out, mile after mile.
Want more information or need help creating your company’s Sales Process GPS? Contact a Sales Xceleration Advisor today.
