Episode 143: The 5 Step Sales Process That Increase Consistency of Sales

In this episode, you will learn why sales process is so important and the five steps to a very simple sales process. Welcome to Sales Process Made Easy the show helping seven to eight figure industry construction and trade. Sales and business leaders finally, end the stress of inconsistent sales by simplifying your sales systems so your team can close more deals and grow faster. I'm your host, Ben Wright, a leader who has been building businesses and sales teams just like you for the last 20 years. By the end of today's episode, you should have a really clear understanding as to why sales process is so important, the five simple steps of a really effective sales process and where you can start improving your sales process with your team. So there's no doubt that everyone I speak to in the sales leadership world knows what a sales process is. Occasionally we start to talk sales methodology versus sales process, but at that point I see eyes glaze over and recognise that quite simply, we don't need to be too technical about our sales methodology or a sales process because it is so easy to simplify for our teams to be able to follow. Now, why is the sales process so important? Well, I'm 25 years now in this sales world and one thing that I can so confidently say from having worked with thousands of salespeople now, is that everyone likes to do things differently. So the aim of a great sales process is to ensure that we have the majority of our team doing the majority of the same things the majority of the time. Now, what's really important here is that it not only helps them to turn up to work each and every day and present a process or a sales experience to their potential customers. That's easy, that works, that's engaging, but it also helps you as a leader, being able to manage them efficiently and I dare say effectively. So imagine that you have a team who aren't following the same sales process. We might have one person who is heavily effective on phone, not great with admin, likes to tell his customers or her customers stories to be able to engage with them, and really has a scattergun approach to closing sales. Then we have a second team member who's very analytical, likes everything to be done by the book, follow the process to a tee, and then perhaps a third person who is a mixture of everything and really listens to their customers and will follow whatever process he thinks will work best. Now, for you as a leader with only three salespeople, this can be really difficult to manage because you're constantly changing your Persona, you're constantly creating ways of doing things that are going to appeal more to a storyteller versus more to an admin person versus a blend of being able to tell stories and admin. And by admin I mean very much, you know, process and buy the book Driven. Now, for you as a leader here, this can be really difficult because not only are you turning up to work to manage your team, but you're turning up to work to manage individuals. And quite simply, we cannot scale a business when we are managing each and every person slightly differently. So this is where a process becomes really important because it gives the team an anchor from which they can follow. But a great process also allows them to personalize it when they need to. So for a storyteller, we can supplement that ability to tell stories with some base level process and admin that they have to follow. For an admin or process driven salesperson, we, we can bring into their process a little bit of storytelling to help better engage their team members. And for someone that's a blend of both, we can help them highlight or make really clear to them which parts they should be focusing on. Rather than worrying about trying to do a bit of everything, we can be really clear on where that time and focus should be. So an effective sales process, above everything else, helps you as a leader, really effectively and efficiently manage your team. So that's the easy part done when it comes to understanding why a process is important. Because I have worked with hundreds of teams over the last 25 years and realized that sales processes are certainly not created equal. In fact, I'd say it's rare that I come across a team who follows a similar. Certainly not as similar, but the same process as those around them. Because there's always a little bit of personalization across a business that makes you special at what you do. However, the good news is there are five quite straightforward steps that you can follow to build out a sales process that will work for almost every business out there. In fact, I've never seen this process not work across the businesses that I've been involved with across these last 25 years. So where I'd be focusing your time on here is five simple steps. We have lots of resources available on this. Strongersalesteam.com resources. We'll give you a great example around where to start, but certainly I'd be focusing on five key areas today. We won't go into them in detail, but certainly in coming episodes we will. Number one is lead generation. So these are all of the activities that happen around both inbound and outbound generated leads and how we qualify them to have our first engagement right, how we make sure that those leads are the type of leads that we know will close more often than not and line up with exactly what we're offering. So we can loosely call this how we make sure that our ideal customers are the leads that we're generating regularly. We then move into the second step of the sales process which is all about the meet and greet. So this is our first meeting, the time when we have that opportunity to make a fantastic impression on our customer or one that's not so strong and push us back into a very much competitive process. Nail the meet and greet, get the focus there right and we set our teams up to close before we've even quoted, run a mediocre meet and greet. And as I said before, we end up in a very much competitive sales process that really doesn't help our teams close. So from the meet and greet, the third sales process that is highly effective for teams is the quote. What we do to produce a quote that is compelling for our customer to take them from a maybe to a hell yes. And where we really nail our meet and greet process and can follow it with a quote that is tailored to what the customer wants delivered in a timely manner and really focuses on communicating why they should be choosing us. That's when we start to move customers towards a yes, I'm going to choose you rather than we're still in a competitive process. So step one here being lead generation, step two being the meat and greed of the sales process, step three being the quotation, Step four comes down to the business end and that's all about closing out the deal. So getting us from a maybe through to a hell yes that hopefully we've already got to from our meet and greet and quoting section of our sales process. But we still have some work to do when it comes to closing out our sales process, handling objections, making sure that we've got all the decision makers to the point where they're comfortable to move ahead, doing so in a really timely fashion and really understanding where we win and lose deals. So number one, lead generation, number two, meet and greet, number three, the quotation process. And number four, closing before we roll nicely into number five which is our post sale or key account management. So this is everything that ensures our customer has no regret when they choose us. For single deals only for one time customers, it's ensuring that the product is delivered really well so they can become advocates of our brand. And for repeat customers, it's rolling out that key account style process or that re engagement process where we're talking to our customers as often as we need to to continue that relationship with them. Now get the post sale key account management process right and we should see a significant number of our future lead opportunities come from this stage. Get it wrong and we start to really grind some time into how we're dealing with our customers or customer complaints. Right? Less than positive reviews, not so many referrals. So more time in lead generation and really handling a less than ideal customer experience. So just to recap on those lead generation meet in Greece quotation closing and the post sale key account management process. So now they're nice and easy to hear. But creating a sales process can be quite daunting for sales leaders, for business leaders, particularly if you haven't done it before. Good news is I've referenced that resource strongersalesteams.com resources. You can certainly start there or you can get in touch with us if you'd like to have it sent across to you. But I think more importantly is how you then go about taking this sales process and this content to deliver something that's gonna work for your team. And my number one tip here is, in fact, if it's the only focus you take from this podcast around the sales process, then I'm happy. And that is to involve your team. Right. When we're building out that sales process and we're designing it, get them involved, get them to choose their own adventure. Because there is something I can say with absolute certainty, and that's sales teams that build their processes, that build their future life, that focus on what they need to do to achieve in the future are teams that will far and above execute better than those that don't and certainly stay more engaged along the journey than those that don't. Okay, so real focus today on sales process, on why it's important, absolutely critical, not just for our customers to have a great experience, but for our teams to be able to come into work each and every day knowing what they need to do. Right? Because certainty can be so important in a role that has such uncertainty when it comes to dealing with customers and closing deals. It's very important for us as leaders to be able to manage our teams efficiently and effectively. And last but not least, when we're building out those five steps of our sales process, lead generation, meet and greet, quote, close and post sale or key account management that we're involving our teams in doing so. So out of today, what I'm hoping you're leaving here with is an emotion around clarity around recognizing that to build a team that is easy to manage, a team that you can consistently turn up for and help each and every day deliver great experiences for their customers. That building out a sales process is really important and one that's within your grasp to be able to do because at the minimum you can download it from our website. But certainly more than that, there's lots of people around you that will be able to help you. Or we're here to answer any questions that you need. I'm really grateful that you've tuned in today. We are running three episodes each and every week. Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays, varying slightly differently depending on your time zone. However, they are chunky short podcasts that focus on real world sales process examples to help you so the call to action from today is to go and start your sales process with your team. Throw into diary when you're going to get it done by, and make sure you've nailed some improvements on that process. That's it for this week. Until next week. Keep focusing on how you and your teams can be 1% better and each and every day it will make the world of difference. Bye for now. Are you struggling to grow your monthly sales numbers? Feel like you've reached a sales ceiling, are involved in every deal, or have no real sales system in place to help you grow? And is that causing a level of worry or stress about how you can get more sales in the future? If that's you, that's exactly why we created the Sold Out Sales Teams program to help you get month on month sales growth with less stress. In just the first week, we will lock down your quoting process to grow sales by 25 to 30%. And that's just week one. And for the first three podcast listeners that we speak to this week, we'll offer you a bonus one on one strategy session with me to make sure you can pay off your investment even faster. Which by the way, for most businesses is only one or two extra steps. Sales to book in, click the link in our show notes. It's a direct calendar link so you can instantly confirm your meeting time.