A commitment to quality in the sales process is central to the growth dynamics of any enterprise. Each step in a sales process should be well defined and the action to be performed clearly set. Beginning from researching leads to closing a sale, everything should move in clockwork precision. Apparently trivial things can make a huge difference to the final outcome. So care must be taken to strengthen every action involved in each step of the sales process. And often it’s mistakenly assumed that sales
process improvement means sales training. Sales training may be a part of the sales process improvement training, but it is a broader subject.
Following are some examples of how improving the sales process can make a difference.
Fresh and Creative Prospecting – The list of leads should be current and include as many qualified leads as possible. Trying to qualify prospects from a partially redundant list of leads is going to waste your time and prospecting efforts. A firm with a stale source of leads has got it all wrong from the beginning. Working on the leads and checking for their revenue potential will mean that you start your prospecting activities from a position of sales strength. This will require good lead generating and customer menschen im vertrieb relationship management (CRM) practices.
A Chilean company, Andrueza Patrimonios, rode the wave of economic boom and made impressive growth. But soon the sales force found that they were making duplicate calls and that the information gathered during sales calls with clients were lost. This is the example of a terrible loss because of the absence of a good customer relationship management – CRM – program to keep track of all the information.
All possible channels of generating leads should be considered. Have you tried social networking websites apart from trade shows, seminars, and lists of companies as potential customers? Do you know how and when each of your prospects prefers to be contacted? A good sales process makes provisions for all of these sales actions.
Response Time and Quality
Sales depend on external customers that have identifiable expectations from your company. They wish that their questions and concerns be responded to within a reasonable time limit. They expect a certain level of clarity and objectivity in the answers they receive from salespeople. A simple issue, such as response time to a new client inquiry can make a huge difference to actual sales outcomes. When a customer wants a proposal from a company she/he expects to get an initial response within a few hours and an actual proposal within a reasonable time frame depending the size and nature of the project. If a sales rep fails to send a proposal in a reasonable time-frame he is out of the race even before it has begun.
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