Sales management simplified is about getting exceptional results from your sales team. It’s about putting your foot on the gas pedal, about turbocharging both the effort and the outcome.
Most importantly, it’s about achieving a sustainable increase in performance and breaking through the ceiling of 105% of the forecast that eludes so many sales teams.
The art of selling has been written about, talked about, and recorded in countless seminars, audios, video presentations, and websites.
They all preach the same or similar versions of what it takes for a salesperson to become a champion salesperson.
Nothing new in all this material has not been tried before.
As consumers, we keep buying these materials because we pick up ideas we have seen, heard, or used before and forgotten. These ideas resonate with us because we know them to be true.
A sales manager I knew defined the sales process for me some years ago. He believed selling was “the art of finding someone who wants and needs the product or service you are offering and making it as easy as possible for them to purchase it.”
Oversimplified, many would agree, but true.
Selling any product or service follows some fairly simple rules. The only differences are the product, industry, market, and the way different salespeople approach the opportunities presented to them.
Sales Management Simplified for the B2B market, it looks like the following.
- Identification of potential prospects
- Subjective qualification of the prospective customers’ needs
- The objective qualification is that the prospective customer has the money, authority, and need
- Closing the sale
- Handling objections
- Final close
According to current industry statistics, the average number of touchpoints to sell a product or service to any customer today is eight.
The average CRM or similar Sales/Marketing product will measure and report the following.
- The date the prospective customer is first entered into the system
- The date the prospective customer is subjectively qualified
- The date and outcome of the first sales approach
- The scheduled follow-up call date
- The outcome of that meeting
- The planned next follow-up call date
- Identification of the prospective customer’s need and the value of the potential sale
- Record the outcome of each meeting
- The sale and its value
- The loss of the sale and the reason why
While this list is nowhere near exhaustive and will vary between different software offerings, I am trying to make the point that these software products will never report the WHY.
Why did the prospective customer decide not to proceed, or were the sales lost or won?
These products are unable to tell you the WHY because they don’t attend meetings. They don’t see or hear what is said or happens; they just report outcomes and record what the salesperson enters into the CRM system.
The WHY is identifying what happened between the points I have listed above. You, as the Sales Manager, will never be able to improve the effectiveness of your salespeople unless you are present and able to identify the WHY.
So, if Sales Management Simplified and what I have written here resonates with you, the question I have to leave you with is.
WHY not find a 10% improvement in your salespeople’s Microselling Skills and achieve the 30% increase in sales I have proven can be achieved?
Then, you will have the skills and focus you need to coach the required improvement in technique.
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