Setting up an efficient sales process?

What is a sales process?

Definition of a sales process

One sales process, or sales cycle, corresponds at all stages between the first contact with a prospect and the conclusion of a sale. The term sales process is commonly used, in the world of businesses and especially commercial ones, to define the sales stages that the company makes its prospects follow.

On the Akimbo Bootcamps for example, you learn the skills associated with all stages of the sales process.

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B2B sales process

How do you set up a sales process?

If your sales team does not have a clear and regularly updated sales process, we recommend that you take action now. Fortunately, creating a sales process from scratch is not as complicated as it seems.

To develop the sales process for your business, here are a few steps: ‍

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⭐️ Review past deals and deals

Start by collecting examples of recently concluded deals and deals in your organization. Determine the main steps and touchpoints with the customer involved, the length of the entire process, and the time between steps. You must reach between 3 and 7 steps depending on the complexity of your sales.‍

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⭐️ Create a template

Based on what you see in these past deals and the steps outlined below, create a generic example that will serve as a starting point for your own sales process.‍

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⭐️ Identify how a lead moves from one stage to the next

For each stage you define in your model, make sure you can clearly explain why and how a lead moves from one stage to the next. Don't leave room for interpretation: make sure your salespeople are clear about the triggers. Qualification methods such as BANT or MEDDIC make it possible to validate these points.

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⭐️ Measure results

You also need to think about how you are going to measure the success of your sales process. Identify the key indicators (KPIs) you need to track at each stage, such as how long a lead stays in a given stage or how many leads go through a given stage in a certain period of time.

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⭐️ Iterate

Developing a sales process is not a one-time activity. It will evolve as your team gains more experience and efficiency. Always review and update your process based on feedback from your team and the results you get.

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Why set up a sales process?

It doesn't matter how skilled your sales team is or how hard you work. Without a sales process to succeed, you're making your life a lot harder than it needs to be. Having a sales process adds structure and measurability to your sales activities, resulting in a higher success rate and shorter sales cycles.

We have selected 5 key advantages of setting up a sales process for you:‍

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⭐️ A clear and organized structure for your salespeople to follow‍

Knowing what to do at each stage of the sale gives salespeople a huge advantage over salespeople who improvise every time. Without clearly defined steps and milestones that guide salespeople from prospecting to presenting and offering to sell, even the most promising deals can escape disorganization.‍

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⭐️ Faster onboarding of new salespeople

‍A sales process makes training salespeople fast, simple, and almost foolproof, by showing them what to do in a variety of sales situations. Even a first-time salesperson can quickly get up to speed and succeed once they learn the basic steps of an organization's sales process.‍

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⭐️ Predictability of sales and revenue‍

A sales process allows sales teams to close deals on a much more regular basis. By having a better idea of your success rate, you can reliably predict how many sales you will close from a given number of leads, and help sales managers set realistic quotas.‍

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⭐️ More qualified leads, more value‍

With a well-established sales process, your sales team will be more effective in eliminating low-potential prospects and identifying those who are most likely to buy your product and become long-term customers.

Generating higher-quality leads shortens your sales cycle, reduces efforts on opportunities that are unlikely to close, and increases customer value by focusing your sales efforts on the best leads.‍

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⭐️ A better customer experience‍

When a salesperson hurries a prospect into a sales stage that they didn't anticipate, it can create distrust, which can kill the sale and damage the relationship with the buyer. A sales process ensures that sellers don't move the sale forward until the buyer is ready to move forward.

By adapting the sales process to reflect how a business's target customers move through the buying process, and by ensuring that each stage is designed to generate trust and deliver value, sales teams can lay the groundwork for a positive customer experience before the deal is even closed.

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What are the steps in a sales process?

The sales process is a simple, adaptable, and structured approach to selling. The following steps are generally grouped together:

• Making contact : break the ice with a potential customer by presenting the objectives of the sales interview through a well-constructed pitch. It is a key step that influences the next steps.
• The discovery : knowledge and analysis of the needs of potential customers.
• Commercial arguments : highlight the relevance of the product or service marketed in relation to the identified needs of the customer.
• Handling objections : provide reassuring answers to fears or fears in order to consider them as an interest for the prospect to buy the solution.
• Commercial negotiation : stage where the characteristics of an offer are discussed again to lead to common ground between the two parties.
• The conclusion of the sale : it is when the previous steps have been successfully completed and are evidenced by the signing of the contract (s).
• Taking time off : the aim here is to comfort and reassure the customer about his choice, about the fact that he made the right decision.

You should know that a sales process is adapted according to companies, sectors of activity, sales cycles, etc. However, these different steps are found in any sales process. The idea is to create and refine a methodology for its salespeople in order to Scaler your business.

The Akimbo Bootcamp is built in such a way as to allow aspiring salespeople to master the sales process by acquiring all the methods, tools, processes, skills and knowledge required to be 100% operational.

In concrete terms, this two-month training course:

• Cover itthe entire sales cycle and the necessary skills : go-to-market, commercial data, design and execution of prospecting sequences, cold calls, customer appointments, account management and complex sales;
• Is built and taught by Sales Coaches with more than a decade of experience in the industry in order to share their expertise, knowledge, and support you throughout the training;
• Is more practical than theoretical: more than 70% of the training time is dedicated to projects on behalf of real startups;
• Can be followed at distance as in person in Paris;
• Is recommended by 98% of Alumni,
• Has formed more than 250 Alumni.

Observe and analyze your sales representatives

One way to analyze the success of your current sales process is toObserve your salespeople while they work. Think back to the last five or ten deals you closed. What did they look like from start to finish? What were the points of contact with the customer?

Consider approximately The duration of the whole process and The time that elapsed between each stage. The more examples you have (and the more examples come from people on your team) the better.

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Once you've set this timeline, Work backwards to understand the time frame for each transaction. For example, if six of these ten deals were completed in about six weeks, look at the average steps to get there over that time.

How do your prospects move from one stage to the next?

You need to understand what drives a lead to move from one stage of your sales process to the next. Ideally, the reason or cause will be based on The actions of the prospect, and not on the perception of the salesperson.

To determine what action takes prospects to the next step, ask the following questions:

- “During prospecting, did a representative hit a specific pain point that motivated the prospect to schedule a discovery call?”

- “During the demonstration, were there objections that blocked the case or features that moved the case forward?”

- “When a representative gave a presentation, did the customer respond immediately in the affirmative? If so, take a close look at why this happened. How did he prepare his speech?”

The answers to these questions will allow you to identify the decisive factors in the transition of a prospect from one stage to the next.

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Evaluate your sales process

Your sales process will evolve as your team finds ways to work more efficiently and get leads through your pipeline more quickly. As you define and improve your sales process, you'll want measuring and evaluating your success to ensure that it coordinates your team's efforts well and reaches your target audience.

For example, note how many leads came in and out of each stage of the sales process over a period of time.

So you can conclude:”In July, we started with 75 prospects at the stage 'waiting for a demo'... by the end of the month, we had passed 28 leads and added 19, leaving us with 66 prospects at the stage 'waiting for a demo'.”

Here are some more examples of metrics to consider for the various stages of your process:

• The average time that prospects stay in each stage.
• The stage (if there is one) That takes too much time for prospects to leave.
• The percentage of prospects whom conclude after a demonstration
• The percentage of prospects who Request a demo after a discovery call.
• The unsubscribe rate (for example, if some customers unsubscribe quickly, how can you use this data to identify unsuitable prospects early in the sales process).
  

These are the basic metrics that most teams find interesting to measure. Consider indicators specific to your business that will help you define the success or the need for improvement at a particular stage.

Continuously improving

When a sales team doesn't have a structure, It's hard to measure anything apart from gains and losses. A sales process provides more data points to measure, allowing a finer analysis key indicators and sales goals to make it easier identify areas for improvement.

In other words, sales processes not only help Sales Managers or Heads of Sales understand the specific actions of their sales teams, they also reveal the impact of these actions and ensure that these actions are the most significant possible.

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Regularly take a step back and analyze

Describe the buyer journey for your target audience or buyer personas. This will allow you toexamine your sales process from the point of view of your customers and thus take a step back. You'll be able to better understand how they interact with your salespeople, what pain points they're having, and why they need your product or service.

When you describe the buyer journey for your target persona, you'll get an idea of how you can adapt your sales process to ensure your team has everything they need to build strong relationships with prospects and close more business deals.

Make changes

Successful sales teams are constantly refining their sales processes based on measurable data and constant feedback. For example, understanding where most of your stuff is stuck or going away can help you identify the root cause of that stuck business and take steps to fix the problem.

In general, applying these different elements will allow you toanalyze your process and apply any changes in order to make it efficient and effective. But above all, design and refine your sales process according to the characteristics of your business, your product or service and your sector of activity.

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