Do You Really Have a Sales Process?

I talk with so many CEO’s, Sales VP’s, Sales Directors, Sales Managers and Salespeople who say that they are following a sales process, selling consultatively, selling value, qualifying and closing.  Yet, upon closer inspection, they aren’t really doing any of things.  What they are doing is relative their perception of what they believe those competencies are, not relative to my perception of what those competencies really are.

Perhaps a deeper dive into those competencies is required.  Let’s take sales process for example.  One company sent me their sales process and it consisted of 10 steps.  3 of those steps were creating, updating and closing the opportunity in Salesforce.com. 

2 of the steps were reviews with management and engineering and 1 was to receive a PO so that leaves a sales process of just 4 steps.

A best practices sales process consists of several stages, each with several steps/milestones.  After adding the missing milestones (in red), their process consisted of 4 stages with 28 steps/milestones.  Finally, those steps/milestones had to be properly sequenced as the process must build upon itself.

How about qualification?  In this company’s original process, the BA and T in their BANT step represented 3 qualifiers.  How many do you have?  As you can see in the blurred image above, the third stage, which is the qualification stage, has 10 qualifying steps and milestones.

Do you include a needs analysis?  A discovery conversation?  Does it occur before the opportunity is qualified or after?

A proper discovery conversation (second stage) includes 5 milestones which, if all are achieved, create urgency.  Urgency is a requirement in order to easily get an opportunity qualified.  That’s why sales processes, which have qualification appear prior to discovery, require such a huge top of the funnel.  Potential prospects have no incentive to answer the qualification questions so salespeople who follow a qualify first process, consistently leave opportunities on the table then they are unable to get prospected qualified. 

The discovery process is the foundation of a consultative approach to selling.  It requires that you listen and ask questions.  How many questions do you ask?  Fewer than five?  Five to fifteen?  Fifteen to twenty-five?  Twenty-five to 50?  I have news for you.  If you’re asking fewer than fifteen questions you probably aren’t using a consultative approach.

Do you demo prior to qualification?  Prior to discover?  As a way to get prospects interested?  Demos and presentations belong in the final stage of the sales process, not the first.  When you demo in the first stage, prospects get as far as, “This would be nice to have” and rarely get to “We. Must. Have. This. Now.”  That’s why closing percentages are so low for companies that rely on early demos to generate revenue.

Get your head out of the sand, acknowledge your skill gaps, and start selling the way that generates business!