The 10 Things Most Companies Get Wrong About Sales Process

Sales Process gets written about a lot, at least by me.  In the past 18 years, I have written nearly 50 articles on Sales Process, all of which can be found at https://kurlanassociates.com//category/sales process

Unfortunately, there are marketing folks who write about sales process, “what’s wrong with sales process,” “the death of sales process,” and “how the buyer journey has replaced sales process.”  They are all wrong!  Other so-called experts, despite their complete lack of knowledge around sales process, reference the AIDA model.  AIDA was introduced in the late 1800’s! As an acronym, AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action.

Teaching or using AIDA is akin to technology writers using Alexander Graham Bell’s first patented telephone to teach people how to use the phone.  That first phone was not only before cell phones, but it was also before push button landlines, rotary dial phones, and in the earliest iterations, operator-assisted (no dialing mechanism) phones with, separate earpiece and mouthpiece for each hand.

It’s obvious that you wouldn’t be teaching people about using phones by using the operator-assisted phones of the 19^th century, so why are so-called experts using an equally antiquated sales process from the very same 19^th century?

If you don’t know why, I’ll tell you.  They are stupid, misguided, uneducated about modern sales, and the last people in the world from whom you should be listening, reading, or receiving training or coaching.  They.  Are. Dinosaurs.  And that’s quite a strong statement from a 68-year-old!  But I’m a young, digitally native 68…

You might be wondering why I place so much importance on sales process.

“Companies that have either no formal sales process, an ad-hoc sales process, or even a good sales process that salespeople are not following, realize a 20% increase in sales when they transition to a formal, staged, milestone-centric, buyer-focused sales process and hold the sales organization accountable for its use.”

A process like this can be used in its generic form or, for those who want their sales process to reflect their business, sales cycle, offerings, and audience, it can be customized for them.  We do this for most of the clients we work with.

Most companies use a CRM application of some kind and most of those applications have some kind of pipeline staging and status built in. 

What good is the pipeline module of the CRM application if the stages of the sales process aren’t aligned with the stages of the pipeline?  That would be as bad as a manufacturer tracking their current inventory, but lacking a system or process to indicate which products are needed to fill inventory gaps and order backlog.  It makes no sense!

Some companies take the pre-packaged, out-of-the-box pipeline stages from their CRM application and try apply those stages to their sales process.  Sorry, but that’s backwards.  That would be like buying a random, off-the-rack pair of pants and then losing or gaining weight, and growing or shrinking in height in order to fit into the pants.  Sales Process must be created first, and then the pipeline stages are derived from the Sales Process.

I have reviewed hundreds of sales processes from every industry imaginable.  While some are sophisticated, the commonality is how bad they are.  The ten most common problems I have observed are:

1. Their sales process focuses on internal steps rather than external steps.
2. Their sales process focuses on hunting, presenting, proposing, and closing without the stages and milestones associated with discovery and qualifying.
3. When discovery and qualifying are included, they represent only two steps. They should represent at least two stages with at least ten or more milestones across those stages.
4. Their sales process is always improperly sequenced.  The order in which milestones are achieved is crucial to the success of any sales cycle.  An example of poor sequencing would be using BANT, another outdated concept from 75 years ago, for early qualification.  Why would any prospect submit to answering qualification questions before they know they need what you have?
5. Their sales process lacks substance (the number of milestones that must be achieved in a stage)
6. Their sales process lacks a playbook (how to execute the milestone)
7. When they do have milestones and stages, the milestones are in the wrong stage.
8. The companies believe that introduction of the sales process is the end.  It’s really the beginning and they fail to train their salespeople to follow the sales process and then fail to consistently coach their salespeople within the context of the sales process.
9. The companies don’t require salespeople to meet each milestone and when one is not it must lead to disqualification.  If you are going to lose, lose early!
10. The stages of the sales process and their respective milestones are not memorable and easy to remember and repeat.

Sales Process is the most critical element of a successful sales organization, regardless of the size of the team.  It is also the easiest thing to change because it is much easier than changing your salespeople.  And did I mention, this one thing is likely to provide you with a 20% increase in sales?