Is Sales Process Wasted Effort?

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  dave.stein@...09/27/07 Report as spam
  1

  Process is required to win.

  I agree with Julie and Geoffrey--to an extent. To me its a matter of degree. There is plenty of research that shows that companies having no standardized and institutionalized processes by which their salespeople pursue sales opportunities don't sell as much as companies that do. On the other hand, my experience (and clearly Julie's as well) shows that having a process that is so rigid as to not take into account the individual ways companies buy is nearly as bad.
  
  The overlying challenge for those of us interested in sales performance improvement, is that the majority of sales people, when left to their own devices, will not follow a process. Getting sales people to follow any process is at least moving them in the right direction.
  
  We have worked with and interviewed companies that effectively employ a hybrid approach. An "Opporunity Pursuit Framework" must be followed by every rep. It includes, among other things, ongoing qualification criteria and critical steps (like legal approval) that fall into each of whatever phases of a selling cycle those that built the framework may have defined.
  
  Within that framework, the salesrep builds a customized plan for that opportunity, as suggested by Julie. In this way 1) no critical steps are missed, 2) management can track progress of each deal through commonly define selling cycle phases, 3) the salesrep, as a necessity for the creation of the plan, is obliged to ask all the right questions (of the right people), determine an achievable sales objective, devise a strategy, and then generate a series of actions, which, when executed, will result in a win.
  
  We find this is a winning combination for certain companies with a certain level of sales talent.

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  tpsinc@...09/27/07 Report as spam
  2

  RE: Is Sales Process Wasted Effort?

  No, having a sales process is not a wasted effort. There is a process on both the seller's and the buyer's side. The best approach is a mesh of both. The seller should learn how the client buys and then adjust her/his process to the buyer. Without a sales process you can lose awareness of what you need to do on the sales side and you might miss opportunities with your client.
  
  Linda Berke

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  don_hicks09/27/07 Report as spam
  3

  RE: Is Sales Process Wasted Effort?

  Julie is confusing process with strategy.
  
  Sales process has always been about addressing the prospect's buying process. A sales process is made up of milestones, not tasks. Why?....to give the sales professional the flexibility to improvise when required. Milestones also provide a method of measurement and accountability.
  
  What Julie wants is an account or opportunity strategy (ala Miller-Heiman). Strategy addresses the things process doesn't like competition, buyer team personalities, position, pricing, terms, etc.

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  Franketh09/28/07 Report as spam
  4

  Julie is right

  Julie is right. Sales processes, in the form of ?steps of the sale? are an attempt at predicting the route a sale will follow. It does assume a strong element of consistency in how a sale comes about. It is true they are used to measure key milestones in a sale and the state of a pipeline. But by doing so they are also suggesting tasks that have or should be done. .
  
  I do not believe Julie is confusing sales opportunity strategies with sales process, I think Jon Hicks is confused or at least not clear.
  
  The sales process assumes it is possible to measure the progress of a sale using consistent steps. The problem is that any sales process is simply the stages or actions taken to influence a buying decision. This means the controlling factor is the not the sales process, but the buying process. If you want to influence a buying decision you must react accordingly, which is exactly the point being made by Julie. If you need to track the process of a sale why not access the buying decision process. Which is where I slightly disagree with Julie? My research indicates that in specific markets there is often considerable consistency in the way buying decisions are made, but not necessarily sales.
  
  It is often said that Sales Processes are a reflection of the buying decision process. May be they are, but if so why bother producing are attempting to measure them, it would be better to monitor the founding datum namely the buying decision process. This would offer less space for error.
  
  Personally, I believe the focus on sales processes is a left over from ?old selling? where the belief was that salespeople had total control over customers buying decisions. It is also I suggest the need of sales automation systems to keep everything consistent and sequential. Reality is that humans are not inclined to be over consistent and sequential in the way they do things.
  
  This is relatively early days in sales automation, in time and further integration of business intelligence and Ai such systems will get closer to reality.

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  Finkelmurphy09/28/07 Report as spam
  5

  RE: Is Sales Process Wasted Effort?

  Since I happen to be employed to coach a sales methodology within a software company, I won't venture into the right or wrong of Julie's idea. But I'd like to make an observation:
  
  Sales process is only rarely implemented to assist the field salesforce to sell. While under the guise of improving sales, most sales process is implemented to assist management to forecast. Great emphasis is placed on the controls that roll out to support the sales process, and only secondarily does anyone consider the evolution to competence in using the process or creating a feedback loop to tweak the process as competence grows and the sales process model for a particular company and product set is refined.
  
  Perhaps the purveyors of sales process methodology are afraid their products would not sell if they articulated the true cost and length of time it takes to embed a sales process in the DNA of a salesforce.

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  tmorling09/28/07 Report as spam
  6

  Tops down vs bottoms up

  Defining the sales process is essential. Sales is one of the most mysterious business processes in most organization. Sales is seen as a black box dependent on hiring "the right person" and waiting for results to pop out the other end. The problem is that "right people" are expensive and hard to find and if something goes wrong, nobody knows enough about what's going on in sales to fix it.
  
  Creating a seller-centric sales process and then casting it in"electronic concrete" via CRM is a classic tops down mentality and a symptom that management is disconnected from market reality.
  
  What makes far more sense is to allow each sales person to define the process appropriate for making sales in their accounts according to each account's environment and their individual style and capability.
  
  A quarterly or yearly analysis and summary of these account by account sales processes will then yield trends and knowledge about what works and what doesn't that can be applied to a broader perspective with the assumption, of course, is that this data is seen as "living" and needs to consistently updated and corrected. More details at www.thomasmorling.com/blog.
  
  Thomas Morling http://www.thomasmorling.com

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  CBragg09/28/07 Report as spam
  7

  RE: Is Sales Process Wasted Effort?

  Defining the sales process is important but it must be done in concert with defining the buying cycle. Knowing where you are going, and where you stand, in both processes is key to success particularly when it's a long sales cycle.

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  michaelperla@...09/28/07 Report as spam
  8

  RE: Is Sales Process Wasted Effort?

  This sounds great in theory, but I'm not sure it's aligned with the patterns that are often found in every sales/buying process. For example, within certain parameters, most B2B buyers have similar processes for buying certain offerings. If they've never bought the offering before (e.g., strategic consulting services), then the seller may have a lot of leeway to shape the process. It's not dichotomous. The guardrails might be "in concrete" and every sales process is different and customized. Most sellers can take a best practice process and tailor it to their situation. I don't think you have to throw the baby out w/ the bath water.
  
  Also, most good sellers already execute a number of best practice activities - their most valuable resource is how they spend their time. If they don't truly qualify the prospect, it's highly likely they will spend a lot of calories on tire-kickers and see-mores. Good qualification, for example, helps both management and sellers to know where to invest. Basic economics of time.