Do you have a sales methodology that your team follows? Let’s step back. What is a sales methodology? Sales best practices? A sales process? Documented steps/procedures in the sale? Sales skills? Tools? All of the above?
A sales methodology is the system a sales organization follows to win business. In one sense (not the best sense), every sales organization and/or salesperson has a sales methodology whether it is the remnants of one that had once been put in place, the norm people follow, or what a particular salesperson has figured out for him or herself.
An effective sales methodology is one that a sales organization has thought out clearly and provides it to its salesforce. The differences between a sales methodology that just exists because a company or most salespeople pretty much operate that way and a highly effective sales methodology boils down to six critical success factors.
Documentation: Map out clear steps as a guide for salespeople to follow/repeat.
Best Practices: Embed it with what your top performers consistently do.
Training: Prepare your salesforce to ensure they have the knowledge and skills needed to carry out the steps.
Tools: Give salespeople and sales managers tools, such as easy to use CRMs, planners, access to research … to make them more productive.
Execution: Follow it and coach to it.
Assessment: Ongoing feedback, tweaking and refinement.
The goal of having a sales methodology is to win more deals and to win them more quickly.
The initial question was do you have a sales methodology. The second question is if not should you have one?
Take the time to map out the steps it takes to identify and convert a lead into a customer. Make it a collaborative process with marketing team and your top performers. It is more than worth the effort. 10% of your reps will do fine without a clear sales methodology. But 80% will do better with one.
Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com
Posts
3 comments:
Great post, Linda.
There is now abundant and incontrovertible research proving that companies that employ a methodology outsell those that don't. During these tough times when every Sales VP is looking for a competitive edge, why isn't everyone following your advice?
Good points Linda and Dave.
CSO Insights have been examining the sales performance difference between companies with a formal methodology and those without. The differences are quite startling
Mark
Dave,
This is an important question. In a recent survey to our Cyber Sales Tip subscribers, 44% of salespeople who responded told us that their sales organizations are doing little to nothing to support them in their sales efforts in this challenging economy. It actually was your research report that inspired this survey and my blog posting.
Many sales organizations lack a sales methodology that they can articulate. If they can’t articulate, it’s hard to follow it and even harder to repeat. Your definition of sales methodology is the best I have seen because you understand not only the multiple components but the importance of having all the pieces integrated.
To try to answer your question, I think many sales organizations are not exactly sure what a sales methodology is and therefore don’t think about the parts of a sales methodology that they already have in place that they can organize and shape into an effective and repeatable system and examine to identify gaps. Once gaps are identified, they can take incremental steps to fill them. Like everything else it takes a champion — someone with the vision and passion to give salespeople a plan of action to follow, skill building to execute, a common language, tools to support them in executing it, and of course sales managers accountable to coach.
It can seem daunting to put sales methodology in place. But an incremental approach makes it very doable. The first step is to take the mystery out of Sales Methodology. You have described the components (see link above) and your definition serves as a great framework. From a development perspective, there are three essential parts: 1) The Process for each step of the sales cycle (generate, win and expand relationships) and the skills and sharing of best practices to execute at each stage. 2) Leadership to recruit well and coach consistently. 3) Enablement so the process and skills are embedded in the work stream and salespeople and sales managers literally trip over them and can’t help but use them. The methodology has to be practical, repeatable, and easy to use for it to become a part of the culture and what really goes on every day.
Often I am asked where to start. While this is not a simple question my heart of heart answer is to start with the Process and Skills. Process is making sure salespeople and sales managers know what they need to do in each part of the sales cycle (for example, generating opportunities requires prospecting and territory management) and to give them a common sales framework and common language so they have the skills to be successful in executing the strategy. It is a matter of both the what and the how. This will have the fastest return on investment. Along with that make sure sales managers are skilled and committed to coaching. Once that is in place, work on building tools to help make it easy for salespeople and sales managers to use the process and skills and win and expand business.
While training budgets may have been trimmed, there are so many alternatives for companies to use to support their salespeople from compressed classroom for where it is needed, interactive online training, VoDs, podcasts, and technology-driven ”just-in-time” tools that finally really are just in time, thanks to technology, and are embedded into the work stream. This is not the time to expect salespeople to go it alone. An investment in development, when others may be cutting back, will pay big dividends.
Your question was very compelling and it would be great to hear from others on their thoughts on a sales methodology.
Post a Comment