Have you analyzed each phase of your sales process?
Where are you winning or falling short in your sales process?
Recently I have been working on a sales project, in regards to developing an execution infrastructure. Besides the following I will construct a reporting system to better understand what needs improvement in the sales process itself.
A business should possess operating systems, a machine with moving parts. Any business that I have seen that has not only maintained but scaled were built on a strategic system; with key movements.
Here are a few reasons why this is needed in application of a sales process.
Introduction - When you are first engaging with a lead and you have less than a 5% conversion of prospects who elevate to the next level in your sales system, (which could be a sales call) that could indicate that your introduction phase needs improvement. A good idea is to consider having more than one introduction for testing to see how well prospects are responding to your content.
Sales Call - In this case prospects are engaging and signing up to get on a call hypothetically at a 30% conversion rate from the first phase. This would indicate your introduction process is going well. However for some reason you may hypothetically only have less than a 3% close rate after a call. This may indicate that improvements are needed during the second phase of the sales process.
Contract - Let’s say your prospect has made it to this phase of the sales process, however some are changing their mind during this phase.
a.) Is it because it took too long to send the contract?
b.) Is it possible that the representative who is responsible for sending the contract needs to improve on boarding infrastructure?
c.) Or could it be possible that there were items in the contract that was not discussed during the sales call?
There are many more examples that I can use however these are just a few. As you can see each part of the sales process is important and intricate. Quality assurance is another data infrastructure; right now I am discussing the actual sales process prior to on boarding. I would like to clarify that there can be more steps than what is listed here, these are basic common levels in the sales process that most can relate to.
SAMPLE DATA SET
Introduction Script - 100 contacts
Scheduled Sales Calls - 20 of 100 contacts | 20% CONVERSION
Contract - 2 of 20 contacts | 10% CONVERSION
On boarding - 1 of 2 contacts | 50% CONVERSION
There are of course follow ups that you can conduct to reach the remaining 80 leads who have not yet decided to get on a call. Most only attempt to contact a prospect once, data indicates that it could take from the 2nd-8th contact.
The above data example may or may not indicate the following
A follow up system needs to be developed to enhance phase 2 (scheduled call)
Phase 2 data may indicate that the sales team should be trained on closing, and or a follow up system should be perfected for those who were not closed and have not received a contract.
By analyzing your performance whether it is in digital marketing or traditional sales, looking at basic and in depth data sets will show where you can improve your sales process.
These are just basic insights, depending on your revenue objectives, budget, the size of your team and so forth many more details can be magnified; formulas can be developed to enhance performance from many angles.
What data sets to do you currently have and what do you feel the data indicates based on all of the variables present?