Different Lenses, a regular feature of The Sales Operations Blog, is a series of blog posts that presents two different perspectives on how to tackle various sales challenges. By looking at a different problem each month, first through the lens of a sales manager (Brian Geery) and then through the lens of a sales operations professional (Tom Barrieau), we hope to enlighten sales leaders with solutions they can put to use to improve their organization’s sales productivity.
This month’s challenge: Dealing with Inconsistent or Undocumented Sales Processes.
As any sales operations professional knows, inconsistent or undocumented sales processes reduce a company’s ability to scale. Unfortunately, any sales manager will tell you how difficult it can be to get experienced salespeople to change their ways, particularly if their existing behavior enables them to achieve their goal. They say, “If what I’m doing allows me to hit my number, why do you want me to do something else?” Typically in these instances, we are not seeking major change, just more consistency or refinements of some processes, like entering CRM data, delivering a standardized benefit statement, or asking specific qualifying questions.
Achieving this standardization allows managers to better see what fine-tuning of the sales engine is in order, while giving sales operations professionals a much easier task when aligning processes with automation goals. As such, establishing consistent sales processes and documenting them for all to see is of tremendous value to individual team members as well as the company as a whole.
The Sales Manager’s Lens
As a sales management consultant, I am constantly cross-pollinating best selling practices and working to standardize them within each client I work with. By documenting sales processes and driving behavior change as we refine and update them, I can help clients be much more effective at growing the sales organization and delivering predictable revenue.
So, faced with inconsistent or undocumented processes, I start by spending time with my client’s top producers. I watch what they do and ask lots of questions. I go into the field to observe calls or side jack when in a call center to listen to phone conversations. I review commonly used emails and work with my business partner Tom to establish how various processes are or can be supported by the CRM system. Very quickly, I’m able to spot consistencies and individual best practices. Then, I review my findings with management to gain consensus on what the standard sales process should be.
Following this, I counsel the client to drive behavior change across the team in several ways:
- Write down sales processes and best practices learned by shadowing top producers and work with a good editor and graphics expert to make documentation that is scanable and easy to reference
- Lead strategy sessions with the entire sales team to get their buy-in and make refinements to the written document as needed
- Reference and continually update sales process documentation at all sales team meetings – make discussion of the new sales process an integral part of the meeting agenda
- Reward team members who follow documented best practices with public recognition, emails, and sometimes even monetary/non-monetary rewards (e.g., shirts, gift certificates, etc.)
- Discuss documented best practices during individual coaching sessions, particularly with under-performers
- Observe sales activity and coach adherence to established processes by doing pre-call planning and post-call debriefing
The Sales Operations Professional’s Lens
As a sales operations consultant, I am constantly searching for where process refinement and automation can improve selling efficiency for my clients. Fine-tuning sales processes is predicated upon their being well-established and documented. Similarly, automation initiatives can only be successful when processes are sufficiently standardized and aligned with the automation objectives (for a discussion of sales process and automation alignment, see our post on the topic).
So, faced with a client who has inconsistent or undocumented processes, job #1 would be to meet with sales management to begin the process of documenting current processes, analyzing which of them work well and which need to be streamlined, and standardizing them wherever possible. The process Brian outlines above is a great one (I’ve seen it work many times) and I make it a point to be an integral part of it, documenting like crazy along the way.
Following this, I work to ground the newly defined process in the broader selling environment by embedding it within the CRM system. Specific initiatives would include:
- Make sure sales stages are clearly defined with very specific criteria for how opportunities should be categorized in the CRM system
- Determine what activities are required to produce an advance (i.e., some customer action that advances their buy cycle) at each point in the sales cycle and make sure there is provision within the CRM to document and track them
- Provide CRM dashboards that show the process status for each opportunity, expected next steps, and available resources to assist with the next stage in the sales cycle — this last part is critical because it rewards the data entry necessary to track processes
- Establish clear metrics that measure sales activity and make them available to sales management on a regular basis as a means to gauge process adherence
- Tie these metrics to key sales performance indicators (e.g., time-in-stage, conversion rate, etc.) and analyze where and how the newly established processes will influence these KPIs — this will give you an indication of where ongoing process refinement initiatives will produce the greatest ROI
- Hold regular meetings with sales management to discuss process refinement options, adoption and adherence by the sales force, and alignment with the CRM system
By leveraging the perspectives offered by both the sales manager’s lens and the sales operations professional’s lens, we can not only establish and document a well thought-out sales process, we can also embed that process within our CRM system to drive adoption and adherence, improve efficiency through automation, enable our sales professionals with better information flow, and give managers the visibility they need to make sure the process is being worked to maximum effect.
