Selling Skills – By Michelle Richardson
Data shows sticking with a sales process correlates with success
Sales have changed rapidly over the past five to 10 years, and so has sales training. The pandemic accelerated changes that were already in the works and many organizations have struggled to keep pace.
You may be asking yourself how you can train your sales professionals appropriately and give them the skills they need to adapt to any selling situation. One way to avoid competency gaps is through sales training that closely aligns with your sales process.
Benefits of a Sales Process
A sales process is an organization’s standard approach to closing deals. It’s a series of repeatable steps to move a prospect from the early stage of awareness to a sale.
Research shows that sticking with a sales process correlates with success. Sales teams that don’t follow their sales process find it difficult to meet sales goals.
New data from the Best Practices of High-Performing Sales Teams research report shows that 95% of teams who met or exceeded revenue goals followed their sales process all or most of the time, but only 69% of underperforming teams did. Also, 83% of teams that rarely follow the sales process were behind goal last year.
Sales training that explains and reinforces your sales process ensures your sales team is equipped to follow the best route to winning business.
Meeting Sales Professionals’ New Training Needs
Over the past decade, while the fundamental principles of sales have remained relatively constant, there have been significant changes driven by technology and shifts in buyer behavior. Consequently, sales professionals often have skill or knowledge gaps that leave them unprepared.
In addition to product and industry knowledge and core skills such as prospecting, building and nurturing relationships, communication and negotiation, sales professionals today must also be proficient in a host of new capabilities, including:
- Technology Integration: Sales professionals now rely more on technology for lead generation, prospecting and managing customer relationships.
- Data-Driven Sales: There’s a greater emphasis on leveraging data analytics to inform sales strategies, personalize communications and track performance metrics.
- Consultative Selling: Buyers are more informed and empowered than ever before. This has led to a greater focus on consultative selling and providing value throughout the buyer’s journey.
- Personalization: Customers now expect more personalized experiences, requiring sales professionals to tailor their approach based on individual preferences and needs.
- Hybrid Selling: The rise of remote work, accelerated by the pandemic, has necessitated adjustments in sales tactics to effectively engage with prospects and clients virtually.
Consistency Matters
Training on a consistent sales process is essential in the face of an increasingly complex sales environment.
Sales process adherence means the team has a consistent framework for conducting business. When salespeople adhere to your sales process, the team shares a common language and is more efficient and effective.
Having a sales process in place also allows sales leaders to track their teams’ performance at every stage of the sales cycle and help them improve. Without a process, there’s no way to know what went wrong when a deal is lost or how to avoid that mistake in the future. This makes it difficult to identify and address skills competency gaps.
Big picture: A culture of sales process adherence nurtures and sustains your approach to new and returning business and aligns team activities to the organization’s short- and long-term growth objectives.
Aligning Sales Training With Your Sales Process
When sales professionals aren’t trained on the process (or haven’t retained the sales training), everyone “does their own thing,” depending on their routine, habits and how they feel. Your sales professionals don’t follow the steps, and your process isn’t done right.
Such scenarios can lead to confusion, inefficiency, and ultimately, missed sales quotas. But you can solve this with three straightforward tactics:
- Adopt, communicate and enforce a well-defined sales process for every new hire for long-term success.
- Incorporate sales process adherence into your sales training. Deliver detailed step-by-step instructions, explaining how to complete the sales process effectively and consistently.
- Help your team stick with the process with reinforcement. Your sales team is made up of individuals with different goals and motivators. Reinforce the benefits of adherence and the downside of “winging it” for each.
Training your sales professionals on well-defined, repeatable steps will reduce competency gaps, empower them to stick to your sales process and improve overall sales performance.
Michelle Richardson is the vice president of sales performance research at The Brooks Group. Email Michelle at mrichardson@thebrooksgroup.com or connect through www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-richardson-72b01a4/.
