How to Design Your Sales Process to Help Customers Buy Now
Everyone’s attention these days seems to be riveted on sales.
And rightly so, given the economy. Recently I received inquiries from several people working with a large organization that is very concerned about its sales process. Seems the CEO is having difficulty telling Wall Street where next quarter’s revenues will be.
No surprise there! The economic crisis affects large and small companies: everyone needs to know where next month’s revenue will come from. Forecasting sales has always been difficult, but, in a threatening market like this, the problem is compounded by the Read more
How to Permanently Increase Salespeople’s Ability to Gain Access to Big New Accounts
February 16, 2009 by Michael
Filed under Sales and Marketing Kaizen
By Jill Konrath and Michael Webb (pdf version) In January, Jill Konrath and I conducted a webinar around a crucial topic for business to business sales organizations: How to prospect well Read more
How Does Your Company Define Salesmanship?
February 16, 2009 by Michael
Filed under Professional Articles
by Michael J Webb (pdf version) Almost every executive I’ve talked to in the last seven years has acknowledged that their sales and marketing operations are a mess. They struggle to find enough prospects, yet many of their Read more
Got a Technical Team? Here’s a Great Way to Help Them Sell
Recently I spoke with Burke, the VP of Business Development for an engineering firm in the material handling industry.
Unlike many people in this industry, Burke has a marketing background rather than a technical one. Since he joined the firm, their business is booming, seemingly unaffected by the recession. I asked him about that.
What he told me was really useful from a sales and marketing point of view:
“However, I discovered that was not the problem at all.
“Our prospects are warehouse managers who have to put together proposals for projects and get them approved. Some justification is involved for both business (cost) justification, and justification for technical architectures and other decisions.
“What I learned was that we were not helping prospects assemble their information in a way that was sellable up the chain of command.
“So, I put in place a process for doing that:
- “We take a consultative approach,
- “We gather the information,
- “We put the argument together,
- “We build the PowerPoint® slides
- “Literally, all the warehouse manager has to do is present it up the food chain and we’ve been winning a lot more often than we used to
“So, setting up a structure to follow for handling the customer’s information enabled them to become more productive, because it helps them partner better with the customer. They now know they should be looking for business as well as technical information, and they know what to do with that information before they give it back in the form of various documents, including proposal documents. The questions, the steps, and the documents we provide help the warehouse manager ’sell’ to others within their own company more effectively.
“You need business ROI, we got that. You need rationale for the controls architecture, we got that. You need a throughput analysis, we got that. You need a time-phased projection of the project cost, we got that too. Whoever they need to talk with inside their company, we help them do it.
"We’re easier to deal with than the other guys, and we’re winning more deals as a result."
I thought that was a great example of how sales is supposed to work. It is supposed to be simple.
Of course getting to that simplicity within your organization is not always so easy!
That’s where we can help you, hopefully a lot:
There are lots of new free materials, including articles, videos, recordings, and Read more
How to Avoid the Four Most Common Mistakes of Sales Process Mapping
January 8, 2009 by admin
Filed under Sales Process Mapping
Originally published at www.isixsigma.com on Feb 17th 2003
By Michael J. Webb Process mapping is a well-known technique for creating a common vision and shared language for improving business results. It helped one management training and development firm realize that people Read more
What Value Does Your Sales Process Create?
January 6, 2009 by admin
Filed under Sales Process Design
By Michael J. Webb (pdf of this article) Most sales executives are challenged to produce better results these days. Jill Stillman, a sales executive I worked with a few months ago, seemed particularly frustrated. “There are Read more
Three Strategies (and How to Use Them) to Make Your Sales Funnel Flow Faster
January 5, 2009 by admin
Filed under Sales Process Design
By Michael J. Webb (pdf of this article) Originally published on December 6, 2005 by
What makes the sales funnel flow faster? The key is coordinating Read more
Nurturing – The Secret to Doubling Your Sales Conversion Rate
January 5, 2009 by admin
Filed under Marketing Lead Generation
by Michael J. Webb (pdf of this article) The root cause of most sales process problems is the failure to understand the customer’s point of view. It is every seller’s dream to stumble Read more
Grow Your Business and Lose the Fat by Putting Marketing and Selling on a “Lean” Diet
January 4, 2009 by admin
Filed under Sales Process Design
Michael J. Webb Sales Performance Consultants, Inc. January 2005 (pdf of this article) The idea behind “Lean Manufacturing” comes down to doing more for less while coming closer to giving customers what they Read more
Step Sydnor Interviews Michael Webb on How to Design a Sales Process
July 14, 2008 by mjweb76
Filed under Interviews
July 2009: Michael Webb is interviewed on TurnAround Radio by Sales Trainer Step Sydnor on the topic of interviews bout how to design a sales process that customer’s will follow.
