The Sales Process

Is yours optimized?

What if you could:• Gain more positive control of your selling effort • Sell more efficiently….total time, time to close• Reduce your overall cost of closing• Focus your total resources for selling on getting results• Improve your success ratio• Have more confidence in your sales forecasts• Be better and more efficiently informed about your key

programs• Have meaningful feedback and real time control of your selling

effort• Be in a strong position to drive real improvement rather than

simply working harder

There is a way forward to a more productive Selling Effort:

The Opportunity for dramatic improvement lies in a single powerful realization:

Selling is simply a Process :

A PROCESS like any other in your business

Selling is a process!

Many of the tools, attitudes, programs and methods used to manage the factory can be adapted to administer the selling process.

Create a New Way of Thinking:

• Believe it! Selling is a process like any other• Your sales process can be mapped and

documented as a series of steps/operations.• Then steps can be optimized • Like any other process, selling can be

measured and controlled for results• Any sales process can be continuously

improved and the results tracked through measurement

Sales Success-Getting a Good Start:

“You can design the best sales process ever but if it is aimed the wrong way all you will do is a perfect job of executing failure.” T. Brown

Successful sales plans flow from well developed and fully supported strategic planning which incorporates accurate, detailed market data and realistic business self assessment:

“You need facts, best thinking, tough minded realism and vision linked to measurable action.”

T. Brown

Successful Selling Starts with well executed Strategic Planning:

Understand/Define what you want

Define your market and your place in it

Remember that Realism and Accuracy determine quality

Always get the Outside View- avoid your bias

Then plan well-

Facts, thought, realism, and vision linked to measurable actions for all responsible players.

How will we win?-Image-Customization-Price-Styling (Design)-Reliability

How will we get there?-Internal development-Joint Ventures-Licensing-Acquisitions

Where will we be active?-Which Products-Which Geographic Areas-Which Core Technologies-Which Value Creation Stages-Which Markets

How will we obtain our returns?-Lowest costs due to scale advantage-lowest costs through scope and replication advantages-Premium prices due to unmatchable service-Premium prices due to proprietary product features

What will be our speed and sequence of moves?-Speed of expansion/growth-Sequence of initiatives

Economic Logic

Staging

Arenas

Vehicles

Differentiation

D.C. Hambrick and J.W. Fredrickson, "Are You Sure You Have a Strategy?“Academy of Management Executive, November 2001.

Strategic Planning: One Action Oriented Model

Sales Planning-Reduce your Global Strategic View to Specific Assigned Actions by sorting downwards: Market Map

Strategic Overlay

Target Market

Target Accounts

High Priority Accounts

Detailed Account Action Plans(Sales, Operations ,Development, Management)

Start with the big Picture

Run it through your Play Book

Look at your total “slice”

Decide what you can handle

Identify the best pieces

Define action

New /Target Customer Selection-Pick the right targets and get results by starting from your strategic plan:

Strategic Fit?

Product Fit

Competition

Resources Required

Profit Potential

Overall Risk

Sales Planning and PerformanceToolkit

Some Tools and Techniques:

• Overall Sales Process Improvement• Maximizing Customer Exposure• Focusing Resources for Results• Controlling for Results• Managing the Customer Base

Sales is a process-Improve it!

• Map your existing sales process• Discover your best practices-what works?• Eliminate non value added activity• Optimize your process for results• Identify and institute meaningful controls• Create measurements to provide control

feedback • Continue and Repeat!

Time on Target Planning-Maximize your customer exposure:

• Pick the right sales targets• Avoid selling distractions…do what wins• Understand and then optimize your

selling time usage• Narrowly focus available time on

objectives• Eliminate non value added activities

Manage what you decide to do-Lower your noise level and improve results:

• Recognize that resources are limited• Realize that absent setting priority all

customer demands have equal weight• Seize the power of saying “no” and use it as

leverage to gain customer commitment• Demand that everyone think like a business

person.• Keep you focus on the overall goal

Sales Project Management:“Sales is a process like any other”

• Structure your overall sales project approach- tollgate system?

• Assign a Leader/Process Owner for each project• Establish inescapable clear ownership for results.• Accept that Sales Success is a shared outcome• Identify the individual tasks- assign and schedule-

interlock objectives• Regularly Measure Project Progress against goals• Correct, Adjust and Act!

Manage your existing Customer Base-Analyze and Classify your Customers:

– Strategic Fit– Size– Future Potential– Total Resource Required per Profit $– Overall Profitability

Only the future has value…..being in love with history will hold you back.

Manage your Customer Base-Act!:

• Act on what you learn…now!• Manage account time according to overall

potential• Eliminate effort on non productive

accounts…..stop and drop.• Adjust non profitable accounts• Stop other effort where it doesn’t advance

the sale• Adjust your sales method to the situation

There are hundreds of other ways forward to Sales Improvement if you remember:

Selling is simply a Process :

A PROCESS like any other in your business- -Understand, Measure, Control, Improve

and Succeed $$.

The Sales Process

Is yours optimized?

About the Author:

Tim Brown is the Managing Partner of Brevis Consulting; a firm that helps mid-sized companies improve their results. In his thirty years of senior level management experience he has led organizations in North America, Asia and Europe as General Manager, Senior VP of Marketing and Sales, National Marketing Manager, Business Unit Manager and Product Manager in several successful global mid-sized businesses. He can be reached by calling +1 (508) 758-2441 or sending e-mail to tbrown@brevisconsult.com .

© 2006 BREVIS Consulting www.brevisconsult.com