Salespeople love to complain about sales process. It limits their creativity, ties them down to reporting activities, and serves as yet another way for management to judge them. In short, they think, it’s a painful waste of their time.
And the truth is, in many cases, they’re right. Sales process is not always everything it’s cracked up to be. In an article titled “Is Your Sales Process Lying to You?” published on the SiriusDecisions blog, author Steve Silver suggests that even a process that is supposedly mapped to the customer’s journey can be virtually useless in the real world.
The problem, he says, is that even a well-designed sales process usually takes a linear, step-by-step approach that doesn’t align with what actually happens in most sales cases, especially in a complex environment. Silver lists three things that these linear processes don’t account for:
It’s tempting to think that the answer to this many-fingered problem is multiple processes to address every possible situation. Unfortunately, such a system is prohibitively complex to build, and would be obsolete as soon as it was created. A better solution is the dynamic sales process.
A dynamic sales process is an iterative system in which salespeople and their managers continuously monitor and analyze what they’re doing, what’s working, and what factors most impact outcomes. In such a system, multiple playbooks and sales paths arise naturally based on feedback regarding what works under what conditions.
A properly designed dynamic sales system readily addresses the problems of a linear sales process as identified by Silver. Designing one begins by tracking and measuring the right metrics. Begin by looking at the three problems identified by Silver, and tracking data related to each one.
Of course, a dynamic sales process requires robust tools and software. The technology must be capable of tracking sales through the entire process, capturing all relevant data points, and adapting continuously to lessons learned. Many traditional CRMs are not built for the dynamic sales process, though they can be adapted to it, to some degree. Newer tools, such as Membrain, are purpose-built for the dynamic sales process, with all the necessary capability baked in. Some of them, including Membrain, can be used in concert with the existing CRM to get the benefits of the dynamic process without the expense and risk of scrapping an existing CRM system, or can be used independently as a stand-alone CRM focused on sales effectiveness instead of just building an information graveyard.
Feel free to contact us to create a truly effective sales process using Membrain.
George is the founder & CEO of Membrain, the Sales Enablement CRM that makes it easy to execute your sales strategy. A life-long entrepreneur with 20 years of experience in the software space and a passion for sales and marketing. With the life motto "Don't settle for mainstream", he is always looking for new ways to achieve improved business results using innovative software, skills, and processes. George is also the author of the book Stop Killing Deals and the host of the Stop Killing Deals webinar and podcast series.
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