How many sales processes do you need?

If you’ve been following me for long, you may think this article is going to be about how your department needs to formalize a single sales process for everyone to follow. You would be wrong. In fact, every sales department needs at least two sales processes - and maybe more.

When I talk to sales leaders and ask them if their department has a formal sales process, they usually say, “yes.” But when I ask them to describe it, I’ll get as many answers as there are people in the room. That’s not what I mean by two or more sales processes.

To be effective, your sales organization must formalize, train, and reinforce your sales process, but that doesn’t mean one single process to apply to every situation. Rather, the sales process should be appropriate to the circumstance at hand. Ideally, that means a fully dynamic process that guides salespeople through each stage based on the unique needs of each customer and situation. For most companies, however, that is an unattainable ideal, at least to start with.

To start, we recommend that companies formally identify separate processes along two major lines:

1. Transactional versus complex
2. Proactive versus reactive
   (our partner Håkan Forsberg discusses this point in some detail in this excellent article)

In fact, when the size of the department permits, it’s usually most effective to divide the sales team along these same lines, where one team handles incoming transactional purchases while another handles the longer, more complex sales cycle. Let’s take a look at the different needs each type of sale has when it comes to process.

Transactional versus complex sales process

The needs of buyers vary depending on the type of purchase they’re making. Just as you wouldn’t choose a multi-million-dollar construction project via an online “buy now” button, likewise you wouldn’t want to engage in a six-month-long sales conversation in order to buy a coffee mug.

Yet, you’d be surprised how many companies don’t organize their sales teams around the complexity of the sale. Take the time to analyze your product and service lines to identify those elements that require a simpler, shorter sales process, and distinguish them from those with a longer, more complex sales cycle. Then you can build a sales process for each that reflects the needs of the customer and your organization. After that, you can assign the right people and managers for these specific processes, as needed traits, expertise and methodologies will differ.

Proactive versus reactive sales process

Just as the buyer’s needs vary based on the complexity of their purchase, so also they vary based on the stage of the journey at which they come into contact with the salesperson. A buyer who has spent extensive time researching their product does not need to be educated by the salesperson about the product itself, yet that is often what the salesperson attempts to do. Likewise, a buyer that is barely aware that they have a need, let alone what solution they want, requires a great deal more information and education from the salesperson.

In a proactive sale, the salesperson actively courts and engages a prospective customer. This customer is likely to be earlier in their journey, and to need a great deal more assistance. When you enter their decision-making process early, you have a greater possibility to influence and shape their perceptions. At the other end of the spectrum is the customer that calls up a salesperson and already knows what they want, which is a reactive sale. Likewise, a customer that issues an RFP requires a reactive approach from the salesperson, rather than proactive.

A salesperson who handles both customers exactly the same way is unlikely to be successful with both.

But don’t stop there

Clearly, transactional vs. complex and proactive vs. reactive are not the only potential types of sales your salespeople may handle. The vast array of potential circumstances is what can lead some sales departments to think that developing a formal sales process is a futile exercise. That’s where dynamic sales processes comes in.

World class sales organizations don’t just have separate sales tracks, they have fully dynamic sales processes that adapt and adjust with the changing needs and competition of each sale. While this sounds like an impossible dream, the right technology makes a dynamic sales process possible even for medium sized sales teams. It’s one of the things we designed Membrain to help with. Inside Membrain, you can start with the skeleton of a simple sales process, and then use the data generated by the system to optimize and customize the stages based on triggers at each point in the process.

We’d love to show you how it can work for you. Contact us.