Unfortunately, not all companies that do take the time to observe, document, and develop a unified sales process see the results they expect, or that they would like. There may be several reasons for this:
- Lack of support from sales management-who don’t promote and reinforce its use
- Resistance from the sales team-who perceive it as a way to ‘control’ them or as ‘big brother’ looking over their shoulder
- It seems like overhead or busywork-with too darn many forms or fields to fill out
- It looks good on paper-but it is not flexible enough to be useful in the real world
Any standard process we might choose to adopt, which is not flexible enough to support different types of sales campaigns and multiple sales strategies, or doesn’t provide the ability to change gears in midstream when you need to, simply doesn’t help your sales team close business. It may not be that your salespeople won’t use your standard process; maybe they simply can’t use it in a high percentage of cases.
The biggest reason sales processes aren’t adopted and followed is that they are not designed around this one simple truth . . .
As sales professionals, we don’t earn commissions, or get quota credit, for anything that we do. We get paid, and retire quota, based on what our clients do.
When they sign a contract, or they issue a purchase order, then we make some money. Isn’t that the way it works?
Sales processes, like the one shown in The Value of Sales Process and the over- whelming majority of process maps that companies try to get their salespeople to use-depict a series of stages, steps, and activities that we work through to try to sell something. But what is conspicuously absent from most of these are the stages, steps, and activities that our prospective clients have to work through in order to buy something. The truth is that the things we do at any particular step or stage in the process could be a complete waste of time if our client doesn’t do what they need to do to move forward to the next step or stage in their buying process. Please take a look at the process model depicted and notice the notation on the left-hand side indicating the ‘Things we do’ and the ‘Things they do.’
I’d like to pose a question: Is it possible that we could do every single thing that we are supposed to do in our sales process perfectly- execute flawlessly-and still not make the sale? Of course it is! Then let me ask you this: If the client did all of the things that they needed to do in order to buy, but we missed one or two of the steps we were supposed to do, could we still book the deal? Sure. So, in reality then . . .
It’s not what we do in our sales process, but what the customer does in their buying process, that really matters.
This truth represents one of the major challenges of professional selling. We have to accept that we cannot control our customers. We can only seek to understand them and learn how to positively influence their thinking and behavior.