Ever felt like this guy while trying to implement an effective sales process for your organization? We've all been there, dealing with lengthy sales cycles, sales reps taking shortcuts, and frequent losses due to "no decision."
A key component to a successful sales process is alignment. You need a firm understanding of how a customer buys. Aligning your sales process with the customer’s buying process decreases the sales cycle and improves your win rate. Work back from what’s most important to the customer.
Here are four ways to improve your customer alignment:
Delineate Roles and Responsibilities:
A great sales process should provide reps with guidance on what their roles and responsibilities are at any given stage in the process.
Focus on Customer Verifiable Outcomes:
Remember, the customer drives the sales process. If reps don’t focus on staying in sync with their customers and reading the buying signs, they greatly increase the probability of losing deals.
Support Complementary Tools and Collateral:
Understanding the process isn’t enough. Organizations need to put time and effort into creating tools and collateral to help reps manage their opportunities. Reps can move their opportunities forward, if they understand which tools to use and when to use them.
Consistently Enforce Qualification Criteria:
Remember, simply following a sales process doesn’t guarantee the deal will close. Make sure your team is consistently qualifying all opportunities throughout the sales process to ensure that they warrant investment of time and resources.
