Improving Sales Process Execution

Revenue of a company is directly dependent on its sales. Sales process facilitates a company’s workforce to make a successful selling. Hence, it requires continuous monitoring, alteration and improvement. No matter how big or small, every company in the market needs to manage and improve the process behind selling its product effectively. It needs to have a sales strategy that can help the company guide its sales process to drive sales and generate the required revenue. Let's see what actually goes into selling a product and how companies can gain mileage in the market by improving their sales execution process.

Understand the buyer: Understanding the buyer and his expectations are the foundation of every successful selling. There are multiple examples from the past where many a number of premium products that were launched with aggressive marketing didn't make it till the end of the day. So, it is no brainer that those products failed simply because they didn't meet the customers' expectations. Though buying seems a simple task without any deliberate attempt, a lot of thinking and research from buyer's end goes into the buying process. When the company’s sales process steps are aligned with the customer’s buying process, there is a very high probability that the customer would purchase the product.

Psychological and physical: There is both physical and psychological aspect associated with selling. The physical aspect is the actual task of selling and the psychological aspect is convincing the customer that a product can fill the gap that he is experiencing. When the psychological aspect of selling is addressed, the physical aspect of selling will follow suit. Hence, due importance needs to be given by the company to improve or address the psychological selling that is part of the sales process. Now the question comes how the psychological selling can be made effective. In order to gain buyers attention, they need to be reminded of the product frequently. Even though it is essential for the company to create an impression on the buyer's mind, it is not advisable for the company to run the product advertisement every now and then and annoy the customer. Timing is of greater importance here. Further, a visually appealing product has a greater chance of leaving an impression on the buyer’s mind rather than the one with a poor visual appeal. A product that has already gained user attention will ease the process of sale execution.

Motivating sales team: Sales team plays a key role in driving the sales. Hence, they need to be motivated to perform at their level best. Traditional approach towards motivating sales team is to award them with incentives on achieving the targets. However, this may not yield the desired results. While it is important that the sales team needs to be duly rewarded with cash or non-cash incentives, it is also important that they are enabled with the required knowledge that is essential to make a successful selling. There should be a well-designed training plan for both new joiners as well as experienced sales team members. The training content needs to be updated on a regular basis so as to ensure it describes the product features accurately. Each and every individual who is part of the sales team needs to have a clear understanding of the targets of the company. They need to know ‘what needs to be achieved, how it needs to be achieved and by when it needs to be achieved’. As already discussed above, selling is more psychological than physical and hence the personality of the individual who is making selling comes into playing a significant role during the process of selling. An ideal and well-designed training framework, takes into consideration, the physical and psychological aspects of sale execution process.

Structured sales process: A structured sales process is the one that begins from the stage of identifying sales opportunities and ends when the customer is satisfied with the product. Once the leads are generated by the motivated staff, as part of the structured process, sales team works with the customer in understanding the customers' expectations and how the product can help the customer address his needs. It takes into account, each and every detail that is part of selling process such as meeting the customer, pitching the product to the customer, making the customer understand the benefits of the product, pricing the product, defining value proposition and finally convincing customer to go for the product.

Technology: Needless to say, the present day of the highly competitive world, it is cardinal for every product selling or service selling company to include a high-end CRM software as an integral part of their sales process. The approach of selling a product based on gut feeling is long gone. The current market provides opportunities to only those who approach with numbers. A tailored and well-designed sales CRM can help the company at every stage of its selling process. It can help the company in projecting sales, provide market insight such as which territory can facilitate the higher sale. Based on this kind of data, a company can allocate and manage the prospective customer territories to individuals within its sales team. This not only helps in the timely approach of target territories but also saves the company in losing unnecessary revenue.