This article discusses eight questions that most companies need to answer in order to develop a reliable, scalable and repeatable sales process.

1. Is your process Customer-Centric (as opposed to company-centric)?
2. Do you have a process that is scalable, optimized and efficient?
3. Do you have and use clear metrics and tools to see what is working, and what is not?
4. Do you have and do you demonstrate a precise understanding of what actions you can take to grow sales?
5. Have you identified bottlenecks, and do you know show you how to resolve them?
6. What are you doing to decrease the cost of customer acquisition?
7. Is Marketing is correctly aligned with Sales, and directly helping to close business?
8. Are you using the latest web marketing techniques to increase, measure and manage lead generation and flow?

Did You Start with an intense study of the Customer?

Most companies already have a sales process, and can diagram the different steps. Yet, most of the times when I ask people to say what is not working as well as you wanted, the problems occur because you have not found a good way to motivate their customer to move forward through a particular step. This usually takes place because you have designed their sales process from their point of view, and not created a customer-centric process. Often, they have figured out their buying process. This is crucial to make sure you have appropriate steps in the sales process to address the issues and questions they need answered before they will buy from you.

Recently, I spoke with the CEO and founder of a small software company on Long Island. He was looking for someone to sell a new software package. He had not an intense customer study, nor did he even know if there was a market or demand for his product. Yet, he wanted to know how I would sell it for him.

Here are some other critical actions many companies I speak with fail to take:

Define the organizational resources responsible for each step

It might seem obvious::for each action in the sales process, make sure that there is a clear organizational resource that is focused on that step, and ensure they are measured and incented based on the number of leads they process, and their conversion rates. Many companies I speak with and have worked with do not do this. They then begin to complain that there are no qualified leads, no sales, and no revenue.

Define the underlying technology and software

A sales process must be scalable. So, at some point a company will need to automate the way that information flows from one step to the other. This requires software or software provided as a service (SaaS).

Understand customer’s buying processes

This step represents one of the most important and powerful aspects a scalable and repeatable sales process. Many companies I have spoken with and worked with do not begin by looking carefully at their customer’s buying process, They will need to get inside your customers’ minds, and learn to think the way they do.

Examine Linkages between Actions

It is important to make sure that there are clearly defined linkages between every action in the sales process and the following steps. One of the most common problems I see is marketing activities that have no clear call-to-action; or no clear step to process the leads after the action is completed.

Often, such companies will complain to me that I am not generating enough leads and sales. Whereas, because there is no clear call to action or process, there is no proven method to generate, increase and manage leads and to develop sales ready prospects.

Author Bio: Jon Roussel is an experienced marketing and sales professional with over twenty years of business experience. He helps technology companies increase sales and revenue by using scalable and repeatable sales processes. Learn more at http://jonroussel.com.

Category: Business Management
Keywords: B2B sales, B2B selling, sales management, sales processes, Jon Roussel