Sales Process: The Final Frontier
Sales process is the last frontier for modern quality management. Thus the subject has received considerable attention from business consultancies. Yet efforts to implement sale process for complex selling organizations have frustrated many a six sigma black belt.
The challenges are many, but two realities of complex selling are particularly devilish.
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Observing the execution of sales process activities steps is both difficult and expensive. The reason is simple. Most observable activities take place privately between multiple individuals, and at unpredictable times.
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Many important sales activities do not result in observable artifacts. In fact much of the progress in selling takes place in the mind of the customer. So we have to superimpose tactics to expressly confirm progress.
Guidelines for Meeting the Challenge
The benefits of an effective sales process are too great to ignore. And the challenges are not insurmountable if we follow some basic guidelines.
C3 Framework Logic
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Steps have activities
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Activities build toward Customer Confirmed Checkpoints (C3)
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Customer Confirmed Checkpoints confirm sales stage completion
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Alignment with customer’s process builds credibility and trust
Here are some of the guidelines we use at System Selling to make sales process an observable and thus "coachable" reality.
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Sales stages must align with customer buying stages. Buying steps for a given business type are predictable. Buyers are more likely to accept your process if it honors theirs.
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Only the customer can confirm completion of a sales stage. Our answer to this requirement is “Customer Confirmed Checkpoints” (C3)—process artifacts that prove we have completed a given sales stage.
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Clarity with flexibility. The very nature of selling requires us to act creatively in a range of situations. While well-defined selling activities promote quick, confident action, they must also provide room for the seller to improvise.
Design for “coachable moments”. Continuous improvement through sales process requires a feedback loop to help sellers adjust. So prescribed actives must provide managers with opportunities to coaching and teach.
The C3 Framework as a Starting Point
In our work with numerous world-class sales organizations we have identified a framework for sales stages that provides a universal base. We call it the “C3 Sales Stage Framework” because it uses customer confirmed checkpoints to ensure continuous alignment with the customer.
C3 provides a structure that informs dialog and design decisions for building a sales process that suits the unique requirements of your sales organization.
