Sell More: Having A Defined Sales Process

Some of the salespeople reading this article book may be muttering to themselves “face to face selling... I wish! If I could only get more in-person time with my prospects, I wouldn’t need to be reading this article!”

If that’s your situation – that once you’re with a prospect, you’re home free and you do really well from there on out in your sales process – then pay careful attention to what we’re about to share with you.

Your challenge is linkage. You don’t start each phase of your sales process with a clear picture in your mind of what the next step is going to be.

Perhaps you feel that your selling process should be different with each prospect or that if you had a template or a system you use with everyone, that would be insincere or it would somehow ring false when you put different people through that same process.

Let’s turn away from sales for a moment.

Let’s talk about brain surgery. Or dental work. Or flying an airplane. Or doing someone’s tax return.

These processes all have the following characteristics in common:

•They are executed by a professional
•He/she has had a good deal of training
•This professional has had plenty of opportunity to practice under the supervision of someone more knowledgeable and experienced
•This person is required to continue their professional learning throughout their career
•This person uses a clearly defined, proven, documented system for making incisions, using anesthetic, take offs and landings, or amortizing expenses
•Many of these processes are system-atized to the point of using simple checklists, logs, and computer programs to ensure the proper sequence and completeness of steps
•Any significant variation or omission in these procedures is at the risk of injury, death, lawsuit, bankruptcy, prison time, or all of the above