Best Practices in Sales Process Management
For More Deals and More Revenue
“My dad gave me one dollar bill
‘Cause I’m his smartest son,
And I swapped it for two shiny quarters
‘Cause two is more than one!”
from Smart by Shel Silverstein
There is an (almost) unlimited number of authors and content on this subject. And for a good reason:
“Perfecting your sales process and perfecting the management and repeatability of that process leads to more deals and more revenue for your business.”
InsightSquared and Skaled narrowed it down to a set of 12 Sales Process Management Best Practices based on the wealth of engagement, process, revenue data aggregated, and the work done with hundreds of companies.
And since it is about process management, they also broke down these best practices into four stages, with three best practices each: BUILD. COACH. DRIVE. EXCEED.
BUILD
#1 Make sure the process is clearly defined and adopted across the team
Playbook, Standardized, Documented, Adopted, Technology, Feedback, Adjustments.
“A great sales manager knows a standardized process is a must but also knows that adoption and the evolution of the process are critical to build on as well.”
#2 Make continuous learning a priority
Product, Industry, Buyers, Needs, Strategy, Technology.
“A regular cadence of training on your products and buyers can be even more important to keep your team from becoming stagnant, even for your top reps.”
#3 Make relationships just as important as the work
Trust, Dynamic relationship, Challenges, Transparency.
“Behind every great sales manager and sales process is a great team.”
COACH
#4 Balance between selling and leading
Admin time, Trench time.
“Managers who were previously in sales roles may find it hard to get out of the selling or rescuer mindset.”
#5 Ground conversations in data and do your homework ahead of time
Listen to their calls, review pipeline, check activity ups and downs.
“It’s not a valuable use of time when you have to spend half of the conversation getting up to speed versus solving important challenges.”
#6 Further develop strategic and account planning skills
Framework of how to plan 3, 4, 5 steps ahead.
“One of the most overlooked areas of sales process management is developing reps’ strategy and account planning skills.”
DRIVE
#7 Use data to identify team themes
Are there consistent areas where deals are going long, not converting at certain percentages, or at different stages?
“It’s up to you to review and interpret the data coming in to continuously improve on the process and identify areas of opportunity.”
#8 Use engagement as a key driver
Number of and time between calls and emails, social interactions, decision makers involved, canceled meetings, time between the next meeting, etc.
“Engagement activity is also a great place to find and diagnose why certain deals get stalled or why stages take longer and conversions are low.”
#9 Use data to identify individual trends
Average sales cycle length by rep, stage length by rep, conversion percentage by stage by rep.
“You can use this information to coach reps on their specific areas of weakness while also identifying what your top performers are doing and replicate certain positioning or actions, they are taking across the team.”
EXCEED
#10 Create a development plan for the team to work on key areas every quarter
“To continue optimizing the sales process, build a development plan for your team to work on specific areas on a quarterly basis.”
#11 Create development plans for reps to work on key areas every quarter
“Be specific and make sure these plans are actionable to ensure reps can follow through.”
#12 Invite and welcome feedback
“To exceed expectations and goals as a team, managers and reps have to be able to challenge each other in a respectful and comfortable environment.”
Personally, I like the structure and the fact that the steps are tangible and actionable. Over the past years I have written several articles on the subject of great sales process management, and what constitutes great sales leadership. Incidentally, many of them align with one or more of the twelve best practices.
Here are a few highlights:
Are You Happy with Your Conversion Rate?
The Role of Trust in Sales and Sales Leadership
Sales Is a Number’s Game … Or Not?
Talk to us about a fractional or interim sales leader that has successfully worked with teams to grow deals and revenue.
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InsightSquared, Skaled – 12 Sales Process Management Best Practices of Top Sales Managers
Photo by Anne Gosewehr