DEI Principles
Forget “selling”. It’s time for a Sales System.
I’d be surprised if the topic of sales and selling hasn’t been in your conversation of late. Many owners and managers have begun preaching the “sales message” to their salespeople. But, in most cases, it will never go beyond the preaching. Why? Because, unless you have a sales system and a sales process, you’ll end up making a few fast and furious moves that will fade away like New Year resolutions.
What is a Sales System?
Well, it’s not “CRM” or some fancy, complicated and bloated software. There are at least 120 pieces of sales software on the market and very few companies have anything to show for that investment. In fact, most sales operations really don’t use the stuff once it’s installed. Salespeople will only use software if they are certain it will further cloud the manager’s view of what they are doing. Software can be very good at that!
A real sales system gives you 4 things:
1. It gives you a common language that sets the rules and standards that salespeople need to operate to. These are not vague, “it depends on the person” rules. These are agreed between the manager and the salespeople – but set by the manager. In particular, the common language defines what is a prospect and therefore, leads to very accurate forecasting.
2. A real sales system gives you simple and powerful reporting that tells the salesperson and the manager how close they are to hitting the target based on NUMBERS and DATES and not based on opinion, hope or conversation.
3. A real sales system gives you the practical tools for planning and executing sales. Tools that MUST be used in order to consistently deliver the results. Selling is a practical art; the salesperson needs to use certain tools to do it. (Conventional wisdom has it that the “right salesperson” will do it anyway. Interestingly, the “right” salespeople instinctively use these tools).
4. And finally, a real system gets the salespeople to “self check”. It provides a framework for the salesperson to benchmark their performance against key outcomes and leads to small, but significant, daily, weekly and monthly adjustments in activity and skills that leads to stronger pipelines and more consistent results. In a real sales system, the salesperson actually develops into a much stronger performer, with credibility and standing in their marketplace.
Here’s a thought for you:
Most sales operations focus mainly on “how to sell”. Most sales training focuses on “how to sell”. This is the wrong issue. The greatest “skill” a salesperson can possess is knowing how to hit a target – on time. Most salespeople lack this skill, because they never learnt it and mainly because –up to now – they didn’t need to learn it. A sales system ensures your sales operation can hit the targets that have been set. Otherwise, it’s a question of luck and luck is not enough these days!
DEI Sales System, 6-9 Trinity Street, Dublin 2, Ireland. Tel: +353-1-6177890
