Increase Sales with these 12 Sales & Marketing Strategies - Part 3
How are you going to continue to increase sales and boost your marketing efforts this year - regardless of what the economy does? This is the 3rd article of a 12-part series that explains 12 smart things you can do to build a solid sales and marketing program. Once you've read all 12 articles you will know many of the tools recommended for any company striving for continued growth.
Just to refresh your memory (or if this is your first time reading this series) here is the list: Click here.
This week, we'll highlight #3 - Define your sales process. The best way to do this is to create a written document that describes each step of your sales process in detail. Any time you have new personnel or see sales beginning to slip, you can refer to the document to make sure everyone is going through each step properly.
A defined sales process is really just a 'dressed up' way to say: Who are we talking to? What are we saying to them…and when? How are we keeping track of our activity? What do we want to accomplish for each step along the way?
Your defined sales process should include the following:
1. Define the sales stages for your products or services. The most common nomenclature includes suspects, prospects, clients, non-prospects, etc. These designations are an important way for you to understand what actions to take and give you the ability to gather better metrics for your sales cycle. In most cases, a suspect is a lead or contact name that has not been qualified in any way. You just know they might be in your target market. A prospect is someone who has been in contact with your company and you know they meet certain criteria (budget, service area, industry, company size, etc.) to possibly become a client. Clients are people or companies who have actually paid you and non-prospects are contacts who are not to be contacted for various reasons because they are not going to become clients for various reasons (wrong industry, direct competitor, previous client that ended as a not-so-positive relationship, etc.)
2. Create procedures for communicating with contacts. For example, if a contact is a qualified prospect, what are the specific communications sent to her and what is the process to work through to get that person to say either 'yes,' 'no,' or 'not right now,' to your offer?
3. Define responsibilities. If a suspect submits a query from your website "Contact Us" form, who is responsible for the following up with that person? Do you have a policy for contacting a lead within 4 business hours or 24 hours? How soon must the information about that contact be entered into your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and who does it? Some companies assign all entries to a CRM administrator while others require each account manager or sales person to be responsible for the accurate and timely input of their contact information and the proper sales stage designations.
4. Define the objectives. On an initial call to a contact, what specific information must you share with them and gather from them to designate them as a prospect (or non-prospect)? Is the objective to make an appointment for a follow up call or meeting? Know what the objectives are for each phone call, meeting, or written communication.
Obviously, these are just the basics of creating your defined sales process, but these steps should help you get started. When you combine this exercise with the others in the list for this 12-part article (Increase Sales with these 12 Sales & Marketing Strategies), you will be on your way to creating a successful program for you and your sales team to use. Of course, Contact Us if you have any questions about how The Surfside Group can help your company get on track by helping you define your sales process.
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