There are at least 4 elements in every successful sales process:

1. Marketing & promoting
2. Qualifying & screening
3. Proposing & closing
4. Delivering

Some may argue that marketing isn’t part of the sales process. Well, OK. But marketing is nothing unless it’s supporting the transformation of products & services in to revenue – CASH!

Each combination of industry, market, product & service and seller will need its own variation in terms of what goes in to each of these 4 elements.

In figuring out what goes in to each of these 4 elements you simply have to start and end with your focus being on the customer. It’s not enough that you are passionate about your product or have ideas for a fantastic delivery system. If the customers don’t feel you’re meeting their needs, or they just plain don’t like you, well, you’ve got problems – and not much business…

Ideally you should do some research – talk to customers and find out the outcomes they’d love to achieve, what they want, what they need, how they want and need it, and what has to be gotten right for them to be satisfied – enough to come back for more and/or recommend you to others. Find out also what they don’t want. In short, ASSUME NOTHING!

Find out how they want to be marketed to, communicated with etc.

Identify the ideal customer profile for you – it will reflect your own values and the way you want to do business. You’ll need this when you get to qualify possible leads – how well does an opportunity fit your ideal profile? How serious is the opportunity?

When it comes to proposing and closing, again, ASSUME NOTHING. Confirm all you can. Generate alternative solutions, even look for ways to overcome price objections for example by showing how you can save the customer money elsewhere, even if they go with your solution which is costlier than the competition.

Find out how customers want to have their purchase delivered. What’s the industry ‘norm’ and what scope is there for you to be different, and in which aspects?

Then work back from successful outcomes in each of these 4 elements – as Steven Covey says – “begin with the end in mind” – and identify the steps the customer needs to go through, the decisions they need to make, to achieve a successful outcome. Identify indicators of success for each stage.

Finally, identify & develop actions and activities that you can and should undertake in order to encourage and enable the customer to do their buying actions and decisions – in your favour.

From this approach you will be able to map out in fine detail the process your business has to follow to increase the chances of sales success.

Of course, easier said, or written, than done!

This is just to give a flavour of what’s needed – specifics vary from situation to situation.

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There is one question every business person wants an answer to (even if they don’t yet know it!), whether they’re thinking of starting up, or have been operating for a while, and that is…

“… how do I turn my products and services in to cash?”

For those who’ve been in business a little while, you might add “… more cheaply and effectively than before?”

If you can’t turn products and services in to cash, then you don’t have a business.

You simply have an unfulfilled dream…

In my nearly 16 years of being in business every failure I’ve come across (including 1 or 2 of my own!) has suffered the fate you get when you don’t have a good enough answer to these questions.

And I’d go a little further – what ever this process is for turning products and services in to cash – you want to be able to repeat it time and time again…

… perhaps even teach others in your team to do the same…?

I highlighted the word ‘process’ just now because what you are looking for is a sales process, something that is

• Repeatable, so you can benefit from it time and time again, and also teach it to others if needed.
• Manageable, so you can figure out the best way to use and adapt it in order to get the most return for your efforts.
• Consistent, so that it works the same way and gives the same results when you use it the same way.
• Sequential, in that you follow a series of steps (like a recipe), one after the other, in order to increase the chances of sales success.

And I’ll just emphasise that last aspect: increase the chances of sales success.

Why? Because no sales process can guarantee a sale (well, no legal, moral one anyway!).

You know you can’t really force somebody to buy, and nor should you, in my book.

But you can make it more likely that they will buy from you, and enjoy doing so.

If you don’t have an effective, repeatable, manageable, consistent and sequential process for turning products and services in to cash, you’ll never know why or how you got the sales you did get. So when you do have success – and you will (if only a little) – you won’t know really what you need to do again to repeat that success. Sure, you can guess, and you may get lucky, but that’s a hell of a way to run a business!

And if you don’t have this kind of ‘handle’ on your sales process you won’t know what to do and where to do it in order to improve its effectiveness or its efficiency.

Why does this matter?

Well, the effectiveness speaks for itself in a sense – a more effective sales process simply is more likely to lead to success.

The efficiency bit is perhaps less obvious. Operating any process in business costs – if not straight cash then at least in terms of time, effort and opportunity. When you are working ‘Opportunity A’ you can’t necessarily be working ‘Opportunity B’ – and this last one just might bring in more profit…

You need a sales process that helps you target your resources at the best opportunities in order to get the best returns.

So anything you can do (within reason!) to reduce any/all of the costs associated with your sales process means you’ll end up with a bigger profit at the end of the day – more money for the same (or less!) effort.

I guess now you’ll be wondering where you get yourself a sales process from, and what they look like?

Well, you could buy one ‘off the shelf’ – plenty of people will sell you one. But is it right for you?

Possibly.

But probably not. At least, not enough.

So be prepared to build your own.

It will reflect your values and beliefs, the way you like to operate, and, if you have any sense, it will pay a lot of attention to the way your market likes to buy.

Buying is a process too – it may not feel like it sometimes…

And if your sales process is aligned with the way people buy, well, you certainly will be getting a higher chance of sales success!

In the next part of this series on turning products & services in to cash, I’ll be looking at the first steps to creating your own sales process.

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As I see it, automating your sales process is a key element of overcoming Obstacle #8, and when done so with reference to Obstacles #5 & #7 then the customer experience will be great, speedy and you will be selling stuff even though you’re not there… or even awake!

What I believe some of the posters on the thread I mention at the start of this post are suggesting is to automate the recruitment process. And I say a most emphatic No! Why? Well, Obstacle #1 is all about treating this whole thing as a serious business. If you were seriously thinking about joining an organisation that said it was serious about being very successful, how would you feel if the only way in was to fill in an online form and then get on with business? I know I’d be very unimpressed. I’d have a ton of questions I want good answers to before I invest my time with a particular employer or business. As the MLM operator I want to be sure I’m only signing up people who I can work with, who ‘get it’, who have energy and self-reliance, etc. For me to be sure of this I’d want to meet each person at least once, if not several times, maybe have both formal and informal interviews, possibly even do some assessments and tests – this is serious stuff after all!

So just because automation is easier and more convenient for you, doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do – remember Obstacles #5,7 & 8!

Good luck!

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