Transforming Sales: The Power of a Defined Process

Most salespeople think their role is to complete a bunch of semi-random activities to “hopefully” get a deal over the line.

They set targets to complete a specific number of cold calls, business cases, sent proposals, discovery calls…

And this is not how high performing salespeople operate.

Having our focus spread across lots of non-connected activities each day leads to overwhelm.

This is why salespeople only spend 30% of their time each week actually selling (Salesforce, State of Sales Report) and burn out faster than any pretty much any other career.

I've trained over 2,500+ high performing sellers and the quickest way to improve sales performance for both teams and individuals is to get the sellers is to transform their list of random prospecting and closing activities into a defined, step-by-step sales process that they follow each day.

Each step of the sales process needs to have specific activities assigned to it. Each activity then moves the prospect to the next step of the process. Over and over until a deal is complete, or the prospect is qualified out.

This transforms sales performance because our brains love to follow processes as they have clear start and end points.

For example: I feel hungry, I go to the fridge and grab a snack, I eat the snack, I no longer feel hungry, I then get a spike of dopamine to celebrate.

I didn't get overwhelmed as to how to solve the problem.

I didn't go onto LinkedIn to look for new strategies or motivation.

I started the process, finished it and then had the reward of a full belly and a dopamine hit that motivates me to do it again.

Step-by-step sales process

All high performing salespeople and business owners running their own sales function follow a linear, step-by-step sales process.

So, let me ask you, could you draw out your sales process? Could you tell me the exact activities that have to occur at each step to move the prospect further along to the point where they commit to working with you?

Probably not. And that is OK. I'm going to explain how to build our your own step-by-step sales process in this video.

But first, when I train sellers I often get the pushback that they've been given a sorta, kinda, half-assed sales process to follow in the past, but they haven't managed to stick with it.

Well, it's easy to explain why.

The problem with traditional sales processes is that they're defined at a very high level, but they don't have enough detail to keep sellers on track day-to-day.

As incredible as our brains are, they're terrible at managing activities that span over anything more than a couple of days.

That cold call that you made 3 months ago that lead to the deal that you closed today are so far apart that our brains inherently can't connect them together.

So there is no dopamine spike and positive reinforcement for completing the steps that lead to the new customer.

However, with a step-by-step sales process, with specific defined activities at each step we can help bridge the time gap in our brains between all of those boring activities that we all want to procrastinate on doing and the results that we get from them.

This dramatically increases motivation to complete those activities because our brain can now see the full picture of the inputs that lead to the outputs that we desire.

• More motivation = Sales activities get started
• Simple, measurable activities = Sales activities get completed
• Completed sales activities = More deals completed

This is how you make selling simple and 2x-5x your revenue in weeks rather than years.

Building your sales process

OK, that's enough theory. How do we build a step-by-step sales process that delivers results and gets followed every time?

The first thing to emphasize is that your sales process doesn't have to be overly complicated. It does however need to have two things:

A series of linear steps that map out your typical buyers journey

The specific sales activities that are required to move the buyer from one step to the next.

And that is it. No overwhelm. No scrambling around each morning wondering what the heck you should be doing.

All we do is look at our sales funnel and start chipping away at the specific activities that are required to progress our prospects through their own buyers journey.

When salespeople have a step-by-step process like this to follow all they have to worry about is ticking off activities and getting those spikes of dopamine.

And in a world where 44% of salespeople give up after a single follow up (Invesp) it's obvious that without a step-by-step sales process, massive amounts of revenue are being left on the table every single day.

There are a few additional benefits that come from following a structured sales process too.

Sales process feedback loop

The other benefit of having a defined system is that the end of the system can feed back into the beginning of the next iteration of the system.

This feedback loop is the killer advantage that salespeople with a clear process have over all of their competitors.

Whilst all their competitors are constantly trying to reinvent the wheel and suffering from the pressure of overwhelm, these smart sellers are constantly iterating on what is already working and making the process more efficient.

The increase in performance that comes from refining a single sales process (rather than flailing around trying to create many of them) starts slow but with every iteration compounds their previous efforts and the results after 90 days start to skyrocket.

The quickest, most practical way to implement this is to take a look at the buyers that came through your sales process over the past 90 days and identify the companies that generated the most revenue with the smallest effort.

Then feed that back into the process to improve it:

Because salespeople are often left to their own devices, this incredibly valuable feedback is often never reverse engineered into the companies sales process.

And for company founders who are running the sales process, well they have so many other activities that they're running around trying to sort out that this stuff just passes them by.

The sales process feedback loop is typically the single process that turns barely profitable businesses into rapidly growing, money printing machines.

Once you have a step-by-step sales process that works, you also unlock something that is incredibly valuable for your own sanity.

Pipeline accuracy

Most sales pipeline forecasts are inaccurate. In my personal experience doing pipeline reviews at Salesman.com Academy, laughably inaccurate…

For salespeople this is a problem.

If your sales leadership don't trust your pipeline value calculations then they're going to be on your back. They're going to micromanage you. They're going to pile on the pressure and make your life a misery because there is a gap between the process and the outcome.

I experienced this my entire career in medical device sales.

I was renowned for being slightly behind my quota and then closing one or two large deals each year that got me over the line.

If I'd have implemented and communicated a step-by-step sales process with my leadership they would have had visibility at the effort I was putting in and the progress I was making, and they'd have been comfortable enough to leave me alone.

Instead, every year, constant pressure, meetings, calls and just general pestering from nervous sales leaders that was a complete waste of everyone's time.

In fact 44% of sales leaders report difficulty in holding their sales teams accountable (SPOTIO State of Field Sales Report, 2024) and it's almost completely down to a lack of forecastability with their pipelines.

Aside from getting your management off your back, an accurate sales pipeline forecast enables you to see where you should be spending your time each week too.

Do you have deals that are stuck at the proposal side of the sales process? Then you can focus that week on getting them over the line. No enough leads coming in the top end of the funnel?

Then start chipping away at the defined sales activities that fills the pipeline.

This accuracy and visibility leads to the gamification of B2B sales.

Sales is a game

Fundamentally sales is a game.

All games have three elements:

• Inputs – You move the pieces on the chess board
• Variable outcomes – Your moves are successful or fail
• Feedback loops – You learn from your mistake and play a better game the next time around

Games that are fun to play have clear rules and obvious levels of progression.

The issue that most sellers face is that they're playing a game with unclear rules because the steps of the sales process and the activities within each step are completely undefined.

It's no wonder that a recent poll found that 2/3 salespeople cite motivation as their biggest challenge (RainSalesTraining).

I've been there in my medical device sales days too. Getting up, jumping in the shower, grabbing a coffee and then staring at my monitor for 45 minutes paralyzed by an overwhelming lack of focus of the exact task I should be doing in that moment.

No wonder 70% of B2B sales rep missed their quota last year (B2B Benchmark Report, EBSTA, 2024).

But, if you're willing to put in a small amount of work to build out your sales process, there is the potential for a better outcome.

Sales becomes addictive when there are clear rules to follow and your brain is getting hit with the daily dopamine spikes that come from playing the game.

Throw some wins in there too and dare I say it… sales kinda becomes fun.

Of course, massively profitable for you, but also honestly, fun.

And if you'd like to make both profitable and fun, click here and book a call with me and lets see if Salesman.com Academy is a good fit for your goals.

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