Ask Matt Online » process

What’s Your Sales Process?

Matt — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 14:16:00 +0000

Guest Blog-

Nicole Bickett, President

Organize to Optimize

www.organize2optimize.com

(317) 409-3607

With the current recession well underway, increasing sales has been a big topic for discussion lately. What are you doing to ensure that you are converting your leads to sales? How do you measure the success of your sales program? Below are a few tactics that are essential to understand and improve your sales process.

Understand your Target Market. Make a list of the problemsthat your business is designed to solve. Looking at that list, who are the people and/or companies that most need what you offer? Target your approach to those groups and stay focused.

Have a process that you follow in each sales meeting. People usually buy based on perceived feelings of pain or potential opportunity. Be sure to build questions into your process that get to one or both of those feelings so that prospects can truly feel how your product or service will help them. Note how when you follow a pre-determined process you close more deals.

Track everything! Basically, it boils down to one phrase…”you cannot improve what you don’t measure.” Input customer information into your CRM (see below) and regularly evaluate how many people you are talking to per week and the percentage of those that turn into business. From there, you can make appropriate changes to increase sales such as focusing your marketing efforts in the right place, refining your sales meeting process to improve your closing ratio, or realizing that you need to talk to more prospects to meet your goals.

Regularly review and find ways to improve what you are currently doing. As things change (the economy, technology, market factors, etc.), you will need to continue to evaluate what is working and not working in your sales process. Find an accountability partner, coach, process consultant, client, or colleague to provide honest feedback on a regular basis.

While we are on the subject of tracking and measuring our sales process, I thought it appropriate to mention a free little tool out there called Free CRM (www.freecrm.com). A CRM, or Customer Relationship Manager, is a software program that helps you store and track information about your leads, customers, opportunities, and sales. CRMs have advantages such as allowing you to categorize customers so that you can use targeted marketing approaches based on the type of customer and your desired relationship with them. CRM systems are great for businesses large and small to simply and accurately track sales data and have control over your sales process. It takes discipline and effort, but the increase you will see in your sales make it well worth it!

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Matthew A. Griffith is an attorney, business performance coach, mentor and entrepreneur. He coahes, advises and guides business owners, entrepreneurs, inventors, property managers, investors and real estate professionals. Matt has nearly two decades of experience helping businesses grow.

Marketing Organization Chart

Matt — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:11:00 +0000

I am a huge fan of visuals! I’m talking about concepts and ideas presented in a visual format of some type.

Why?

Because we are visual creatures. Most people learn faster and better by seeing it first. Then, after they can “see” the concept, we are more likely to grasp/understand the details and nuances that are best explained through words in sentences, paragraphs, articles or books.

I believe in visuals in my teaching. I use charts, graphs, diagrams, etc. when I coach, counsel, lecture or teach. I even use role playing, chair positioning, etc. as a way for my clients to learn and remember the lessons I teach them. Years ago, I bought a book called “The Great Big Book of Process Visuals (or Give Me a Double Axis Chart And I Can Rule the World)” by one of my learning mentors, Alan Weiss, Ph.D. I don’t use all the visuals in Doctor Weiss’ book, but I did learn a great deal from reading and studying it. Mostly, I learned that I need to use visuals as often as possible to help my clients learn faster, learn better and retain more of that learning.

Here’s a great example of a visual from John Janash, of Ducttape Marketing:

Can you imagine trying to teach this concept by words alone? Better yet, can you imagine that your listener would better understand the words alone?

I think not. I think this chart shows and reveals and teaches a great deal about marketing, without any explanation at all.

However, I’m a lawyer by training. And lawyers love to use lots of words. So, I am going to dedicate several blog posts to exploring the concepts presented in this chart. Until then, take 5 to 45 minutes simply to read and read again this chart. Consider how it was outlined and structured. Consider the color scheme. What do the words mean to you? Are there other words you’d use instead. What is missing? What is unnecessary?

Most importantly, what does this chart make you think about when considering your company or organization?

How can you use visuals to educate clients or customers?

How can visuals help you in management?

On the subject of what’s missing, read this: http://www.roundpeg.biz/2009/03/marketing-organization-chart-revisited/.

SPECIAL THANKS TO LORRAINE BALL. I got this chart from Lorraine Ball at Round Peg. I follow Lorraine on Twitter and through my blog reader, and you should too!