Sales and installation process

It begins with the mapping of all customer digital and physical touchpoints such as website, interactions with the sales team, social channels, marketplace, channel partners, franchises, etc.

For example— a millennial is most likely to come across a brand on social media and learn about it through the mobile version of the site. And, most often likely to make a purchase on the mobile itself. The customer experience at each touchpoint is also included in the customer journey map. This can include what action the customer can take and how a brand responds to it. An SOP for customer journey mapping will bring in the much-needed clarity to the entire selling process, reducing the degree of ambiguity.

These are a set of experiences that builds the totality, wherein some parts tend to play more significant roles than others. However, each part has the potential to negatively impact the quality of overall experience. By analysing each experience separately and understanding the strengths and weaknesses associated with each one, it is possible to have a standardized sales manual to give a seamless experience that will improve customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.

The idea behind sales pipeline management is to depict how many deals sales reps are expected to close in a week, month or year. When the process is analysed, improvements can be brought about to move more prospects to the next stage of the selling process sales funnel stages.

One of the biggest advantages of pipeline management is the direct impact it has on the revenue. The entire process of pipeline management can be streamlined and automated with the help of a standard CRM tool. Further, when standardized sales SOPs are brought about to the entire selling process, the chances of poor management of the sales pipeline can be reduced by a notable margin.

Sales funnel templates will allow the business to manage the sales pipeline stages with effectiveness. This refers to the process of building relationships with prospects throughout the stages of sales funnel.

The idea is to retain prospects through engagement, information, value-based offerings and improved brand awareness.

Lead nurturing is mainly conducted on prospects that have shown interest in the brand. The entire process of lead nurturing can be formalized to produce a standard sales SOP manual that can serve as the template for all lead nurturing campaigns in an organization. B2B sales process tends to differ from selling directly to consumers because there are multiple stakeholders within the organization making the purchase decision.

The simple reason for this is that the quantum of purchase generally tends to be on the higher side due to which the b2b sales process takes longer to actualize. A company pitching to make a B2B sales has to have all stakeholders on the same page for the sale to go through. This scenario tends to vary with industry. An organization can be especially benefited by having standardized procedures in place for going about finding new clients.

Once a set of established b2b sales procedures process manuals are in place, the amount of time spent on devising strategies for approaching a new client can be reduced and a mild tweaking in some cases will do the job.

This simply refers to the selling process to the end-user or customer also known as the retail selling process. Although it sounds straightforward retail sales involve prospecting to attract qualified leads to the brand. In Retail, the number of units purchased by a customer is lesser and the effort of the sales team is focused on selling a higher number of units to more customers to generate a healthy bottom line.

This makes the sales process steps to become more demanding in terms of the number of tactics employed in enticing potential customers. In such a scenario, a standardized retail sales SOP document can serve a company well in getting ahead with the sales process in quick time without devoting much time and effort in planning the entire sales exercise.

Retail Sales SOPs will also take into consideration the steps in selling which would make the sales process more robust and comprehensive. Key Result Areas KRA are things critical to the sales department and the employee, it defines individual and overall performance. These are areas of outcome for which an employee or an individual department is accountable. Each employee and department is entrusted with certain KRAs on which they need to perform and produce results.

Identify their strengths and weaknesses, and adapt your sales process accordingly. Your sales process should be tailored to your reps and the needs of your business. That said, there are some general steps that work well for businesses across industries.

This simple step sales process provides a framework for sales reps to follow as prospects move through the funnel.

Prospecting, also known as lead generation, involves sourcing early-stage potential leads and researching to find their contact information. Salespeople might research by leveraging social media, existing networks, and customer referrals to generate new leads.

This enables you to segment your audience and target them more effectively. This is where your relationship with your new potential client starts. Importantly, you need to provide them with relevant and valuable information. It also pays to be quick, as salespeople in the US that reached out to leads within an hour are 7x more likely to qualify than those who wait hours. Your account based marketing research from the prospecting stage should inform your communication with potential leads, and you should leverage this knowledge to build a rapport.

Ask questions that allow you to understand how the lead will benefit from your product or service. Here are some questions to ask when qualifying leads:. The research step involves finding out more information about each company and prospect. This reflects the importance of the research stage of the sales process. Not only that, but it will give your brand a bad reputation. During the research process, sales reps need to liaise across departments to get a big picture view of the company and its needs which can be used to inform the next step in the process: demonstrating value.

This step of the sales process refers to any late-stage activities that happen as a deal approaches closing. It varies widely from company to company and may include delivering a quote or proposal, negotiation, or achieving the buy-in of decision-makers. Closing a sale is what every salesperson wants to achieve.

It should result in a mutually beneficial, contractual agreement between the prospect and the seller. Once a deal closes, the salesperson receives a commission on the price they negotiated with the customer, and the account usually passes to an account manager or customer success representative.

Although closing deals is the ultimate goal in sales, it's not where sales reps stop working with customers. Not only should reps confirm that customers receive what they've purchased, but they should also play a part in transitioning customers to whichever team is responsible for onboarding and customer success. The final step of the sales process also involves continuing to communicate and reinforce value to customers. This can provide opportunities to upsell and cross-sell , as well as opportunities to get secure referrals from delighted customers.

These best practices will help you improve the impact of your sales process across your team and customer base. Consider what is and isn't working for your sales reps to tailor your new process to fit their needs better, as it will help close more deals and delight more customers. One way to analyze the success of your current sales process is to observe reps as they work through the process.

Look back at the last five or ten deals you closed. What did these deals look like from beginning to end? What were the touchpoints with the customer? Consider roughly how long the entire process took and how much time elapsed between each step.

The more examples you have and the more people on your team those examples come from , the better. Once you've outlined that timeline, work backward to understand the timeframe for each deal. For example, if six of those ten deals closed in approximately six weeks, take a look at the average steps to get there during that period. You can also dig a bit deeper to understand the subtle motivations and pain points that drove each deal to close.

Outline the buyer's journey for your target audience or your buyer personas. This will allow you to look at your sales process from the perspective of your customers.

You'll be able to get a better understanding of the interactions they have with your reps, the pain points they experience, and the reasons they need your product or service. When you outline the buyer's journey for your target persona, you'll gain insight into how you can tailor your sales process to ensure your team has everything they need to build strong relationships with prospects and close more deals. You should understand what causes a prospect to move from one stage to the next in your sales process.

Ideally, the reason or cause will be based on the prospect's actions, not the perception of the sales rep. Define the exit criteria for each step of the sales process for your team.

This means you should identify the things that need to happen for your prospects to move from one step of your sales process to the next. You can refer to the sales process steps and the buyer's journey as mentioned above to get started with this.

For example, suppose you're working through the "presenting" step. In that case, your reps might determine they need a specific type of content — such as customer testimonial videos — to share with your prospects to move them to "closing.

When determining exit criteria for each step of the sales process, consider the following questions to ensure all of your reps have the same information. Your sales process will evolve as your team finds ways to work more efficiently and move prospects through your pipeline faster. For example, note how many prospects transitioned in and out of each step of the sales process over a given period. These are the basic metrics most teams find value in measuring.

Give some thought to metrics specific to your business that will help you define success or the need for improvement in a particular step.

Another great way to measure your results is with the three levels of sales process success. Determining which level of success you're in will provide you with more insight into what you need to fine-tune for your team and prospects regarding your sales process.

This is also when all of your new hires are being ramped up quickly to target performance, and your team isn't providing you with any negative feedback about the sales process. Experimenting is when your sales process isn't quite humming, so your team is experimenting and testing different tactics to determine what's most effective. For example, a team might be experimenting with different modes of contact in the "connecting" step of the sales process to get sales discussions going with prospects.

They can test whether or not their prospects respond best to a specific email template when starting a discussion with a rep. Thrashing is when a team is rapidly moving from one solution to another within a specific sales process. Thrashing is ineffective and something you'll want to ensure your team gets out of as quickly as possible if you're ever experiencing it.

For example, your reps might be trying different presentation techniques in the "presenting" stage, making it impossible to determine what's working for the majority of prospects. Remember, your sales process is never perfect, but it should constantly be evolving to fit the needs of your team, business, and prospects. Mapping your sales process is the practice of walking through each step in real-time and understanding how it applies to your business, sales team, and customers.

This process allows you to uncover inefficiencies, gain insight into what's working, and align your sales process with your business goals. It helps your team develop a sustainable strategy suitable for long-term growth. When you map your sales process, you answer the "why" behind every decision you make — which is critical because your sales process is the foundation of everything your team does.

Let's walk through how to map the sales process using a fictional business example. Download for Free. To know where you're going, you must know your destination. In terms of sales process mapping, this involves setting goals for your sales team.

Keep your plan specific but simple. Example : Fred's Vegan Food Supply is mapping its sales process. Your sales team can't meet their goal alone. Other departments across your organization — including marketing, product, customer service, IT, and more — have a stake in your sales process and impact your customer experience. Gather these stakeholders, share your goal, and involve them in your process. Example : Fred brings together his sales team, marketing managers, customer service leaders, product designers, and distributors.

These teams touch potential and current customers and can, therefore, affect the sales team's win rate. We covered the sales process steps above, and now it's time to walk through each step as it pertains to your business, products, and sales team. Take a look at your sales process history. What steps were effective, and where did prospects fall off?

Moreover, how long, on average, did each step take? With your stakeholders on board, you can map what teams affect each step and what actions they can take — particularly your sales team. Example : Fred's sales team maps the six sales process steps and jots down the actions they take within each stage.