Helping Your Salespeople Succeed With A Guided Sales Process

Helping your salespeople succeed with a guided sales process

What is a guided sales process?

Why do you need one?

How do you design a guided sales process that can help your

sales networks succeed?

What is a guided salesprocess?

A guided sales process is a map,a GPS for your salespeople thattakes them to their ultimate goallead closure.

It offers a systematic organizationof all marketing and sales assetswhereby each asset is mappedto the buyer’s position in thesales cycle.

Why do you need a guidedsales process?

You know your salespeople are supposed

to sell. They know they are supposed to

sell, but did you know that they spend

almost a quarter of their working day on

nonsales activities?

Typically, companies provide salespeople

with a bunch of sales materials, perhaps

a few brochures, sales presentations, a

couple of emails and a call script, maybe,

and expect them to work magic.

And oh...not to forget the leads thrown in

by marketing, which, according to sales,

are not qualified enough to pursue.

Expecting your salespeople to put random information/assets

to use and close deals justbecause they are 'salespeople' isl ike expecting a penguin to fly

just because it is a bird!

Still not convinced? Here are some numbers for you tocrunch...

33% of lost deals could

have been won if the

seller had been better

informed and more client

oriented

Over 50% of sales

managers are too busy to

train and develop their

sales teams

Just 20% of the

knowledge in an average

enterprise is explicitly

recorded and shared

Imagine what could be accomplished ifsalespeople were trained to pick up exactly

what their lead wanted and could share thatinformation with them on time!

50%

Resolving your salespeople'sthree basic challenges

Did you know that 70% of customerfacing

team members report lacking the information

they need to adequately perform their jobs?

Your salespeople could very well be a part of

this statistic!

Once aboard, most salespeople find

themselves struggling to find answers to 3

key questions:

1. WHAT TO SAY TO A LEAD/PROSPECT?

2. WHEN TO SAY IT?

3. HOW TO SAY IT?

What tosay?

How to say it?

When tosay it?

A guided sales process can help your salespeople findanswers to the 3 key questions we just discussed.

This whitepaper explains how you can createa guided sales process for your sales teams,

helping them sell more...

What to say?

When to say it?

How to say it?

Before we discuss how you can build awellguided sales process for yoursales teams, we must shatter somemisconceptions that surround it.

Often, the term guided sales processis associated with an asset dump.Many companies equate a guidedsales process with an asset repositorywherein they dump all their sales andmarketing collateral and make themaccessible to their sales teams.

However, this doesn't really help, assalespeople are still at a loss when itcomes to using the assets provided tothem.

Giving your salespeople assetswithout a guided sales process isakin to giving them an addressand a vehicle without directions

on how to get there

What is NOT a guidedsales process?

A sales playbook helps connect your

content to the buying stages. A sales

playbook lets you map your sales

assets to the relevant point in the

buyer’s journey and gives your sales

networks easy access to all the sales

and marketing assets.

Unlike shared folders or drives on the

cloud, sales playbooks are less

complicated and specifically created

for sales teams. They are not a

random asset dump and work as a

great mechanism to share internal

sales knowledge.

The role of playbooks inhelping you create a guidedsales process

50%

Companies with mechanisms inplace to share internal sales

knowledge have win rates thatexceed 50%

In short, a sales playbook plays a key role inhelping you build and sustain a guided sales

process for your sales teams, helping them sellmore...

DESIGNING AGUIDED

SALESPROCESS

The first step is to spell out every stagein your sales process. Describe yoursales process in such detail that anyperson who reads through thedocument should be able to makesense of it. Information that should findits way into your sales processdefinition document include:

Tip: Don't forget to answer keyquestions such as how you keepprospects engaged at each stage

of the sales cycle orwhat happens after the sale or

what is your overall closure rate?

Step 1: Define your salesprocess

Target audienceContact touchpointsTypical buying stagesThe triggers used to demarcate theprospect journey from one stage toanotherTypical timeframe of your salesprocessInformation about the salestools/best practices currently beingused

The next step is to perform a personaanalysis whereby you understand whoyour buyers are and provide yoursalespeople with all the informationthey will need to sell to them.

Your buyer's persona analysis shouldanswer the following questions aboutthem:

Tip: Make sure you study yourbuyer's vertical background indetail . It will help immensely

when drawing up apersonalized/well-targeted sales

action plan for them.

Step 2: Persona analysis

Who are your ideal buyers?What are they buying from you?How much and when are theybuying?What are the common objections ofyour buyers?What business vertical do theybelong to?What are your buyer's corechallenges or pain points? FAQs by prospects/buyers

After the persona analysis, the nextitem on your plate is a competitiveanalysis. Draw up a comparativeanalysis chart which clearly identifiesyour main competitors in the market.

This is important because many timesyour prospects will compare youroffering with that of your competitorsand you don't want your salespeopleto be caught offguard.

One look at your competitive analysischart and your salespeople shouldknow:

A competitiveanalysis is

important, becausemany times your

prospects willcompare your

offering with that ofyour competitors andyou don't want yoursalespeople to becaught off-guard.

Step 3: Competitive analysis

Who are your key competitors?What is their unique selling point?How do you differentiate yourbrand from them? (Your USP)

Step 4 calls for a detailed contentinventory analysis. You need to takestock of the content you have, list thecontent your sales team willneed, then identify the gaps, if anybetween the two and plug them.

Typically, here's what you need to doat this stage:

Step 4: Preparing a contentinventory

Document all the assets you have

Consult with the salespersons on

their asset requirements

Decide what assets you need

Put the marketing team in charge of

creating new assets

Consider content restructuring and

reuse at this stage

The final step in designing a winning, repeatable and guidedsales process is ensuring that you constantly monitor it forrelevance, measure its effectiveness, coach salespeoplewho are not following the process and change or modifyyour sales process when needed.

Remember that a successful sales process will almost neverbe constant. It needs to be constantly adapted to meet thefluctuating demands of your buyers and to catch up tocompetition.

Step 5: Monitor, measure, coach, change

You need to check if your sales team is truly benefiting from yourguided sales process. Are they really using the documents/assetsthat are a part of the process? If not, then what is the reason for theirnoncompliance?What are the open, download, click rates for assets that are a part ofyour sales process?Coach salespeople who are not using the right assets and train newsalespeople to use the right assetsGather feedback from your sales team and update your processdocuments and assets regularly

So, you've done your research andanalysis and are ready with a welldocumented sales process. You havechecked every box on the list and arenow waiting for your salespeople toreplicate the success formula that youjust provided. But...the waiting doesn'tseem to end!

One of the reasons for this could bethat you never involved yoursalespeople in the whole discussion,so you never got to know if your salesprocess is practical to implement

Your efforts to create aguided sales process can failif you ignore these thingsALERT!

Involve your salespeople in every stage of the sales process and playbookcreation. While you can encourage them to use the guided sales process, don't

straitjacket them. Give them some leeway to experiment. Who knows, theymight come up with valuable suggestions which may improve your process

even further.

Don't forget mobile access!

Remember that your salespeople may

not be in the office most of the time.

Between client calls and business

meetings, they need easy access to

sales process documents and assets

so they can replicate the sales

success as you expect them to.

Giving them mobile access to sales

playbooks will go a long way in

ensuring they stick to the process and

utilize your assets provided to their

fullest.

Tools you need to makeyour sales process a success

Tools that let you document everystep of the sales process with visualworkflows so your sales process iswell defined360degree prospect view to defineyour buyer's persona and behaviorclearlyTemplate based approach tocollateral creation, so your playbookcan be updated dynamically acrossthe boardOndemand access to marketingand sales collateral so yoursalespeople actually use thematerials you provide them Detailed asset reporting system soyou know whether your playbooksare being used and if they areworking

Who is Mindmatrix?Founded in 1998, Mindmatrix provides a sales and marketing enablement

platform for direct sales teams helping them sell more.

Only Mindmatrix supports sales and marketing teams throughout the entirebuyer’s journey–Lead to Revenue using Asset Management, Sales Enablement,

Marketing Automation and Channel Enablement functionalities.

W W W . M I N D M A T R I X . N E T

2403 Sidney Street, Suite 150,

Pittsburgh, PA 15203

Phone: 412.381.0230

Fax: 412.774.1992

LEARN MORE ABOUT HOWYOU CAN DESIGN A GUIDEDSALES PROCESS THAT CAN

HELP YOUR SALESTEAMS SUCCEED

Helping Your Salespeople Succeed With A Guided Sales Process

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