Starting the year off right: Evaluate your sales efforts

Selling is a process requiring high quality skill and excellence in the process. Many professional sales people view their service as a combination of artful skill and industrial engineering process efficiency. They gain increasing effectiveness in their sales processes by continually evaluating how well they perform, adapting and adjusting their techniques, and always stay on the lookout for fresh ideas from competitors, unrelated industries and instructive training. This keeps them energized, keeps their messages effective, and helps them maintain strong depended-upon relationships with their customers. Maintaining excellence is a continual process of re-evaluation.

It requires a dedicated block of time to decide how to steer your organization toward excellence. Staying current in knowledge, learning updated skills, honing the skills one has to sharper effectiveness, and adapting to continuing customers’ expectations requires continual observation, collection of information and the time to sift this accumulated data to identify relevant opportunities for further change in oneself, the business or the business processes.

The steps for a session on re-evaluating skills, messages or processes for some businesses might happen like this.  Clearly identify the agenda’s purpose and stick to that stated purpose-stay focused (don’t become unproductive moving from topic to topic) appoint a “topic guard” who reminds you when the discussion is moving off-topic.  Make sure everyone who will attend knows several days in advance what the topic is and what the stated outcome for the meeting will be so they may be prepared with quality ideas and information upon their arrival. Set aside a block of time, demand no interruptions and require all minds at the table (uninterrupted by outside messages of any kind). Focusing on a one topic to improve at a time will pull you toward excellence faster.

Achieving excellence evolves from allocating meaningful time on small details. I suggest making the scope of reevaluation meetings tightly focused on single, non-traditional topics to help you concentrate the valuable efforts and insight of your team on creating high quality improvement outcomes. It’s the details of excellence that make many a business the best. If your group doesn’t have the skill or objectivity to dissect and re-evaluate what they do, hire a trainer or moderator for the session.

Sales improvement topics which can help you create excellence in the small details of your sales processes might include:

How can you construct your sales messages to a) gain the attention of prospective customers, b) help them recognize how your product fits their need, and c) indentify your company/products as distinct?

How can you improve your inquiry questions to customers to a) cull helpful information efficiently while b) building a relationship and making sure not to c) offend or annoy them?

What is your customer’s experience really like? Spend time being the customer by “being the customer” in real time, or hire a mystery shopper to walk in the customer’s shoes.   I never cease to be amazed at how my clients are openly surprised, and sometimes shocked, by what I discover as their mystery shopper. You can never really see your processes as your customer does unless you (or your mystery shopper) walk in their shoes, sit on hold they way they do, try to complete an order or make a return, or read the invoices you send to them, unless you (and your sales staff) get out of your actual role and get in the role of the customer.

Now may be the right time to set aside structured time to re-evaluate the details in your processes. Make a short list of five parts of your sales process you’ve carried in the back of your mind as ‘needing improvement’ and put time on your calendar to do it.  Just knowing something needs to be improved doesn’t get it done-just like having books on a shelf doesn’t mean the knowledge in them is being used unless the book is read. High quality skill and excellent processes come from continual reevaluation and work. Making the time means you will be closer to achieving your goals.

Cheryl Kane, MBA, is a business consultant, sales trainer, and professional speaker.  If you seek assistance in growing your business, need a business speaker, or  have a question you would like to see answered in this column, Cheryl welcomes your communication at (704) 795-5058 or through her web site, www.cherylkane.net.