Write It Out For Me

"When I ask them to write down their sales process, they can't do it."

A fascinating conversation with a former business software sales leader turned later-life entrepreneurial NED.

Who with me was pushing at such an open door, the hinges are soakingly oiled and there's a big flashing 'please enter' sign on it.

It seems when talking to supposed 'pros', brought in to make those early inroads into a surely salivating marketplace, they constantly, glibly, state 'we know what our sales process is'.

Yet when asked to write it down, they flail.

There's actually three things at play here. A Triangle of Conceit, you might say.

For when it comes any sales endeavour, especially the embryonic kind, this trio of constraints apply;

• overwhelmingly lip-service paid to genuine development of those within the salesteam in the context of what works for you
• erroneously conflating the tabs of a crm or the gateways of a training scheme with their sales process
• no tacit acceptance that selling 'new' is different

My most recently finished foray into an appreciably large business was startling.

My involvement being of the tactical, snapshot, bid related kind.

I saw so many initiatives on systems, personal dev and trend assessments. Yet none of these extended to the salesforce.

I naturally view this as hugely restricting.

When I've asked salespeople to write out their process, if they can do so then there's the usual response types.

Drawing a funnel. Or a cycle diagram. Or writing out a handful of status labels, forming 'their' acronym.

Well. At least that's a start I guess.

Yet none of these truly lick it. None alone will underpin your super, sharpening, sustainable sales over-performance.

Can you write down yours that will?