Most business owners are the best salespeople in their business. Sometimes they’re the only salesperson in the business. You might feel uncomfortable with being called a salesperson but it’s your number one priority to get clients, to get new business and to be the expert in the marketing and selling of your services. You’re ready to hit the back button and that’s before we get really uncomfortable. But that’s where we grow so stick with me.
Are you ready to take a deep dive into your sales process?
I’m going to stay with making you squirm a little in your seat first.
If you are the only salesperson in your team and someone joined your one-man sales team tomorrow, could you hand him or her a playbook so that they can be set up for selling success?
If you have a small team who support you on sales, do they know where to look to know exactly what your mission is, who your aligned clients are and the top three issues those potential clients have right now?
It’s ok if you answered no. I’m not trying to trick you.
I recently created a team to support me in sales and I realised that I didn’t have all my sales processes mapped out that well. Easily done when it’s all on you but spending a little time planning, documenting, systematising things even if it is just you will pay dividends later.
I’m assuming you’re still here because you’ve answered no to those questions. Rather than tell you everything you need to do to create a water-tight sales process (which quite honestly would be a little overwhelming) I’m going to talk you through a schedule to follow for the next two weeks. This schedule will allow you the time to work ON your sales, ON your business and start the ball rolling on creating your sales process.
When you hear what this two-week schedule involves, you might think “what the fork, I don’t have time for this.” But let me remind you that no diamonds are made without some pressure! In the early growth phases of any business, before you’ve cracked the code to getting and keeping clients there’s a phase that I call the boom and bust rollercoaster. You might think of it as the survival trap when you’re constantly swinging between feast and famine. If you want to get out of that, let’s do this.
A two-week deep dive into your sales process
You’re going to want to schedule between 30 to 90 minutes a day for the next one to two weeks to get through this exercise. At the end, you’ll have a much better picture of your proven sales process and what needs to be done to document it and be sales team ready! Let’s go.
Monday
Before you implement new strategies and get distracted by any shiny objects, there’s some work to do first. You’re going to pull a list of your client wins for the last 12 months and do an audit on where those clients came from. By listing out where your most aligned clients come from, you can prioritise what needs to be done, what needs to be formalised or improved and where to start documenting!
That’s not too much to ask now is it?
It’s important because when you ‘rinse and repeat’ this next week, instead of where you have momentum you’ll be asking yourself what new strategies can you introduce that will elevate your sales.
Tuesday
When I ran my agency and had a busy team, I had a lot of “hey, have you got a minute” type meetings which interrupted my day and my flow. Of course, I wanted to be there for my team but I knew I also had to work ON the business. Today’s the day where you implement some structure and create some boundaries to protect your time going forwards.
Why? Remember the boom and bust roller coaster I mentioned? Typically in a business where the owner is the best salesperson, you will hustle and bring in the sales and then focus and attention is turned to delivering on promises to your new client. Sales activity stalls and enter the rollercoaster. I want you to protect your time so that you can consistently work on sales and break the cycle.
Implement a weekly team meeting if you don’t have that in place already. And you can think about creating “open office hours” where your door (or your zoom) is open for an hour or two a week for all and any questions. I’ve implemented this with several of my clients and the results are astounding, we’ve reclaimed time, flow and created natural boundaries that people respect.
Wednesday
You’ll have identified momentum areas from Monday’s session. Now it’s time to schedule and make things real. You (and your team) need to be executing on certain highly leveraged activities. Whether that’s working on your referral strategy, doing sales follow-ups, developing your outbound prospecting, today is the day that you start to check up on it. People respect what you inspect and if every Wednesday you have a check-in to make sure things are getting done, things will start to get done.
Likewise, if you’ve started to implement new strategies, you can be checking in on the new stuff, hot seat what needs to be looked at. Hold your team and if it’s just you, yourself accountable.
Thursday
Do you analyse your sales calls? Do you record them or write notes on what’s worked well and what didn’t work so well? You want to anchor your scripts and processes in the things that work best. Thursday is when you work on those scripts.
Even if you’re a one-person sales team, do not skip this step. You don’t get to pass and head to Starbucks. No. Even if it is just you doing all the sales calls, you can’t keep everything bottled up. Write notes, write down what you said, capture objections. How can you improve what’s working or not working if you don’t have it documented?
In my Clients Like Clockwork® program, I teach how to do this systematically and we create “swipe files” so you have scripts to hand which saves so much time. Plus it gives you the perspective to constantly innovate and improve on your scripts.
If you do have a sales team, you can think about implementing a live sales call or listening in on recordings together. Your team might step up under pressure and it gives your team a chance to share feedback with each other. That kind of peer to peer learning is the best kind and it’s the most productive.
Friday
It’s time to update your KPI dashboard! That’s right, look at the numbers and whether we’re on track or off track.
And importantly, celebrate the wins. Find a way to do that so it gives you and your team the juice to come back kicking and ready to do it all over again.
If I only had six hours to chop down a tree, I would spend the first four sharpening my axe.
Your sales run book is your axe.
This is you sharpening your axe and let your team sharpen their axe too. When you are in a rhythm of constantly innovating and improving your processes and measuring what you want to improve, amazing things start to happen.
Once you’ve been through this cycle once, you might want to adapt it to something feasible, workable and relevant to you. Whatever strategies you implement, make sure that you’re working on acquiring new clients, finding ways to increase spend and increase frequency for a well-rounded sales strategy.
If you’d like help with your sales process or have any questions, DM me on social media the word GROWTH or email me hello@workwithsian.co.uk and let’s chat or book a free strategy call.
