Where Are Your Set Sales Processes?
Set Sales Processes . . . 95% of salespeople don’t have them or don’t understand the power of having them in place. 95% of Sales Managers . . . don’t enforce them, because they never used them when they were on the front line. SET sales processes, become precision-based on follow-ups, and gain a few points on your sales efficiencies chart!
As I travel across the country and work with salespeople and sales management and all positions in between, I ask salespeople “Where do you really think your sales efficiencies lie on a scale of one-to-ten?” In most cases, they tell me that their sales efficiencies are at about three or four, meaning that they have room for improvement.
As I coach salespeople, my goal is to increase those efficiencies by a couple of points, but just think, if you double your sales efficiencies, you’re going to double your income! However, most salespeople do not have set sales processes to help them be sales efficient—most are like pilots who stick their finger out the airplane window, trying to figure out what the wind and weather will be like.
Today I’m going to give you some great tactics on things that you can include sales process and begin using today. If you’re a sales manager looking at this, then you’ve got to take responsibility and make sure your salespeople have set processes in place and not only in place but implemented. And salespeople, don’t rely on your sales manager to make sure you have those set processes—you need to put them into place and implement them.
The Sales Processes of A Successful Mortgage Broker
The first thing that I am going to discuss today is the example of a woman in the mortgage industry who has had some great success from having set sales processes. Now, don’t succumb to sales immaturity and say “That’s the mortgage industry—that’s never going to work for me.” Take the information that I’m giving you here today and adjust it to your industry.
I am going to begin with the closing. As soon as she closes a deal, she sends a thank you card and gift certificate on closing day. Fifteen days later, she makes a follow up phone call to discuss referrals. Thirty days after closing, she mails a “thinking of you” card with a twenty-five dollar gift certificate to Home Depot or Bed, Bath & Beyond and she adds a Post It note about referrals. Sixty days later, she sends a letter on company letterhead, letting them know about other services she provides and she reminds them once again about referrals.
On the ninetieth day, she visits the client and takes pictures of their family in their new home. This often leads to an invitation to a birthday party or other special event, where she can make more contacts and obtain more referrals. Six months down the road, she makes a follow up call to see if they have any questions and to discuss referrals.
Nine months down the road, she sends a post card reminding them that the one-year anniversary of their loan is approaching and to see if they’d like to schedule an annual review. At one year, she sends an anniversary card thanking them for supporting her business.
Think about that—that’s a great sales process!
Utilize the Power of Outlook
Many of you might be thinking “How do I track all that?” It’s simple. Wherever you’re at in that process—and you need to put those set days into place—you propagate the Outlook calendar. Utilize the strength of Outlook calendar or another scheduling device to get your set process down so you can implement it.
How to Build Your Set Sales Process
Recently the employer of a coaching student asked me to help her with set sales processes, specifically the processes in getting through to the client instead of being put off by the gate keeper and leaving a message or hanging up, resulting in no activity. So we put in set sales processes so that no matter what happens on an outbound call or face-to-face presentation, she knows what’s going on.
First we came up with three key areas:
- The client purchases
- The client doesn’t purchase
- The client gives an excuse
Those are three things that you can do today and it’s a simple as getting a piece of paper and making three columns across the top and gearing the categories to the activities in your industry.
From there you take each category, put an activity in it, and the day and time you are going to do that activity. The mortgage broker discussed above has seven different items and the schedule for each. For the salesperson with whom I’m working now, we have scheduled specific activities for each part of the process.
If the client makes a purchase, she sends a personalized thank you card on the day the order is paid for. And personalized means she hand writes the note, hand addresses the envelope, places a stamp on the envelope, rather than using a postage meter. The second step of her sales process is a satisfaction letter sent to the client along with a postage-paid return envelope, survey, a main point card that serves as a referral card, and a handwritten Post-It® note asking for referrals.
When does that happen? Five days after the order is paid for. From the day of the order until five days afterward, she now has two points of contact. Her third activity is to solicit for business in an untypical fashion.
Write this down: Solicit for business in an untypical fashion.
Her third activity on the thirty-second day, she buys pizza for lunch for that office. She’s in Dallas, Texas, and might have clients as far away as New York City, but she’s still able to find out the nearest pizza place to their address and send them lunch. Other activities include an anniversary card sent on the sixty-third day, using Jeffrey Gitomer’s strategy of sending something on an odd-numbered day to make them remember.
These are some really great ideas to help you have some set sales processes to help you know what processes to follow, increase efficiency, and increase revenue!
