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Spell Out Sales Practices To Increase Comprehension, Effectiveness

January 20, 2014

Spell Out Sales Practices To Increase Comprehension, Effectiveness

A well-defined system provides a variety of benefits over a process where important components are simply inferred and left up to the memories of staff, or even worse, guessed at.

While nearly all sales companies know that they need useable, unique and successful sales strategies to stay at the head of the pack and keep profits coming in, some may not consider the benefits of writing down all parts of the sales process.

Fox Business recently gave four convincing reasons to explicitly map out sales practices in general and the unique components of sales at your company.

Predictability and efficiency
A documented process, written down and diagrammed, is of great value to new employees. Although some new salespeople may very well come into your company with plenty of experience and proven strategies, they need to understand how things work best for your operation. Seeing the steps they are supposed to take in writing will have a much greater impact than being told what they are supposed to do, along with all of the information provided during the onboarding process.

Consistent references to the same strategy makes formal training and informal pointers from established employees easier and more salient. A detailed reference document also allows workers to answer their own questions about simple processes with a quick glance instead of tracking down a supervisor and wasting more time.

Although sales techniques contain personal and sometimes undefinable elements to make them particularly successful, the process can generally be organized and documented. A written strategy allows two specific advantages related to efficiency: the ability to reasonably predict future sales and system analysis. It becomes easier to assign goals and track performance as well as plan for the future.

Don’t be afraid to test and try
When you have your sales process successfully documented, it’s a good idea to spend a little time walking through the steps in various fashions. From making sure other staff agree with structure and layout to doing mock sales calls to test the integrity of the process, testing the techniques will improve comprehension.

The Globe and Mail recommends asking a friend or family member to participate in a mock sale to give the strategy a fresh set of eyes. Most importantly, those who aren’t intimately involved with the business on a day-to-day basis can point out errors and logic gaps that those intimately involved with the business may miss.