Julia Ewert

The best weapon to grow your sales is having a proper sales process

Julia ewert is a Sales Strategist and Professional Negotiator. known as ‘The Negotiator’, Julia applies the same skills used by the FBI in negotiations, to almost every business situation. Hiring based on personality is not an indicator of sales ability. Engaging well with clients is a very different skill to bringing in new business from prospects where the relationship hasn’t been fully established.

I had a meeting with a prospect who told me their plan was to double their revenue by hiring a business development manager. I asked how this person was going to do the sales and they explained the new hire had a great personality, lots of experience and their customers would love them. There’s a common misconception in business that sales success is about personality – and big ones but in actual fact, the smartest business models run off systems and processes, not people. Salespeople sporting flashy cars, designer suits and shiny watches don’t win business, they make sales by accident. Three quarters of the cases I see, the wrong kind of sales person has been hired, and this gives the profession a bad name. The key mistake most businesses make with their sales strategy is they don’t have a proper sales process and it should be a part of the business model.

When I asked the prospect where they will get their sales from and the process they will follow, they reverted back to the experience and personality of the new hire. Sales success is dependent upon having a proper sales process. The biggest sales challenge lies in the ability to prospect for business, follow up and importantly, convert the business.

The sales process is the revenue machine of the business, the sales people are your operators, and sales training is the oil and maintenance of the machine. In fact, the most effective sales organisations operate like McDonald’s. McDonalds isn’t in the hamburger business, they’re in the ‘systems and processes’ business. The same goes for IKEA and Apple. They all just happen to use hamburgers, flat pack furniture and digital products as their vehicle to generate revenue. The attraction of buying a McDonalds franchise for example, is its operating manual, that tells you how to do all things, there’s no guesswork. You just need to make sure you train the people to follow that process. The most successful businesses do what these companies do best – they run on great sales processes. It’s where their results come from. Without a sales process, businesses rely too heavily on individuals – either poorly skilled ones or high-performing ones who both pose ongoing risks for the business. It’s easier to think the solution for greater sales effectiveness is sales training or hiring expensive salespeople but if you build a repeatable and systemised sales process, employees can be trained to follow this process. Advice for businesses looking to adopt or develop a sales process: • Process beats personality every time - If you want to be able to better predict and forecast your revenue, you’ll need a systematic sales process. It’s why companies like McDonald’s, Apple and IKEA can scale so successfully because they’ve perfected their process. They don’t need to rely on hiring unicorns and they can invest in the right training and support. • If you wing it, you won’t win it: Arguably the most important function of any business is selling. It’s how you build consistent revenue. Sales isn’t guess work or making it up as you go. There’s no such thing as accidental sales. Selling requires discipline, patience and respecting the process

• Follow up, don’t give up: How do you stay in front of your customers without being annoying, pushy or just too salesy?

The reality is you won’t close a deal on the first phone call, meeting or approach. It takes an average five to 12 value-adding follow up phone calls after the proposal to close a deal. The average person follows up once then gives up. Wrong! Every conversation with your prospect should be an investment in the relationship

• Sales is about the long game: Playing the long game means no short cuts. It means no lies, no half-truths and no overpromising. In sales there are no quick fixes. You need to genuinely invest in the relationship to ultimately win the business.

How much your prospect trusts you, will determine whether that sale happens.

• Rules of your sales process – Define your sales process so employees understand what your company does and how it does it. The sales manual should identify all the steps for staff to follow and include key stages in the sales cycle such as ideal customer and follow-up. It also must provide solutions and best practice methods to sales obstacles. Good salespeople follow a process. v