Why Small Business Owners Need A Sales Process

           

August 21, 2020 / fbcadmin

Stacie Chalmers

The Inbound Marketing Company

Why Small Business Owners Need A Sales Process

If you don’t have a clear and straightforward sales process you’re probably feeling pulled in every direction, wearing too many hats, and sales opportunities could be simply falling through the cracks.

I understand, it happens to the best of us! The reality is, it is common for business owners to store too much information in their head. This often leads to important things (new business) being missed.

The good news is, you don’t ever have to let another customer fall out of your hands again, not when you have a documented sales process.

In my previous blogs I covered the importance of identifying your buyers and the buying process as the starting point for an effective marketing strategy. Then, using this insight to create relevant and helpful content your customers will love.

It is also important to review your sales process to ensure all the hard work that went into marketing your business to generate these leads isn’t wasted. Why?

Because aligning the sales process with how customers buy, is the key to an effective sales and marketing strategy.

The Benefit of a Good Sales Process

There are plenty of benefits to having a documented sales process. Perhaps the biggest benefit is it can help streamline the completion of sales tasks, whether it be simple or complex.

This is ideal for small business owners who wear a range of different hats across the business, and are short on time and capacity. Not only does an effective sales process free up your mind and improve your processes, it also provides a better experience for your customers. Which helps to set a good foundation to scale and grow your business.

Defining your sales process takes everything in your head, and puts it onto paper.

Which gives you access to these four key benefits:

1. Sales processes free up your mind, for more important things.

A good sales process frees up your mind by putting all the information you’ve stored in your head onto metaphorical paper.

As a small business owner it’s so easy to fall into the trap that you’ll be able to keep on top of everything just by remembering things. The truth is, it’s rarely the case!

Especially as you build and grow your business. You need all your important pieces of information stored somewhere secure so you never let another lead or crucial bit of information fall through the cracks.

2. Helps the business to grow and improves the customer experience.

A sales process ensures customers and leads never feel undervalued or forgotten again because you’ll have all their key information stored in one place. By always knowing where you’re potential customer is in the sales process you can keep pushing them through the buying cycle. This ultimately helps your business grow.

3. Analyse and tweak the process to improve conversions.

With an effective sales process in place, you can see where you’re going wrong (and where you’re going right) to continue to build and improve your business. Often we scratch our heads and wonder how we lost the sale. Your processes should allow you to easily identify trends and feedback that tells you want your need to change to win.

4. Makes it easier for someone to take over.

There may come a time where your business grows beyond what you ever imagined, and at that point, you might need someone to take over the sales role.

With a documented sales process, anyone who you employ or bring into your business, will know exactly how you do things, keeping the process seamless for both your salespeople and the customer.

All in all, an effective sales process should align with how your customers buy, and add value to the sales experience. It should enable you to close more deals, more efficiently, and ensure you are providing customers with a positive and consistent experience each and every time.

Keep in mind your process needs to be flexible and adapt to the changing needs of your customers.  To learn more about creating an effective marketing and sales strategic plan, register for the on demand workshop. Today.

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash