Focus on the sales process that works best for you

[nishat@264]

So look at your sales process and make sure every step is necessary, factual, verifiable, and buyer-centric, and remove any steps that don't meet those standards.

Then, define the concrete, verifiable outcomes achieved by the buyer, which are the exit criteria for each stage, and you will have a really solid sales process. It may have many steps or be relatively short, but this should not worry you too much.

Focus on creating a sales process that is strong enough to form the foundation of your sales organization.


How many sales steps should I plan for?
“We’re often asked how many steps should a complete list of unit phone numbers be taken. The answer is as many steps as are necessary to create engagement and maintain acceleration throughout the sales process. To prove disqualification or qualification. For some organizations, there’s a transactional process; an enterprise transaction may have more steps. Sometimes you’re underselling yourself by creating a short sales process. If you do, you end up with pipelines that never turn into deals because the prospect hasn’t had a chance to engage in a way that allows them to convert into a customer, or even self-select and say, this isn’t for me. Obviously, the death of a salesperson is wasting too much time on a prospect who’s never going to buy.

On the other hand, some people overcomplicate things. They make the sales process take so long because something different has happened in a lot of different deals at different stages. And they think they need to build that into their process. But by creating more complexity, they actually make it harder for salespeople to succeed. It's a catch-all. It's like I'm trying to lump everything together to cover every eventuality. When in reality, you have to trust your system. That's right. And trust your process. Less is more—that's what I believe." -Hilmon Sorey and Cory Bray, authors of The Sales Enablement Playbook.