Creating a Sales Process That a Team Can Use

Sales and marketing are the lifeblood of a business, and for Jennifer Lyle, owner of Software Testing Solutions (STS), which creates software that helps hospitals automate computer systems, this meant spending most of her time pushing her product. The problem was, Lyle wanted to focus on an area even more important than sales: establishing an overall strategy for STS. To do this, she first needed to hire new account manager, which, as it turned out was the easy part. More important, she needed to establish an efficient sales process to leverage the talents of her new hire.

“Most of the knowledge right now is in her head, but we are getting it out of her head and into scripts and other types of selling systems so the next person that comes on can replicate her system,” says David Finkel, who is consulting with STS to help them establish this sales process.

To create a standardized sales system, Lyle had to retrieve a great deal of information. “What we discovered was we had a lot of bits of information scattered throughout the company in different documents, places, and people,” Lyle says. “Working with David has helped us gather all this together, identify the holes, pull it all together, and create a document that helped Kara, our new account manager, learn her job.”

A centralized sales document is important, since it allows business owners like Lyle to measure and modify the baseline sales performance, Finkel says. STS’s new sales document standardizes such things as cold calls, with scripts for sales calls organized by client type; common questions and answers; scripts for voicemail messages; and an evolving list of best practices that can be logged. It also includes scripted direct-mail letters, e-mail messages, and follow-up phone calls, as well as informative reports that can be sent to potential customers.

After creating a repository of standard sales documents and collateral, the next step will be to create a way to track sales. Being able to more closely monitor the success of their sales allowed Lyle and her team to modify and shape sales processes based on how well they do in their interactions with clients and potential clients. With consultant Finkel, Lyle and her team will begin tracking the sales cycle at a much more grandular level, looking at factors such as how long it takes for a follow-up call and a product demonstration. With this more granular tracking method, the company will have such metrics as average time to convert prospective leads and cost per lead to help them understand their overall sales performance.

STS also plans to update their “frequency program,” which is a sales program designed to "touch" clients with promotional newsletters, white papers, industry articles, company promotions, etc. With the update, STS is going to send the materials to clients every 60 days, rather than the two to three times per year as they had done previously.

Yet standardizing and handing over the sales process is only half the battle. Once a new sales system is established and a business owner is ready to hand off key operational responsibilities, it is also very important to establish performance metrics, says Finkel. Having a method for evaluating the performance of the new sales manager will help Lyle monitor, change, and ultimately optimize sales processes, as well as to keep a close eye on results from new and existing team members.

With the groundwork in place for the handoff, Lyle is now in a position to monitor the sales of her company while she sets her sights on other strategic challenges at the helm of the company.