Customers will not all have the same needs and the same buying process, hence the sales process needs to be adapted to meet the needs of the different customer types or segments.

It is helpful to have a blueprint of the sales process in order to make the changes needed for the difference customer segments.

The more the differences are understood, the more effective the sales process can be. The differences may be in the decision making unit, in terms of those that influence the decision, the economic buyer, the user, the specifier and the evaluator; differences are also likely to occur in the level of knowledge or the problem or requirement and the possible solutions.

Attention also needs to be paid to the type of relationship favoured by the buyer. Some buyers are seeking value for time; they wish to minimize the time spent in the buying cycle, as they have other priorities. Others will wish to minimize expenditure and will spend a lot of time investigating alternatives and finding the best or lowest price.

Most good sales people intuitively recognize these differences in their customers and adapt their behaviour accordingly. However, the same sales people often find it very hard to explain what they do and how they do it, or are reluctant to pass on such knowledge. Dependency on the capabilities of specific sales people can be a risk, and hence it can be important to capture this knowledge when adapting the sales process to the needs of different customers.

A blueprint is a flowchart of all the steps in the sales process. Blueprinting, when applied to sales process, allows the planning of resources required at each step in the sales process to maximise conversion to the next stage and minimise the time needed to complete the sales cycle. The resources include the number of hours, needed by skill type, such a pre-sales engineer, sales, sales administration, fulfilment, legal and technical support, as well as the systems, budgets and supporting documentation needed at each stage of the sales process.

The blueprint includes the metrics for conversion rates between different stages of the sales cycle and the value added in each stage.

The benefits of blueprinting the sales process include:

• Matching the sales process to the client’s buying process, which increases the probability of a successful sale.
• Identifying the up-sell and cross sell opportunities.
• Identifying ways to add value.
• Getting the right people doing the right things, at the right time, with the right resources.

In developing the blueprint, it is important to plan for when something goes wrong and work out what will be done to recover from failures, and to ensure that the capability and capacity of the resources needed by sales are available to meet the revenue and transaction targets.

The blueprint can be used to identify the minimum time required to complete a sales cycle and to identify the “moments of truth”, or points of contact with all the people in the decision making group, which need to be managed to ensure the right brand experience.

Lastly, the sales process blueprint allows the role of the various channels used in the sales process, such as web, mobile, call centre and sales force to be agreed and the handovers between the different channels to be engineered, to provide the best possible customer experience in the sales process.

Organizational interest in sales performance management as a set of activities and processes is changing the market landscape for sales-related technology. Traditional customer relationship management (CRM) and sales force automation (SFA) software focus on efficiency and automation in tracking activities or executing transactions; in contrast, sales performance management targets improvement of sales effectiveness. To estimate the potential size of this market, Ventana Research built a target buyer model based on the total population of users then factored in market maturity and demand characteristics to project the market size over the next three years. We conclude the U.S. market for sales operations and performance technology will reach $3.89 billion in 2008 and grow to $8.2 billion in 2010.

Potential Market Size for Sales Performance Management
In U.S. Alone, Could Exceed $8 Billion by 2010

by Mark Smith | 4/29/2008 | Article ID: V08-18 | Article Type: VentanaView

The many man years of sales, marketing and general management experience that we have in running sales teams that have had to use various technologies from spreadsheets, contact management, SFA, and CRM systems has given us the basis to develop a solution fully focussed on sales, to maximize efficiency and effectiveness, and at the same time minimising the administrative burden and costs.

SymVolli, our sales performance management system, has been developed to integrate people, processes, and technology, to show you the future of your business and achieve your goals.  One of the key areas is developing accuracy within the sales forecast. By understanding the sales process, managing and monitoring it, it is possible to deliver a pipeline that has credibility and leads to accurate and consistent sales forecasts.  This is easily achieved with SymVolli because it takes snapshots of the sales forecasts presented by sales teams over time, holds them in a database and produces trends and variations from the "norm" to encourage and enable accurate sales forecasting to build trust in the figures for senior management.

Take a look at what you can achieve with SymVolli.

• Creating accurate sales forecasts continues to be a challenge for the majority of sales teams. The year 2009 presented us with the biggest single-year drop in percentage of revenue plan attained and second lowest percentage of reps meeting/exceeding their assigned quotas (52%).
• Clearly, with win rates of forecast deals sliding down to 46% (your odds could be better in Las Vegas), salespeople need to step up their game.
• Over half of the companies we surveyed admitted that their forecast management needs improvement, compared to only 5% on the other end of the spectrum who said they excel at it.

Sales Performance Optimization
2010 Going Forward Analysis
CSO Insights

The same report indicated that sales rep quotas are being increased and yet we are using the same techniques and technologies to monitor and manager sales performance.  The obvious question is since we are having difficulty making or exceeding current quotas are we setting ourselves up to make it even more difficult if not impossible to achieve the targets.

We not only need to access sales knowledge, which in greater part already exists in each organisation, but also we must have the ability to easily manage and manipulate it so that it can be used in everyday sales situations.

SymVolli, our sales performance management system, has been designed and developed with the objective of storing sales data entered by the sales rep in a structured manner ready to be used by all involved in the sales environment.

Click here to download our new SymVolli brochure which focuses on ‘Sales Forecasting’.

How many time have you seen a poster of a film or even a trailer and thought that is a ‘Must See’ film and when you saw it, it did not live up to the promotion.

The sales forecast is a snapshot of the pipeline and is the poster.  The sales meeting, where the sales forecast is analysed, is the trailer.  What is needed is the ability to be able to see the movie, be able to rewind it, and in some cases fast forward it without seeing the end but getting a good idea of what the ending could be.

SymVolli uses the prospect information entered by the sales force to build up a picture of the pipeline by looking at parameters for each of the sales streams such as the average sales price and the average sales cycle for each sales person, Average number of prospects at each stage of the pipeline and then comparing them to what is happening now and what could be happening in the future.  This is further enhanced by being able to view the conversion rates of your prospects not only at the end of the pipeline but through the various stages of it so that you can have early insight as to whether your pipeline development is sufficient for you to achieve your targets. It’s all about movement through the pipeline.

Like in a film you might not know exactly what is going to happen, but if you followed the plot you will have a good idea.

Sales is in the process of incorporating art and science so that a competitive advantage can be maintained in this ever changing ‘normal from now on’ environment.  I was thinking about the science aspect and I went back to when I was a civil engineer and having to work with the forces of nature, especially in dealing with fluids.  I had to study fluid statics and dynamics.

Then it dawned on me that if I tried to relate it to sales, statics would be the forecast, which is a snapshot in time, whilst dynamics would be pipeline management measuring the flow, viscosity, pipeline capacity, etc.

We do have the tools for sales forecasting whether they be CRM systems or even the plain old spreadsheet.  That tells us what it looks like at a specific point in time. What we do not know is how it got to that state and what is likely to be ahead.  We not only need to be able to measure metrics such as sales flow through the pipeline, but also acceleration for the different revenue streams handled by different channels and look for past experiences and make adjustments to the various variables so that turbulence if not stagnation does not occur.

Sales Performance Management gives us the dynamics of sales.  It needs to incorporate time as a variable as well as monitoring the qualitative and quantative aspects of sales. It will then be possible to monitor trends and learn from past experiences so that we have a smoother flow in the pipeline.

We are looking to work with a couple of companies who would be interested in assessing trends within their pipeline, all at no cost.  All we require is simple historic data in order to import it into SymVolli to show you the trends that your sales has gone through over the last few months.  SymVolli, our sales Performance management system, has been developed with sales performance optimisation in mind.  A trend analysis database based on the input of the sales force, without having to employ added resources to build a business intelligence database.  Please contact us (either by clicking on the link or by calling us on +44 (0)1276 683449) if you are interest in developing your pipeline datum easily.

Sales Performance Optimisation: It’s obvious isn’t it?  If you have an experience you learn from it.  If you touch an object that glows and you get burnt, hopefully the next time you see a glowing object you will think twice whether to touch it or not, and if you have to touch it you will take the necessary precautions, like wearing protective clothing, or switching the current off and let it cool down before touching it.

It’s the same in sales.  We need to understand what has happened in particular situations and if it desirable, try and repeat it or take alternative action if it is not what you expected.  Most people are intuitively aware of monitoring and assessing situations as and when they occur.  The trick is to have an early warning system that informs you that it is going to happen rather than when it is happening.  We need to establish a datum from which we can measure variations from the norm.

Let us take the example of sales conversion rates.  It seems in most cases organisations can establish what their win conversation rate for each sales person is so they have a datum to see if  it needs to be improved or if it is being maintained.  This tells us what has happened and what is happening, but it might not be good enough to show us what will happen in the future.  We need a way of instantly being able to view how forecast for each sales period, (month, quarter, etc.), and the conversion rate for each sales period.

So if we are looking at the June 2010, we need to monitor what the value of the pipeline is in April 2010, May 2010, and June 2010. If we repeat this exercise for each month we will see trends of how the pipeline behaves over a time for a given period.  In effect you are building a trend analysis of pipeline behaviour.  If we generally have a pattern over the length of the sales cycle, e.g. three months, we can then judge if we are on track to make our numbers. It does not mean we will not make target, but it will help us decide what do we have to do in marketing, sales , etc. to make up for the shortfall?

This is only the first step in the path of ‘learning from the past, improving the present, and realising the future’. The next step is to establish the validity of the pipeline and that subject is for another blog. Watch this space!

A well developed and executed sales process should help the salesperson to bring in sales by providing clarity to their actions both horizontally for each prospect and vertically across their entire pipeline. This should also allow management to gain insight into the execution and effectiveness of the salesperson, providing a vehicle for accountability.

When technology is allowed to dictate the sales process instead of the sales process defining the technological requirements, the actions of the sales force can become more "robotic", less intuitive and short sighted.

Many have documented and analysed the process and found it very useful, but this took significant effort in gathering the data and placing it in charts, slides, spreadsheets, etc. Was the amount of time taken in discussing and analysing the results in proportion to the amount  time taken to produce the output required?

Another issue is that many have implemented the sales process based on the way sales people have been taught to sell in the past.  The world has changed and the buyer now more than ever is in control, so it is imperative that there is a detailed understanding of how a customer finds, evaluates, and purchases your offering. Technology has to be flexible to allow for change and for there to be an interaction with the buyer. This is now coming to the fore with the advent of Web 2.0.

The key is flexibility. If a system cannot facilitate your sales process and the changes you will have to make due to the constant changes that are occurring, then you have to question whether this is the right system to be using.

Lastly, any system should be implemented in phases so that you get buy-in as you go along, and you can make necessary changes that are highlighted during each of the phases. Make sure that all concerned have been clearly briefed as to why it is happening, what’s expected and how it will benefit them, what training and evaluation will be carried out for each phase. Even so, do not expect everyone to be jumping with joy and thanking you.  An unsuccessful implementation could lead to the sales force not using the technology in the appropriate manner if at all, to the point that the sales process is not used effectively. You could say it has become the slave to technology if not the hostage.

A sales process adds value to the business like the aircraft guidance systems bring to an airline pilot.  The pilot knows where he started from, where he is going, and how he intends to get there, but he can change course in the case of any variation in flight conditions, ground conditions, etc.

The problem that many organisations face today is they know what they want to achieve and they know where to start from, but they might not have a clear idea of how to achieve it.  What’s more once they have established the sales process, they may find it difficult to manage and optimise it as conditions change.

Any sales process is made up of the sales person’s sales cycle and the customer’s buying cycle, so it has to focus on the customer.  The objective is for the sales person to use the sales cycle to help the customer through their buying cycle.  The hard part is to have a good understanding of the customer’s buying cycle.

A sales process has to be simple so it can be easily understood and can be easily adapted to changing conditions. It must allow for human interaction and innovativeness.

A sales process should not be used to control the sales force, but help them in optimising the use of their time in the most effective and efficient manner. It should also help in defining the interaction between different entities involved in the sale. It provides:

- A common language to be used by all involved with sales.

- An Aide memoir for the sales person helping him set the priorities and plan his activities to achieve the objectives at each step of the sales process

- A datum by which to gain an understanding of sales success and failure.

It should capture the knowledge and experience of the whole team and ensure quality, repeatable and maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of the most expensive resource, the sales team.

A sales process should be used to structure the sales force, and help the sales person achieve if not surpass his objectives. It should help develop sales leaders not manage sales people.

A sales process is the roadmap for getting you from A to B. If you don't know where you are going and how you will get there, you probably won't get there at the time that you need to, if at all.

Many a debate has been had as to the validity of the sales forecast. Does management take note of the warning signs that the sales forecast may highlight or is it treated as just another report?  What does it require to make management take the appropriate action to try and improve the accuracy of a sales forecast? Or would they?

My question is driven by the premise that the sales forecast is one of the most important reports in a business since management should be using it to monitor and manage revenue, cash flow, resources, inventory, production, etc. My belief is that ‘a good sales forecast is a by-product of the sales qualification process that is used continually by the sales person because it helps the sales person achieve his or her targets in the most efficient and effective manner, thereby contributing to the overall success of the company ’.

Imagine somebody only getting 60% conversion on their sales forecast.  Surely a 10% improvement could mean the difference between making their sales targets or not and keeping the company afloat.

Why is it then that some view sales forecasting as a waste of time? Is accountability the problem? Or is it driven by the idea that ‘the targets are being achieved and this is continually happening, therefore a sales forecast adds no value?’

There is a school of thought that by maintaining pressure on the sales force, it will increase the sales forecasting accuracy and the sales conversion rate. It might in some cases, but is the information supplied driven by what is happening with the customer or by the desire to ease the pressure that the sales person is under?  Is the sales forecast in this case being used to solely monitor the activity of the sales people?

You could try and improve sales forecasting accuracy by making the sales force use systems that are based on strict procedures.  Does this add value to the sale?

If we stick to the idea that the sales forecast is a by-product of the sales qualification process then better results might be achieved by working with the sales personnel as individuals, analysing their sales opportunities on an ongoing basis so that the sales forecast is continually changing due to the dynamics of the sales situation. Systems would be used to help management, and the sales force, to stay on top of situations and not purely for reporting purposes.

Looking at the overall business it is possible to minimise the impact of the known uncertainty in forecasting by focusing on the company's efficiency and flexibility in marketing, designing, building, and distributing products to your customers. The key word is ‘known’. So you still need to have a sales forecast to have a good understanding of the error of margin to cater for it.

In talking to many people it seems that the obvious answer is sales forecasting accuracy comes under scrutiny when sales performance is in decline.  Is that not too late? Has the damage already been done?