Repeatable Sales Process

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Are the ups and downs of sales really unavoidable? Is the sales roller coaster a given?

As I work with sales teams across the country, it seems that the roller coaster effect is not only accepted, it is expected. This is a dangerous attitude for individuals, teams and the companies that we work for.

And I'm here to tell you that roller coasters are NOT a necessary function of sales. In order to create consistent results, you need a repeatable sales process. And the first step is identifying the metrics required for success, and then putting together the activities to support the metrics.

As an example, one of my clients sells cloud services, and each sales representative has a quota of (7) cloud deals per day. In order to make that number, we worked backwards to get at their metrics.

Customers generally sign up only after they've had a demo. But 90% of the people who see demos, end up buying the product.

Quota: 49 deals per week
Demos (90% close ratio): 55 demos per week

For every person that a sales representative talks to, 75% of them agree to a demo.

Demos: 55 per week
Conversations (75% close ratio): 74 conversations per week

A Sales Representative will get a live person on the phone about 20% of the time.

Conversations: 74 per week
Dials (20% close ratio): 370 per week

Now we have the beginning of a repeatable sales process based on metrics.

Once we have our baseline metrics identified, we can fine tune our sales skills to create efficiencies in the activities that we're identified as essential to success.