Before you can design your sales process, you need to know who your buyers are, what they want, and how they make decisions. A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer, based on research and data from your existing customers and market. You can create buyer personas by interviewing your current and potential customers, analyzing your website and social media data, and surveying your market. A buyer persona should include demographic, behavioral, and psychographic information, such as age, location, industry, role, goals, challenges, pain points, motivations, preferences, and objections.
Develop buyer personas by engaging with current and potential customers. Leverage data from interviews, website analytics, and surveys to gather demographic, behavioral, and psychographic insights. Dive into details like age, location, industry, role, goals, challenges, motivations, preferences, and objections. These personas will serve as the foundation for a tailored and effective sales strategy.
The huge advantage of understanding the different ‘personas’ or people with specifics roles and functions at the prospect (as I still like to consider them). Is that your single solution could have multiple benefits to the business and so building a multithreaded proposal keeps you ahead of the competition who don’t. Multithreading is seen normally as making sure ALL the people you need to engage are engaged. This is true….and it can be an advantage to actually seek out and find more!
Map out the sales process design based on buyer personas by aligning each stage with the specific needs and preferences of distinct buyer segments. Tailor messaging and communication channels to resonate with the characteristics of each persona. Incorporate personalized touchpoints at various stages, ensuring relevance and engagement. Continuously refine the process through feedback and data analysis to optimize its alignment with the evolving requirements of targeted buyer personas.
In summary, I’ll call the sales process , order2pay process documentation Technically, I can use Vision to to begin to map out the the detail of the daily activities of the sales team. As this will transform from verbal to paper. It’s this order2pay process documents upon signing and approval by management.its this process that the sales team must follow to make a sale
Know your target buyers goals, problems, the history of those problems, their root causes, the impact of them, the cost in time, money and stress, the cost of inaction, the value of solving their problems and the reasons they want to solve them now. Same for all of their goals. Plus all their objections, doubts and fears about buying. Finally, their options, alternatives, budgets, other circumstances that either help them to buy or get in the way of them buying. Know all of this and then you can design your sales process to perfection! Miss any of this and you'll always be guessing at best.
Once you have defined your buyer personas, you need to understand how they move through the buyer journey, or the process of becoming aware of, evaluating, and purchasing your solution. The buyer journey typically consists of three stages: awareness, consideration, and decision. Each stage represents a different level of interest, knowledge, and readiness to buy from your buyer persona. You need to align your sales stages with your buyer journey, so that you can deliver the right value proposition, content, and communication at each stage. For example, if your buyer persona is in the awareness stage, your sales stage could be prospecting, where you identify and qualify leads who match your persona and have a problem that you can solve.
1. A potential customer needs a reason to take a step forwards in your sales process. Each step is a cost benefit equation for the customer. Try to reduce friction and add value to the customer at every stage in the sales process 2. Most sales processes have too few steps. I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but there's more risk for a customer in a big jump. Imagine trying to cross a pond. Would you rather try and leap across in one jump, or have more stones closer together? 3. This is an emotional journey for the customer, not just a rational one. The lessons of behavioural economics apply here too. Understand how your customer feels at every step and address those emotions through appropriate communication.
In the dynamic landscape of the IT industry, one-size-fits-all approaches fall short. Elevate your sales game by tailoring engagement strategies to the unique needs of your prospects at each stage. Leverage data-driven insights to understand their pain points, preferences, and challenges. Whether it's creating targeted content for the awareness stage or offering tailored solutions during the decision phase, a personalized approach builds meaningful connections. It's not just about selling a product; it's about solving their specific problems.
After you have aligned your sales stages with your buyer journey, you need to define what actions and outcomes you expect from your sales team at each stage. Your sales activities are the tasks that your sales reps need to perform to move prospects from one stage to the next, such as making calls, sending emails, giving demos, or negotiating contracts. Your sales goals are the metrics that you use to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of your sales activities, such as number of leads, conversion rates, deal size, or revenue. You need to define your sales activities and goals based on your buyer persona's needs, expectations, and behaviors, so that you can provide value and build trust at each stage.
1. Analyze Buyer's Journey: Understand customer stages - awareness, consideration, decision. 2. Create Buyer Personas: Detail their needs, goals, challenges. 3. Align Sales Stages: Match sales process stages with buyer’s journey. 4. Define Key Activities: Identify actions to progress buyers (e.g. emails, meetings). 5. Set Stage Goals: Define measurable goals (e.g. leads, conversion rates). 6. Personalize Activities: Tailor actions based on buyer personas. 7. Select Metrics: Establish performance metrics for evaluation. 8. Train Sales Team: Ensure team understands tailored activities/goals. 9. Monitor & Adjust: Regularly review and optimize. 10. Get Feedback: Use customer feedback for refinement.
Your sales activities with customer needs, ensuring every interaction adds value. From initial outreach to contract negotiation, map out specific tasks for your team – calls, emails, demos – to guide prospects seamlessly through the process. Set measurable goals tied to lead generation, conversion rates, deal size, and revenue, all rooted in understanding your buyer personas.
Once you have defined your sales activities and goals for each stage, you need to document and communicate your sales process to your sales team and other stakeholders. You can use a visual tool, such as a flowchart, a diagram, or a CRM software, to map out your sales process and show the steps, roles, and responsibilities involved. You also need to explain the rationale and benefits of your sales process design based on your buyer personas, and how it will help your sales team achieve their targets and satisfy their customers. You need to document and communicate your sales process clearly and consistently, so that you can ensure alignment, accountability, and transparency across your sales organization.
People in general and especially those with a Sales focus need evidence of why they should do something. When I’ve managed teams in the past myself I haven’t had to ‘tell/ask/demand/hustle/beg” my team to document what they are doing like some of my peers have. Why? Well because I simply show the stats behind those that follow a proven process and strategy and those that don’t. *NB - there are outliers, those lone wolf sales people that deliver huge success and I don’t know how, but they are a small minority and not useful when trying to scale your business.
Finally, you need to review and optimize your sales process regularly, based on your feedback and data from your sales team and your customers. You need to monitor and analyze your sales performance and customer satisfaction, using the sales goals and metrics that you defined for each stage. You also need to solicit and incorporate the input and suggestions from your sales reps and your buyers, using surveys, interviews, or reviews. You need to review and optimize your sales process periodically, so that you can identify and address any gaps, issues, or opportunities for improvement, and adapt to any changes in your buyer personas, market, or industry.
Regularly scrutinize and enhance your sales approach by leveraging insights from your sales team and discerning customer data. Evaluate performance against predefined metrics at each stage, ensuring alignment with overarching sales goals. Actively seek input from your sales reps and clients through surveys, interviews, and reviews to foster a collaborative refinement process. Periodic reviews empower you to swiftly identify and address any gaps, challenges, or growth opportunities.
Reviewing and analyzing you sales process individually and as a team, on a regular is a great way to validate what’s working, what needs work, and new direction. Regular discussion is easily supported by individual, group, and team sales stats - real numbers. Mapping and tracking your sale process increases productivity, saves time, moves the “nos” out of the way efficiently, and leads to higher sales volume, improved profitability, and grow. Can you spell sales “ROI”?
The sales process is just one small part of customers entire journey through your sales funnel. When designing your sales funnel, take into account the marketing efforts, material and out reach necessary before they even enter into a buying cycle throughout their journey. By collaborating closely with your marketing team, you can create a seamless experience as your customers go from ‘cold’ to ‘hot’ to ensure you are delivering the right MESSAGING at the right TIME. It takes consecutive series of yes’ and objections being answered sequentially to convert your leads into loyal customers.
✅ Buyer-centric approach: Focus on customer pain points, and demonstrate how your product/service solves their problems 🔑 ✅ Collaboration: Coordinate with marketing, product, and customer success teams to deliver a consistent and unified experience 🤝 ✅ Sales enablement: Equip your sales team with the necessary tools and resources, such as buyer persona cheat sheets and tailored sales scripts 🛠️ ✅ Storytelling: Craft compelling stories for each persona to better connect with buyers emotionally 📚 ✅ Continuous improvement: Gather feedback from sales reps and customers to identify opportunities for process refinement and optimization 🔍