Building a scalable sales model is a tough when you are just starting your business. In the initial stage, you want nothing but sales. In order to accomplish this you put all your energy and resources in the task. Along the way, you will find ways to do it.
So do we get a scalable sales model right from the beginning? There are numerous ways of doing it and I would share with you the process that worked for me. The scalable sales model that I built focused on building the team strengths.
While working as a former Product Head of a prominent oxygen gas plant manufacturing company, I would hire sales reps with experience and involve them in every aspect of the business. I got them to do everything from cold calling, attending meetings, closing and managing their channels.
Sales fail in a cycle of closing & looking out
It is obviously difficult for a sales executive to be good at every aspect of sales which is the main they tend to fail. As a manager or an owner, you hire sales persons and ask them to do everything. The results you get are cyclical.
Three months sales will be up and then down for three months. Typically, sales people scout for lot of business, then hold meetings and close all their business. All their energy is focused on closing the leads and they lose out on getting new business. This is the reason that sales generation tend to perform in troughs and crests.
After closing all their deals, they start all over again. So you can understand the uncertainty of results. There is no way of predicting sales. You can forecast on basis of your past data. That is all you can do.
Divide the sales process in 3 steps
There are many ways of optimizing your sales performance. I have talked to a number of reputed sales professionals about this. To sum up their feedback, it pays if we compartmentalize the roles and responsibilities.
While managing sales at the nitrogen gas plant manufacturing company, I would hire 3-4 sales reps. All of them would fail at some time then I advised them to relax. At the same I said, “There must be a better way of doing this.”
I divided the sales process into three parts. These are the three most important parts of the sales process as described below:
- Opening
- Building the rapport
- Closing
Let’s start with the 1st step which is opening. This means finding the business which is an essential part of the sales process. The right opening increases the possibilities of the next two steps. So it is a better strategy to assign this to the person who is an expert at opening.
Secondly, you have the relationship building phase. In this phase, you will meet the client and get to know his requirements. After studying his cues, you will make a pitch that he will not be able to refuse. Every sales person is capable of doing the three segments but he is excellent at one of the three. So you assign rapport building to the person who loves doing it.
Lastly, it is time to close the lead. This part of the sale process requires different skill compared to the opening and relation building. Here, you need the convincing power to win the client over to your side. I am very good at opening. Could I do relationship building or close? Yes, I could. Did I love doing it? Definitely, not!
I love understanding things & people which explains why I like building rapport. My immediate superior at the O2 plant making company was a hard core closer. He had the knack of asking difficult questions and getting the clients to do things. So the key is to fit pieces the puzzle well.
For doing all the three parts, I would suggest hiring a director business development. This is what we did. This person would generate meetings which I picked to cultivate. And the lead needed closing, I would call my superior.
Figure Out Your Conversion Ratio
This is the most important factor in building a scalable sales model. In sales your conversion ratio is very important. In simple terms, it means how many emails or cold calls you have to make to get a meeting. Further, how many meetings do you take to turn into business proposals? Lastly, how many proposals you take to close.
Conversion ratio measures the effectiveness and efficiency of your sales strategy. Finding the ratio will help where you stand on the performance matrix. From here on you can mathematically decide your future sales approach.
In my last employment, we needed 50 meeting to meet our revenue targets. No denying, it is better if you achieve higher conversion ratio for meetings to proposals. There are many techniques for increasing the sales performance. It goes without saying that you must have your edge to generate and maintain high conversion ratios.
Businesses can do channels. And from these channels we can get meetings. There are different kinds of channels that you can start. On the other hand, you have got networking events from where you also generate meetings. Moreover, you can also go for social media marketing that is a must considering its influence amongst the populace.
Then, you must also use marketing SEO for reaching maximum number of potential clients. How many meetings you are able to generate from the channels. It depends on the scale of your off-line and online marketing. The job of the director business management is to manage the channels and generate the meetings decided for meeting monthly target.
So you have got an efficient sales system where director business development manages the sales professionals. They will perform and grow within the system. Over time they will mature as excellent closers. And the director will become VP sales. This is how you can build a scalable sales model.