Are you hitting your sales target every month? And even if you’re not, do sales and client transactions happen smoothly, with very few snags in between?
The act of selling to a prospect is already challenging in itself, and you would hope that the sales process wouldn’t be as troublesome. Unfortunately, it is for some sales organizations.
The burden to streamline the sales process falls squarely on the shoulders of the sales manager or supervisor. He or she must make sure that the sales process flows smoothly. Sure, sales managers can’t control the outcome of transactions, but they can try to minimize the obstacles that derail the sales process.
We’ve identified roadblocks that cripple sales productivity, now we’ll discuss the roadblocks that hamper the sales process—and a sales team's success.
These sales process setbacks usually exist because of poor processes and/or systems within the organization or company, and some are caused by the sales reps themselves.
Here are the four biggest sales process roadblocks that you should eliminate today:
1. Inefficient Lead Scoring
What happens if your team has a poor lead scoring system?
• Sales reps waste time on customers who will not purchase
• The sales process takes longer
• Your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) balloons, and the expenses go to waste because of the poor conversion
• The real attractive, high-quality leads are overlooked and not prioritized
Solution: Implement a lead scoring system that works for your business model and goals. If properly set up and successfully implemented, lead scoring can create a more efficient sales pipeline which can mean higher win rates and a faster, smoother selling process. Start evaluating your lead scoring and build a more efficient system ASAP.
2. Poor Systems and Processes
Poor systems and processes bring about a lot of inefficiencies in the workplace. Sometimes, a team can have the best reps, but without efficient and effective systems and processes, their skills are rendered useless.
Clear and strategic systems and processes help streamline, shorten, and boost the sales process and funnel. Sales reps follow a clear step-by-step that can ensure proper hand-off, handling, nurturing, and conversion of leads. You can see the gaps and troubleshoot in case of issues and bottlenecks—even better, you can prevent the occurrence of these problems.
Solution: Invest in a CRM that helps streamline the process for you. An intelligent, customizable CRM can help managers with pipeline management, communications, performance management, reporting and analytics, and automation of redundant, time-consuming tasks. Automation is a particularly helpful feature.
3. Unsystematic Lead Nurturing
How are you going about handling each stage of the sales funnel? Is there an actual system that helps convert leads in every stage? A data-based process is necessary to make sure that leads are properly nurtured for conversion. You can’t guess how to go about it: data is your best friend.
Solution: First know your lead conversion rate. You can do a sales funnel analysis, which shows the conversion between each stage or step. It analyzes the buyer’s journey and how he responds to each step in the sales process or sales funnel. It determines which stages or steps convert high, and which convert low.
After analysis, you may see, for example, that your conversion will look something like this:
You can also perform a sales pipeline analysis. Using key metrics and reports that you employ and monitor with the help of a CRM, a sales pipeline analysis examines how a prospect moves through the pipeline stages—whether they move to the next stage or drop off at a certain point. The information helps you strategize for your lead nurturing and decrease churn rates.
4. Non-existent Sales Enablement
Sales enablement is a system that provides sales teams with strategies, processes, tools, technology, and other resources to help them sell more effectively. Departments, particularly sales and marketing, must be closely aligned: Companies with sales and marketing alignment are 67% better at closing deals and drive 209% more revenue.
The alignment also helps strengthen sales content, which has become a crucial factor in sales today. Personalized content is something all sales reps should work on for better conversion.
Solution: You have to work very hard at aligning sales and marketing and implementing best sales enablement practices. Personalize communications—create content for every stage of the buyer’s journey to convert more buyers. It’s critical that you understand your prospects and that you know what kind of content they may need at each stage. Effective sales content helps educate prospects, answer all their questions, assuage doubts, tame objections, and, ultimately, move these prospects further down the funnel.
While there are many problems that beset sales reps, these four ones are considered as the biggest stumbling blocks to your sales team’s success. Begin creating solutions and setting up systems that overcome these issues and, trust us, you will begin to see marked improvements within the team and your sales pipeline. Good luck!
Photos by bruce mars from Pexels
