You and Your Business

[Kevin Price]: Welcome back to the Price of Business I am your host Kevin Price. Talking about You and Your Business. We got Lin Fisher in today and He is in for Walter Rogers of Baker Communications. Good to talk to you on today‘s program. How are you Lin?

[Lin Fisher]: Hey great to be here Kevin as always.

[KP]: As always. Alright, what have you got lined up for us on today‘s show.

[LF]: Well today we are going to be talking about not over engineering the sales processes, but you can‘t ignore it. Last week we talked about the key performance indicators and how to measure success. And this week s discussion is directly linked to the sales processes, because if you don‘t a foundation of process then it‘s difficult to measure success.

[KP]: There is no question about it. Processes is in general, I don‘t care what it is, sales administrative, I don‘t care what it is, if you don‘t have processes you don‘t have an organization. It is impossible to create bench marks. It is impossible to quantify what is going on.

[LF]: Absolutely, You are totally on point here. And you know, it is interesting, every sales professional has learned at least one process. If you have been selling for any length of time you‘ve have probably learned three or four or even more than that. Some of these processes go by the name of spin selling, fusion selling; strategic selling and other are just highly customized in house proprietarily developed systems. But no matter what you call it Kevin, essentially they all exist to fulfill one purpose; which is define how sales are going to approach, qualify and approach business. It should be a pattern of success that can be repeatable measurable and scalable.

[KP]: Absolutely. Absolutely. Where do you begin with a process like this?

[LF]: Well it is interesting. One of the pitfalls that come about is that these processes can be really really complex and cumbersome and anything that gets to complex you are not going to follow it. And Sales people, I have been selling for over twenty years, have this really bad disease called SAD. It‘s called Sales Attention Deficit Disorder and I definitely have it. If it is not simple and easily digested and followed then it‘s not really going to stick. So, you don‘t want these big rambling flow charts or a bunch of different lines that people have a challenge following. The best process and the best approach is this one thing, and if everybody writes this down and takes this home with them this going to be the golden nugget, it‘s KISKIM and that stands for: Keep it Simple Keep it Moving. I think we have all heard the KIS example: Keep it Simple Sweetheart but, Keeping it Moving is the most important part about this model. There are four mistakes that most sales managers or leaders actually make when they are trying to build process, and they tend to over engineer these processes. So, just quickly, the top four here is basically One: There are too many steps, just too complex and not easily followed and then Secondly: There is too much focus on the sales rep. VS. the customer, which is where we really need to focus on what the customer is experiencing and how to move them through the process, rather than have a push product. The third on is: There is too much focus on exotic ideas or intricate processes that don‘t have a clear connection to driving revenue. If a sales rep isn‘t going to be able to close business using that than it‘s not really going to matter to them, because they don‘t care about anything other than doing one thing which is closing quota. Lastly the cultural misalignment. Some organizations invest a tone of money in CRM Systems and they customize these sales processes but they fail to realize the existing culture of how that organization sells. It is one thing to completely rip out a system and put a brand new one in but, it‘s more affective to align yourself to what works and remove the bottlenecks and things that don‘t work.

[KP]: Yea, those are crucial. Those are absolutely crucial. And obviously you got to be continuously cognizant of new barriers that get popped on, popped up in the seam.

[LF]: Yea, you know what, that‘s exactly correct. Great sales processes, like any process, is structured enough to give people a guided focus on success pattern and then flexible enough to allow them to make decisions when the eighty twenty rule comes into play. So when that 20% variable comes in it really isn‘t mapped against the process, what do I do. So, you want to give enough structure to let people use their own intelligence and their own skills and experience to navigate the best course and the best path.

[KP]: Yea, my experience with sales people in general is that they feel like they know better than the operation they work for anyway.

[KP]: And the more that they are like that usually the better sales people they are, they are just harder to deal with. (Laughing)

[LF]: That‘s true. That‘s why you have to harness that great expertise. Those people are usually very tenure, they know what they are doing. So, giving them a guidance rather than of a step by step detail, this is what you must do and acting like a robot, that never works, nobody likes to be told what to do down to the infinite item. So, clearly the sales process must be able to deliver some very specific things. One: verifiable outcomes in metrics. You know, if a manager has set up a business process or a sales process that‘s not usually measured then, really, what is the value of it, right. So, sales representatives need to know what they are supposed to do and then sales managers need to know when and how to measure and ultimately how to coach those sales people. Let me give you a quick example, if we know that we mapped out a five step sale cycle or process and we see that most of our sales reps. are having a problem going from offering options to recommending solutions than we might know that the coaching opportunity is getting past the objections. So maybe, the sales organization is challenged with overcoming those objections and that is a great coaching opportunity for the manager.

[KP]: Yea, absolutely. Absolutely. There is no question about it. And Lin Fisher is our guest, he is with the folks here at Baker Communications. Do you know we spend so much time getting into an in-depth conversation about certain areas of the sales process or customer service process, which is all good and fine but, it is also good to remind the listener exactly what Baker Communications is all about Lin.

[LF]: Sure, I appreciate that Kevin. So, Baker Communications is a global services company focused on sales and marketing enablement and best practices. And that is a lot of big words for simply saying that, we help companies sell more and sell more effectively. We really work on helping organizations extract maximum value from what they have and then we add in some best practices to get them over that extra little hump that they want to get to the next level. So we help customers be successful in generating revenue.

[LF]: Absolutely. We work with over fifty-five percent of the fortune five-hundred and we have a slew of small businesses and start ups. Business process and the blocking and tackling fundamentals really apply to any organization. Now they change a little bit from the size and complexity but, these basic fundamentals should be every part of every business and every sales organization.

[KP]: Yea, absolutely. Lin Fisher is our guest and he is with Baker Communications and this organization is really committed to really raising the quality of the game of businesses out there. Helping businesses take their companies to the next level. And I will tell you, right now more than ever with the challenging sales environments that are going on and the things that are going on in sales in general, it is really daunting out there right now for people. It is harder to make people make decisions and it is harder often to get things done.

[LF]: It really is. It really is. And by implementing this type of sales process you give the sales person a higher degree of certainty and feeling of confidence. You know what Kevin, selling is all about your level of confidence, your belief in your product or service, your belief in yourself and your company and when you have a success pattern that is proven and that is continually tweaking itself to be refined, sales people feel really strongly about that kind of thing. When you start making changes to sales processes that don‘t really align to what is happening day to day and it is really disconnected from the culture then you start to get a revolt and you start to get people not taking that success pattern and repeating it over and over again. Any sales person worth their weight in salt, I know myself if I find something that works I‘m going to keep on using it until the wheels fall off, and keep on using it because it is making me successful. Managers have to figure out what those steps are, not make it to complicated, make it easily digestible for those people that have that terrible disease called SAD and allow them to succeed.

[KP]: Yea, absolutely. You talked about the sales manager and SAD. I will tell you it‘s very very easy to get distracted, particularly when you have sales personalities and someone who has that kind of expressive type of personality. We don‘t want to get bogged down stuff that seems to be getting in the way but then again a lot of that stuff is necessary systems that make things more affective.

[LF]: It is absolutely true. When we look at the actual pipeline of a person it is amazing how many deals most sales people have to focus on during any given time. Which means that one customer is at the beginning of the process and some are at the middle and some are at the end. How do you keep your brain straight on what the best next step is and not only what to do but when to do it. It is not only what you do it‘s when you do it that makes the big difference. Sales process helps guide those decision making processes by making those objective triggers, things that we can raise the flag on and say okay I sent the proposal to the customer which means my next step is to close them. So, we want to keep it simple where those triggers can tell the sales person what the best next step is and when to do it and over a huge pipeline, let‘s say 200 customers that is difficult to do for anyone. I don‘t know if anyone can juggle 200 balls at once, I can only juggle maybe two. That is where the process comes in.

[KP]: Got it. Got it. Alright, Walter Rogers is not here today but as always you do a great job. You are always cued up and ready to go, you did phenomenal.

[LF]: I always appreciate it Kevin and it was a pleasure to be with you and thank you for the air time today.

[KP]: Lin Fisher is his name he does a great job there at Baker Communications. Baker Communications by the way you need to learn more about them. You can Learn more about them, of course, by visiting them at BakerCommunications.com. And I encourage you to do that; sometime you should just spend a few minutes looking at their website. It is just phenomenal what they do with clients, literally, all over the world. I want to encourage you to contact them and learn more about what they do. Their phone number is (713) 627-7700. You want to mention that they are contributors to the "Price of Business". They have a huge number of articles at houstonbusinessdaily.com. I have asked Walter Rogers, "Hey are you writing a book?" "Yes!" He says. He is writing a book. A lot of the information you can get for free right now at houstonbusinessdaily.com on the sales process, customer service relations and those important issues. You can get it for free now at Houston businessdaily.com. While you are there go ahead and subscribe because, you will get great articles great content from other writers including me. I write several articles every week that show up there. I am Kevin Price. Stay tuned for more right here on the Price of Business on CNN650. Scroll To request more information about any of our sales training, negotiation training, presentation training or other training solutions, click here Contact Info Contact us for questions about any of our products or services to help us serve you better. Address: 10333 Richmond Ave Houston, Texas, 77042 Phone: 713-627-7700 Fax: 713-587-2051 Email: info@bakercommunications.com Training CRM Adoption Customer Service Training Essential Training Management Training Negotiation Training Presentation Training Sales Training Public Workshops About Us About Us Testimonials News & Press Employment Delivery Methods Baker Blog Events Contact Us Baker Communications Inc. Houston, Texas. © 1996-2016.