For as long as anyone can remember, sales leaders have searched for a way to consistently win new deals. To even out the natural variability across their sales force, they adopted a linear sales process, believing that the consistency of approach would invariably produce the results they were seeking.
To win every time, the sales force would follow a recognizable set of stages: target, qualification, discovery, solution design, presentation, negotiation, and win. Each of the opportunity stages had its own set of required outcomes. If the salesperson achieved the outcome of each stage, they would win the client’s business.
Most sales organizations followed a sales process, many using the same process as their competitors. Because they believe their company and their solution is the only differentiation to win, they lose deals.
When I started writing this daily blog at the end of 2009, I was skeptical that following a set sales process would improve sales results, as I had tried it with my own teams. Eventually, I disclosed my skepticism with a post about what salespeople do when turn-by-turn directions are unavailable.
The Truth About Success
Why do some salespeople succeed where others fail? Each person on a sales team has the same process, the same clients, the same competitors, the same manager, the same compensation structure, the same solution, yet some succeed, and others fail. Sales success is individual.
Many sales leaders still use a legacy approach built on a sales process and some version of the opportunity stages above. They still try to differentiate their company and the solution (we are looking at you SAAS sellers). This approach isn’t working.
B2B Sales Today
Let us move forward to the 21st century and describe selling as it exists today. Selling is a complex, dynamic conversation with multiple parties about change. It hasn’t been linear for decades.
Today, sales organizations are still being told to be client-centric and empathetic while following a paint-by-number approach that is the opposite of these stated goals. To Hell with the client and their needs, open the slide deck and sing the joys and praises of your company and follow that by describing how your solution is the best in its class.
When two salespeople compete for a client’s business and both follow the well-worn path required by their sales process, you could switch their slide decks and both sales reps could still easily work through their presentation. To know why buyers say they would prefer a salesperson-free buying experience, this explains it. How could every client need the exact same conversation in the same order to significantly change their business?
Anti-Commoditization and Freeing the Sales Force
What comes next may be heresy. I know that for many, the sales process is a religious faith, one that relies on several false beliefs, starting with the process being the best way to reach your goals, and relying on a legacy conversation no one wants anymore.
Whether or not you believe it, selling is a complex, dynamic conversation about change with multiple parties. Much of the time, we use buzzwords like “client centric.” If this means anything, it means we understand what buyers and their stakeholders need.
In 2017, I published The Lost Art of Closing: Winning the 10 Commitments That Drive Sales. In that book, I listed 10 common conversations we need to have with clients to win deals. The book provides a sample conversation and explains how to secure the commitments when the client objects. I wrote it because I had experienced buyers who needed certainty to move forward.
Freeing the sales force from a linear sales process won’t solve all the problems buyers identify with the awful sales experience, but it is a good start. The best way to pursue your goals is to help your prospective client’s goals. To do this, you need conversations, not a set process.
The sales process pretends to be an orchestra conductor. Selling, however, is less symphony and more jazz, where the musician picks up what is being laid down because they have the chops to follow and lead. You are client centric and self-oriented.
I hear from salespeople who confess they don’t follow their sales process because it causes them to lose. Instead, they work on creating value in the sales conversation. These same people ask me what to do when their sales manager joins them on a sales call. I have no answer other than locking the sales manager in the trunk, and that would end in a lawsuit.
A Modern Sales Development
It doesn’t matter what you or I believe about the sales process. The only thing that matters is whether it does what it claims to. If your sales process has every salesperson winning every deal by following it stepwise and achieving the objectives of each stage, keep your sales process. But if not, give up believing that the sales process is enough to reach your goals.
The development of the sales force will require an approach that allows the salesperson to respond to their clients and their needs. It also needs to provide room for the creativity that salespeople need to help move their clients forward.
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