CHAPTER 2

Understanding Your Selling Process

The most fundamental problem in sales is that salespeople truly don’t understand the purpose of what they’re doing each day they are working the phones and their e-mail to develop new business. If you haven’t internalized what selling is at a macro level, then your ability to formulate relevant and effective sales strategies that swiftly move a prospect through the buying cycle is compromised.

Salespeople are not to blame. They’ve probably been misled by their CEO and sales managers into thinking that sales is all about taking orders—which would be the right answer to the question if it weren’t so wrong.

Rex Ryan, coach of the NFL’s New York Jets, is considered a leading innovator in the development of defensive formations and schemes to contain the high-octane offenses that dominate in the league. When asked about his players’ success in responding in real time to the numerous variables that offenses throw at them on each play, he said, “It’s all about concepts. If you teach the concepts well, the players will understand it. Once they know the concepts, then it is easy for them to execute.”

If you’re going to invest your time in taking steps to become a superior salesperson, then it’s essential that you first develop a clear and unambiguous understanding of the concepts of what it means to sell. After all, how can you improve your sales skills if you don’t know what the goal should be? How can you improve your aim if you can’t clearly see the target?

Selling is a process. It’s frequently compared to a manufacturing process in which a prescribed sequence of steps must be executed to obtain the desired end product: an order. But is selling really a process that can be compared to a production line in a factory? Not really. The problem is that a focus on the “sales process” is nearly always on the output of that process and not on the quality of its inputs.

So, yes, selling definitely is a process. But instead of thinking about it as an industrial mechanical process, it’s more useful for you to think of it as a recipe.

Every recipe has two parts: the ingredients and the preparation. As any chef will tell you, the success of an entrée or pastry begins and ends with the quality of the ingredients. Neither the chefs’ preparations nor the finely honed cooking skills that comprise their process can compensate for poor ingredients. The same holds true for missing ingredients. If I tried to make chocolate chip cookies without the chocolate chips, I would just have … cookies.

Let’s consider your recipe for selling. Instead of thinking of ingredients and preparation, think about concepts and process. You can have what you feel is a robust sales process, but if you don’t incorporate the right sales concepts into your selling, then your chances of success are diminished. Like the chocolate chip cookies without the chocolate chips, your selling will lack the ingredients necessary to move your customers to buy from you.

What are the required ingredients of a sales process? Imagine that this entire book is a recipe for your favorite energy drink. In this case, it’s specifically a sales energy drink. In the first two parts of this book, I’ll give you the ingredients for making your own sales energy drink—the sales concepts that will energize, amplify, and maximize your personal sales productivity.

The remaining parts of the book are focused on how you will blend these new sales ingredients into a responsive, trusted, and accelerated selling process that produces consistently great results.

Productivity consultant David Allen is the master of getting things done. In fact, his best-selling book, Getting Things Done, is about time management. However, many of the lessons he teaches in his book apply to selling as well. The most relevant lesson for salespeople involves how to break down a bigger task (i.e., getting an order) into the logical sequence of events required to help the customer make a purchase decision. Allen talks about needing to know at each step of your process the “very next physical action required to move the situation forward.” In selling terms, this means knowing at each step of your sales process the very next physical action required to move the customer one step closer to making a purchase decision.

This is where salespeople often trip up. The problem is that you really don’t know the “very next physical action required to move the situation forward.” Oh sure, you’ll say to yourself that you need to send a follow-up e-mail to the customer. But why are you sending that e-mail? What information are you going to provide that will move the customer’s buying cycle forward? What’s the “next physical action” that you want the customer to take in response to your e-mail?

Let me give you an example of what this means. We all know how to change a lightbulb in a ceiling fixture at home, but have you ever given any thought as to how many steps there are in that process? I researched the answer online and found one website with an illustrated guide to changing lightbulbs (I’m not kidding). It showed that the process could be accomplished in four easy steps:

1. Turn off the light.

2. Stand on a ladder.

3. Replace the old bulb.

4. Turn on the light to test that the bulb is working.

But Allen shows that the list is incomplete. There are many more steps in this process. What’s missing are the “very next physical actions” required to move the process of changing a lightbulb forward. For instance, after you turn off the light, the ladder doesn’t magically materialize inside your house. You have to go out to the garage, get your ladder, and bring it inside. Once you have incorporated all the “very next physical actions” into this process, you suddenly have a realistic picture of the work required to replace a lightbulb. Four steps become 14.

  1. Turn off the light.

  2. Go to the garage and bring your ladder inside.

  3. Set up the ladder beneath the light.

  4. Stand on the ladder.

  5. Check the wattage of the burned-out bulb.

  7. Go to the garage and find the appropriate wattage lightbulb.

  8. Stand on the ladder.

  9. Unscrew the burned-out bulb.

10. Screw in the new bulb.

12. Turn on the light to test the new bulb.

13. Dispose of the old bulb.

14. Return the ladder to the garage.

Now let’s apply this concept to your selling. This is how salespeople look at their selling process:

1. Respond to a sales lead.

2. Do a discovery call.

3. Do a demonstration.

4. Send a quote.

5. Close the order.

Unfortunately, this overly simplistic view of selling doesn’t reflect the “very next physical actions” required to move the process forward.

Let’s take a closer look at just one step: “Respond to a sales lead.” Is this really just a single step in your selling process? What happens when I start applying the concept of the “very next physical action” to this single task? Suddenly it begins blossoming to look like this:

1. Receive the sales lead via e-mail.

2. Visit the prospect’s website.

3. Read about the prospect’s product and service offerings.

4. Read about the prospect’s management team.

5. Read about the prospect’s company history.

6. Browse through the prospect company’s blog.

7. Do a Google search for the prospect company.

8. Read the latest news about the prospect company.

Hold it there. I’m going to stop at step number eight. There are actually 24 smaller actions in total that make up “Respond to a sales lead.” Twenty-four! (If you want to learn the other 16 “very next physical actions” required to respond to a sales lead, then visit my website at http://www.zerotimeselling.com/respond-to-a-lead/.) And you can’t skip any of these steps if you expect to win the order.

Sadly, all too often salespeople do skip essential steps in their selling process. If just one element of a sales process breaks down into 24 smaller but necessary steps, then how many crucial steps, in total, are you overlooking in your own selling process?

In my business, I work with a great many salespeople. Both those who are above quota and those working hard to meet it face the same problem: an incomplete understanding of the physical actions required for each and every prospect each and every day. Why does one step lead to another? What is the logic that makes all the steps of their selling process work together?

By the time you finish reading this book, you’ll have a complete understanding of the detailed ingredients of your selling process, which are the driving concepts and logic behind the physical actions required at each step as you move your customer closer to making a decision.