What if the sales process was like building a house?
You only start building once you have a clear picture of what you want it to look like in the end.
The architect comes up with a vision, a picture on paper of what could be. Through a series of drawings and a creative process, you establish what you are trying to accomplish.
The ideas drawn on paper go through an engineering process to ensure the building is structurally sound. It doesn’t matter how good it looks if it tumbles like a house of cards. The blueprint is the final drawing that everyone agrees on and works to stay on the same page as they build the house.
I know very little about homebuilding. But one thing we can all agree on it that there are a series of events that need to happen in a particular order. You do the foundation, then the structure, and put on the roof.
Everyone knows that they don’t schedule the drywall guys until the walls are up.
Expanding the Focus
With any process, there is an ordering of stages. Each stage has inputs and outputs until the final product is produced and shipped.
The same goes for the sales process. At certain stages, the customer will require certain things from us, and we need to get signals back from the customer.
Most people think that the sales process ends when you get the order. But it is really the opening as it starts the fulfillment process where you are delivering the product or implementing the service.
Delivery, installation, and manufacturing all play a part in the customer experience. The entire system needs to be considered to build and maintain customer loyalty.
Three Kinds of Sales Processes
The growth function, the maintenance function, and the accountability function.
The growth function is gaining new business by introducing people to the work that you do. It takes a different approach to land new accounts. There is a greater energy expenditure as you sort through the qualification process and will no doubt spend time on opportunities that don’t materialize.
The maintain function is to build a business with existing accounts by solving new problems keeping them from realizing their mission. They may have repeating requirements, but how can you bring ideas and help them create new projects.
The accountability function regulates between the two. If you only go after new relationships, you jeopardize the ones you have allready built. If your focus is on the people who are ordering repeatably, you are sacrificing future growth.
The Need for Certainty
At a higher level, it doesn’t matter where the revenue is coming from, but it is essential to maintain the customer experience as this is what drives customer loyalty. At every step of the process, we need to engage with the customer that ensures repeat business.
As much as we try to improve the sales process, we will never have certainty about the outcomes. Demanding that thing turn out a specific way will stifle customer loyalty like a used car salesman going for a hard close.
There is a really fine line that gets walked between bringing in business and maintaining long term loyalty. If you push too hard, you run the risk of turning them away. If you don’t create any tension, you won’t grow the business.
Building a Regenerative Process
I work at manufacturing companies that apply the lean manufacturing continuous improvement process. Lean has now been applied to startups and software development. It can be applied in several different ways.
One of the tools is called process mapping. This is where you layout each set of the process from start to finish. It can also be called value stream mapping and can be used for any system you want to define.
By laying out the process, we can see where things are not ideal. Once we identify these points, it is easy to find ways to plug the gaps.
It helps to start as close to the customer as possible. What are the outcomes you are trying to generate? What precisely are they wanting, but also, what is it going to do for them?
The sales process seeks to clarify these items as best as possible so that both parties can agree.
The customer doesn’t really want what you sell. They are buying the outcomes your product generates. The old saying rings true that people don’t want a ¼” drill bit, they want ¼” holes. The philosopher Seth Godin took it a step further and said people don’t way ¼” holes; they want to decorate the wall with a picture.
We buy stuff so that we can become the people we want to become.
The Process of Becoming
When Jesus was calling his disciples, he came up to some brothers, out working. They were fishermen. Let’s take a look at the moment everything changes for them.
While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him.
Matthew 4:18-19
The work that they were doing was hard manual labor. They were in some dead-end job, hard work. Somedays, they would be out all night, and they would have nothing to show for it. Their success was dependant on many things outside their control.
It was the work their fathers had done, and they had been trained in it from a young age, and they would know this would be their career path, and they would spend their lives doing it. Without many career options, they weren’t asking questions about the meaning, purpose, or giftedness.
This was an invitation to adventure. They were being called to a higher purpose. A purpose that God created them for.
For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Ephesians 2:10
Without fully knowing what they were signing up for, they stepped out in faith and trusted that it was going to turn out. We don’t always know how it will turn out, but we can be sure that God will finish what he started.
Being confident in this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
Philippians 1:6
When we step out in faith and follow Christ, we leave our old lives behind. The first disciples didn’t know what it would entail, but they knew they were going to become something new. By following Christ, we are put through the regenerative process that renews us day after day.
This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
2 Corinthians 5:17
As we follow Christ, he is making us into something. We are becoming. He is making us into a new creation. In turning our lives over to Christ, we submit to a process of transformation.
It is easy to think that it is all up to us to make the change happen. But it is God’s job to make things right in our lives.
The Changing Business Environment
The business impact from the Coronavirus Pandemic has touched every corner of the economy. No matter what industry you are in, the business will never be the same. It will either make us stronger or weaker. Remaining in stasis is no longer an option.
The crisis has ripped the mask of the illusion that we can determine what the future holds. It has exposed a level of fear and anxiety and insecurity to varying degrees for every one of us.
It is a big assumption, but I don’t think anyone feels more secure in their wellbeing and what the future holds than what they did six months ago.
When everything is changing so fast, and each change leaves significant impacts, we are not sure of what to expect. What can we count on? What can we depend on?
Our Sphere of Influence
While we can think strategically and seek to make wise decisions, there will always be the possibility that the unexpected will occur. If we allow outcomes to be as they are, yet use them to inform process upgrades, we shift the focus to what we can control.
The psychological concept, Locus of Control, is important to consider here. A high external locus of control is where life events are determined by luck or fate. A high internal locus of control states that we have power in how things turn out in our lives.
An internal locus of control is connected to positive states of wellbeing. This means if you think you have control over how events in your life unfold, you are more likely to enjoy your work, have less anxiety and depression. But it is essential to be aware of our sphere of influence, the things that we have control over.
Eyes To See God At Work
While it is hard to look at an uncertain future and wonder what it will hold, we can look back on the past and see how God has moved in the past. There have been economic turmoil and health crisis, not just in our generation but in all ages.
Through it all, God has been faithful. He has kept his promises. While things didn’t turn out as we would have planned, he has brought us through.
With hindsight, we can look back at past crises and see them as markers for the new thing that God has done. There may be some open wounds that still need healing. But the ones that have scared over are markers for who we have become. They have informed the process of being made new.
Reflection Question:
Who are you becoming?
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I call to mind the acts of Yah
when I recall Your wonders of old.
I recite all your works,
Your acts I rehearse.
God, Your way is in holiness.
Who is a great god like God?
You are the god working wonders.
You made known among peoples Your strength.
You redeemed with Your arm Your people.
Psalm 77:12-16
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