When a Sales Process Works…and When it Doesn’t
“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
– Mike Tyson
Is it possible to close new business deals by simply following a step-by-step process?
I’ve been contributing to a client’s effort to codify the new business process at his agency and as a result, I’ve found myself asking this question. I’m all for process, and believe that a strong new business strategy is more reliant on good processes than haphazard action.
But are there times when a process has disadvantages?
Selling, to use a word that many of you dislike but that describes an activity that’s impossible to decouple from agency new business, depends on listening, empathy, openness, and confidence. It’s an activity that improves with experience, observation, and unfortunately some trial and error as we learn to recognize the verbal and behavioral signals that show a person is either heading towards hiring you or not. I wonder if this is overlooked by agency leaders who are anxious to get more of their team involved in bringing in revenue.
I want to take a moment to acknowledge an important difference between a process and a technique or methodology. A sales methodology like Neil Rackham’s Spin Selling, is immensely valuable in making you and your team better salespeople, but it’s not a step-by-step process. Rather, it’s a set of principles that can be applied in all the different situations in which you will inevitably find yourself when you’re trying to close a piece of new business.
I also want to share a phenomenon I see frequently at small agencies, which is that the owner or CEO is often the best salesperson the agency has. Not necessarily because they trained to be one (most have not) or even because they like to sell (many do not), but because they had no choice. If they were going to make this business work, they had to figure out an approach to sales (or, ahem, business development if you prefer) that worked for them.
They’ve become salespeople in kinda the same way carbon deposits become diamonds—through intense heat and pressure that come with the territory of being a business owner. And then they are often perplexed when their team, who have chosen to be an employee and therefore not subject themselves to the same pressure, seem unwilling to hustle, even when there’s a prize at the end, like a handsome bonus.
It doesn’t mean they can’t become adept at sales; it’s just going to take more than a step-by-step process. If you’re going to design a sales process or SOP for your agency, here’s what I suggest:
Don’t make it too rigid
I can’t help thinking here of the Mike Tyson quote, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
Over-relying on a process prevents you from being fully present with the person you’re selling to. You may be so focused on what step comes next that you stop listening to what your client is trying to communicate. Or, more likely, you numb your sensitivity to nonverbal cues telling you to change your tack or simply shut up.
I’ve witnessed what happens when an agency leader puts more faith in the process than in her ability to sense cues being emitted from the client and to react thoughtfully. In the worst cases, the client gets confused or frustrated or both and seeks to end the meeting as quickly as possible.
The cues aren’t always negative; they might be positive ones, like when the client is sold and wants to advance to the next stage. The last thing you want to do is keep selling because your process tells you to. In the worst case you may actually unsell the client and sacrifice all your hard work.
Good salespeople are adept at reading the situation. A rigid process may hinder more than help you do this.
Don’t make it too long or complicated
As I said above, I’ve been contributing ideas to the new business process my client is developing for his agency and I want him to end up with a tool that his team wants to use.
He sincerely wants to provide a clear roadmap to his team but I’ve found the more we try to make the process comprehensive, the more likely we fall into the trap of making it too complicated. Admittedly, he and I are probably in the messy middle of this project, so we still have the chance to redeem ourselves.
When we next meet, I think I’m going to suggest that we take a step back and think about how his team is going to get the most benefit from it. One way to approach it is to consider the stages of selling more broadly and what your prospects' motivations, desires, fears, and frustrations are and how they’ll affect the process.
Focus on the procedural and avoid the subjective
You can arm yourself and your team with the most detailed and comprehensive process possible but it will never encapsulate the unpredictability of human behavior. So, don’t try.
Instead, focus on the black-and-white procedural stuff that benefits from consistency. This might include:
How you and your team enter and track information in your CRM database. What’s your tagging protocol? What are the expectations around updating a record with meeting notes? At what point do you create a deal and define projected revenue, timeline, and likelihood?
Dos and don’ts or standards for preparing for a sales meeting. Do you always send the meeting agenda to the client in advance? Do you prepare a dossier for each client to better understand their roles and motivations? How quickly do you expect you and your team to send a follow-up? Do you always set the next meeting in the current meeting?
Guidelines on good outreach, like how to structure an effective sales email or how to ask for a referral in a way that’s more likely to get a response.
When experience trumps process
So what can you do to supplement the sales process and deepen the subtler skills of selling?
Mentor your team. Getting good at something requires practice. You may tell me precisely where I need to place my fingers on the fret of a guitar, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to be able to turn around and play Stairway to Heaven on the first or even fiftieth try. And, to keep the analogy going for a moment, even when I do master the actions of playing something that approximates that rock-n-roll classic, I’m probably still missing a level of expressiveness and mastery that only comes from playing that song over and over again.
And to be clear, I truly believe most people can master good sales skills way faster than it would take them to become the next Jimmy Page. But they need the opportunity to practice and you’re the one to give it to them.
Whenever possible, get them in sales situations with you so that they can watch someone with more experience. Likewise, when they’re ready to take on a more active client-facing sales role, stay involved. Let your team member lead the meeting but be there too, listening, watching, and providing back-up. Then, afterwards, do a debrief. Give them a chance to tell you what they thought went well and where they still felt uncertain and be ready to help them improve.
Open and close. I think there’s a tendency to offload all the stuff that happens leading up to the close and then take the reins for the finale. In other words, you might have a junior team member do the outreach, conduct an initial qualifying call, or even write the proposal. Then, you step in at the crucial moment to seal the deal.
And maybe you do this to use your time more efficiently, or because you hate outreach, but I’d argue that you’re not actually optimizing the process.
At a small agency, the CEO (or equivalent) must be intricately involved in business development. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have support, but it’s essential that she is the one interfacing with the prospect if she wants the sale to turn out in her favor.
And, yes, closing the deal should be handled by someone as experienced and capable as you, but so should the opening, especially when you are reaching out to a potentially high value prospect. That’s because at a small agency like yours, you’re less likely to have a layer of senior managers below you who are qualified to serve as your proxy. Your prospects are going to be more interested in knowing the message is coming from you, the CEO or owner or partner.
Delegate the stuff in between the opening and closing of the sale. Have a team member attend the introductory call or meeting who can listen, capture information. Introduce her as an active member of the team and then hand her the responsibility of follow up or writing the first draft of the proposal.