Hailey LucasIn this article, you’ll learn about the importance and benefits of a unified sales process for your sales team, including its impact on close rates, sales cycles, and overall revenue generation. You’ll also gain insights into the four key steps for creating a unified sales process – evaluating current sales methods, ensuring team member buy-in, defining rules of engagement, and choosing the right tools.
Key Takeaways:
- A unified sales process, a standardized set of steps used by a sales team to convert prospects into customers, can significantly improve success rates and revenue generation.
- Implementing a unified sales process can lead to benefits such as higher close rates, shorter sales cycles, better team management, improved communication, and increased customer loyalty.
- Creating a unified sales process involves evaluating current sales methods, seeking team member buy-in, defining communication rules, and selecting effective sales tools.
- The involvement of sales team members in the creation process is crucial, as their firsthand experience can guide the development of efficient strategies.
- Selecting the right tools, such as a powerful customer relationship management (CRM) platform, can help streamline the sales process and track customer interactions.
Why Unified Sales Process?
Every brand values its sales team.
That’s because most revenue generation is attributed to the sales team.
But for your sales team to have a higher close rate, you must have a unified sales process.
What is a Unified Sales Process (And Why is it Important)?
A unified sales process is a set of actionable and repeatable steps that members of a sales team take in converting a prospect into a customer.
Creating a sales process is essential to improving the success rate of your sales reps.
To replicate the same level of success across the team, you must have a unified sales process.
This is a standardized sales process that each team member must use to improve their chances of closing a sale.
Depending on your industry and objectives, a sales process can have anything from 5-6 steps. Here’s how a typical one looks:
- Research and preparation
- Prospecting
- Needs assessment
- Pitching your solution
- Addressing objections
- Closing the sale and gathering e-signatures
While these steps may differ from organization to organization, you should have a unified sales process internally.
Here’s an example of the sales process used at Teamgate:
The Importance of a Unified Sales Process
Sure, most sales reps don’t like being confined to rigid rules and processes. But creating a sales process has many benefits that you and your sales team could benefit from.
A few such benefits include:
- Higher close rates
- Shorter sales cycles
- Employee satisfaction improves
- Employee onboarding becomes faster and easier
- Improved predictability of sales and revenue
- Improved lead quality
- Better internal and external communication
- Better customer loyalty
- Reduction in lost opportunities
- Makes it easier for marketing and sales to align
- Improved productivity and team management
The bottom line is that a unified sales process results in increased revenue. Research shows that B2B brands that have a sales process can increase their revenue by as much as 28%.
With benefits such as these, you can’t ignore the need for a unified sales process. That’s why you must know how to create one for your sales team.
4 Tips for Creating a Unified Sales Process Among Your Sales Team
Now that you know the value proposition a unified sales process adds to your team and business, let’s jump into how you can create one.
Remember, however, that each sales team can have its own unique sales process.
These are just some fundamental guidelines to help you design a unified sales process that’s a good fit for your team.
1. Evaluate Your Current Sales Methods
The first step to creating a unified sales process among your sales team is to evaluate your current sales methods. A few questions to ask as you evaluate your current system include:
Is Your Sales Team Really a Team, Or Is It a Group of Solo Sales Reps?
Gone are the days when selling was a competition. Today, closing one sale is a team effort. Gathering your sales team around one goal and encouraging teamwork is crucial to creating a unified sales process.
Which Methods are Producing Results?
Identify the current methods and strategies that are working. Are you generating leads via whitepapers? Closing deals by hosting webinars? Keep these tactics going and improve on them.
Which Methods are Not Working?
In your evaluation, you will discover some inefficient practices. These are a waste of time and resources and, as such, should be done away with.
What new strategies can improve your process?
Your target audience is evolving. As new technologies arise, their communication preferences and style also change.
You need to be a step ahead of those needs to ensure high conversion rates and a positive customer experience (CX).
A proper evaluation of where you are now in creating a sales process will help you design a strategy that will help your business reach its revenue goals.
2. Get Team Member Buy-In
When creating a unified sales process among your team, make sure to get team member buy-in.
One of the most important reasons for this is that your sales reps are on the front line. As such, they have real-world experience on the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of different sales strategies your business is using.
Getting team member buy-in also ensures that you tap into each team member’s strengths and expertise. As a result, you’re assured of creating a streamlined sales process that will produce better results.
3. Define Your Rules of Engagement
Another essential step to include as you create a unified sales process among your sales team is to define your rules of engagement. This refers to how you:
Communicate Internally
For your team to communicate effectively, you must ensure that everyone speaks the same language.
This is important as there’s a lot of industry jargon used in sales that could mean different things to different team members.
Standardizing the language used within the team reduces time wasted in trying to get clarification. It also minimizes the risk of error due to miscommunication.
This will especially be important for those working in remote teams and with outside contractors to ensure everyone is on the same page.
Communicate Externally
A great part of sales involves communicating with prospects and customers.
Your sales process should also include your brand’s communication style with customers.
This includes the language (words) your sales reps must use and the tone.
Having a strong communication style will ensure that your brand’s personality is evident to your customers, even if they speak to many different sales reps.
Another reason is that it will help your sales reps communicate with customers in a way they understand.
In most cases, this involves selling the solution you provide instead of your product/service features.
4. Use the Right Tools
In today’s world, where most businesses have gone online, selling has become a juggling act.
That’s because there are many channels through which the sales team engages prospects and converts them into customers.
If you are not careful with the sales tools you use, you can create more of a problem for you and your team.
That’s why selecting the right ones is crucial to creating a unified sales process among your sales team.
As you well know, one of the most important tools for any sales team is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform.
A powerful CRM like Teamgate is not only essential in ensuring a smooth customer journey, but it also plays a huge role in how your team works together to achieve their goals.
That’s because it helps unify the sales process right from marketing to lead generation to lead qualification to conversion.
Interacting with your prospects and customers is also easy as Teamgate allows for communication via:
- Phone
- Live chat
And the best part is that every interaction can be tracked.
With the right tools in your hands, you can streamline your sales process, making it more efficient.
Of course, you reap the benefits of shorter sales cycles, happier customers, and increased revenue.
Creating a Unified Sales Process Among Your Team is Not an Option
If you want your sales team to be more effective, you must create a unified sales process.
Every team member must know exactly what to do in any given situation and how to do it.
That way, you increase your team’s efficiency and, of course, boost your bottom line.
Of course, you can’t do it without a CRM that aligns with your sales process. So invest in one of the best and enjoy an increase in sales.
FAQs: Unified Sales Process
Q: What is a unified sales process?
A: A unified sales process is a standardized set of repeatable steps that members of a sales team follow to convert a prospect into a customer. It’s designed to improve the success rate of sales reps and ensure the same level of success across the team.
Q: Why is a unified sales process important for my sales team?
A: A unified sales process is crucial as it can lead to higher close rates, shorter sales cycles, improved team management, and better communication. It helps in aligning the efforts of your team, making them more efficient, and increasing overall revenue generation.
Q: How can I create a unified sales process?
A: Creating a unified sales process involves four main steps: evaluating your current sales methods, getting buy-in from team members, defining your rules of engagement (how you communicate internally and externally), and choosing the right sales tools like a CRM platform.
Q: Can a unified sales process improve customer loyalty?
A: Yes, a unified sales process can significantly improve customer loyalty. It ensures consistent communication and interaction with customers, which helps build trust and loyalty over time.
Q: How does a unified sales process affect internal communication?
A: A unified sales process standardizes internal communication, reducing the risk of errors due to miscommunication. It ensures everyone on the team speaks the same language and is on the same page, which is particularly beneficial for remote teams and outside contractors.
Q: How does a CRM platform support a unified sales process?
A: A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform like Teamgate is a crucial tool for a unified sales process. It ensures a smooth customer journey from lead generation to conversion. It also enhances team collaboration, allows tracking of customer interactions, and helps streamline the overall sales process.
