Should your company have a set selling system, or should you allow your salespeople to have their own unique selling styles? Systems are excellent ways to train people and make sure work gets done in most businesses, and they make people more effective at what they do. In fact, good systems ensure that complex tasks are completed effectively, and business gets done as usual.
Sales is the same. In any sales organization, there are tools, principles, and process that are proven to be more effective than others in sales, and a selling system addresses the interaction between your salesperson and your customer. This provides a game plan for your sales success.
If you look at just about any successful company that employs a group of salespeople, you should see that they have a well-defined selling system that they teach to their salespeople. Everything from how they file their information to how they collect information, how they present their products, and how they strategize. Usually, the older the company, and the more successful they are, the more likely they are to have a highly refined and developed selling system. You should develop one, too.
To develop your selling system, you should create variations for each of your major market segments. For example, the best way to sell to a pet store may not be the best way to sell to a dress shop. Typically, your selling system defines a sales process for each of your market segments, and then addresses the best ways to accomplish each step in the sales process.
Take that pet shop, for example. The most effect process could be to make an appointment with the purchasing agent, collect information in a meeting, prepare a written proposal, deliver the proposal, and make a personal follow up call. That could be the process part of the system. Then, the tools could be made up of creating a script for making the appointment, a profile form for collecting the information, a brochure to describe your company, a proposal form, and a set of questions to use throughout the process. The tactics could be a group of techniques to use throughout each step of the process.
When you put all these pieces in place, you have created your own personal selling system. Then, you train all your salespeople in this system, you have made a huge step forward in the selling process, and you’ve put your company in line to be much more successful.
