Blah blah blah what’s all this about a Sales Process, Sales Funnels and Sales Sieves

46% of salespeople missed their sales targets last year but does that surprise you when you acknowledge that only 39% of the time your sellers have available is actually spent selling and that 51% of businesses have no sales strategy.

Now that excludes around 50% of you who are now reading this article but slam dunks the rest of you right in the middle of one hell of a mess. You are sailing rudderless ships and you only heading to one outcome…a shipwreck.

The 50% of you that believe this is not for you…sorry I lied, you’re not as good as you think you are as you’re not as cognisant to your buyers buying journey as you think as your sales process matches how you sell not how your buyer buys.

Oh wait, let’s have that one sink in a moment. Your sales process should match how your buyer buys. That implies you know who your ideal client / buyer is and that you know how they buy.

So for the 99.9% of let reading shall we all agree we can start or improve our sales practices when it comes to Sales Funnels.

Let’s start here, shall we? Is it a Sales Process, Sales Pipeline Management, Sales Funnel or as it has been offered to me in the past a Sales Sieve. Let’s unravel the terminology and sales spaghetti.

Sales Process = A sales process is a systematic approach involving a series of steps that enables a sales force to close more deals, increase margins and make more sales through referrals.

Sales Pipeline Management = A sales pipeline is a set of stages that a prospect moves through, as they progress from a new lead to a customer. Once each pipeline stage is completed, the prospect is advanced to the next stage.

Sales Funnel = A sales funnel represents the quantity and conversion rates of prospects through your pipeline stages. It’s called a “funnel” because of its shape: wide at the top as prospects enter, then increasingly narrow as they are disqualified or decide not to buy.

Sales Sieve = Stupid, and probably derived visualised from the Wild West Prospector that would pan for gold…but over at Plan. Grow. Do. Towers we have discounted the random act of finding gold and we like to concentrate on more tangible, sure fired approaches to help you make more sales.

Plan. Grow. DO. puts your buyers buying journey and your sales process, sales pipeline and sales funnels at the heart of our sales training programme. 

Have you ever considered what your customers buying journey actually looks like? I would say unlikely considering 51% of businesses have no sales strategy. 

Just think about how important it is that you know it. If it takes between 5 and 12 contact points to make a sale, how many of those can you make online? How can your online activity support your offline actions, and how can your offline persona be enhanced by your online reputation? 

Without knowing how your buyer buys you are missing many of the shots you “think” you’re going for. But before you can work out their buying journey you need to know who your ideal client is…have a read of this one if you’re also lost on this one https://plangrowdo.com/effective-customer-profiling/. You’re welcome!

Anyway back to this article that isn’t about your buyers buying journey or your ideal client…this article is about Sales Funnels…and we love ‘em over here…we love Sales Funnels, we love SPANCOP.

Three of the off the bat benefits of falling in love with SPANCOP are:

You will operate more efficiently and effectively because there is a process to follow.
You will use your Sales Process to communicate with your buyers, ask them what it is they want and need.
You will have a method of tracking the customer journey effectively.

Now these sound amazing benefits don’t they…without further ado here’s the star of our show SPANCOP

Funnel Vision – The Sales Training Board Game!

You might also want to watch Whitbread Premier Sales Team play Funnel Vision The Board Game. https://youtu.be/Ts-zmlfkDgE 

So if you fancy a game we’ve not lost yet!