This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "Sell or Be Sold" by Grant Cardone. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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How do you improve the sales process? Why do you need an improved sales process?
You can improve sales processes by shortening them, using modern technology, and prioritizing customers. You know you need to improve your sales process when customers start complaining about how long it takes to buy your products and you start getting lower profits for each transaction.
Read on to discover the ways to improve sales processes.
Steps to Improve Sales Processes
To assess your current sales processes, ask yourself:
- Are customers complaining about how long it takes to buy something?
- Are customers resisting you?
- Are you getting low profit per transaction? (Are customers only buying your inexpensive products, not your pricier ones?)
If you answered yes to any of these questions, use the following steps to improve sales processes in your business:
1. Shorten them. Many organizations have 10-12-step processes that take a long time to execute. Customers want to get in and out fast and don’t want to be forced to spend time with someone they don’t like (such as a salesperson), so the process should only take as long as a customer needs to become comfortable making a purchase.
2. Modernize them. Most sales advice is ineffective or 50 years out of date. Sales processes need to take into account the fact that today it’s easier to access information, people are busier, and marriages are more equal and both parties have incomes and make decisions.
- For example, for the past 50 years, accepted advice has been to spend as long as possible with a customer because they’ll feel indebted to you. As we learned in the first step, this doesn’t work today because customers don’t want to waste time.
3. Take the transparency test. If you can’t advertise your sales process because it would horrify people (for example, step two is to flat-out lie to the customer), then there’s something wrong with it.
4. Prioritize the right players. Sales processes should prioritize the customer, then the salesperson, and only then management. This is because a customer won’t buy if she’s inconvenienced by the process or isn’t given a proper pitch because the salesperson is hampered by the process.
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Here's what you'll find in our full Sell or Be Sold summary :
- How your happiness and even survival depend on your selling ability
- The five steps to becoming a master salesperson
- Step-by-plans to lead the customer to make a purchase
