How's Your "Middle" Doing?

Many of the prospects I initially call on tell me going in that they have a sales process in place.  At first look, that often appears to be the case. Most have an installed CRM system and a long list of internal activities/ steps that sellers are suppose to follow, i.e., make 25 phone calls a week, make five in-person sales calls a week, enter all data into CRM, issue contracts, etc. It all looks good. The problem is none of it has anything to do with how their buyer’s buy—- buyer alignment. 

Almost anything entered into the CRM system is categorized as a qualified opportunity. It can sit there for a long time… four months, six months, eight months and even longer. Often the next step is: has the deal closed? What’s wrong here? The middle part —- the most important portion —- of the sales process is missing. 

So, many times I basically see a two step process for opportunities: create and close. Alignment with the buyer is not incorporated into the process. Key steps of qualification, development of the solution, proof and negotiation are not formalized. Additionally, implementation, a key step after close, is not accounted for in the sales process at all. 

The “middle” steps of sales process allow sellers to develop situational fluency by thoroughly diagnosing a customer’s pain, providing a vision of a solution and positioning value throughout the entire process. These key steps move sellers from product-centric selling to consultative or “Solution Selling®” (meaning both the trademark intellectual property AND the core methodology in practice). 

Now, tech companies often have a middle step and it’s called the “demo”. Get the tech guy, book a time and show the prospect a real time demonstration of the technology. Problem is, without the other “middle” steps of sales process, the demo may not be providing capabilities that the prospect needs. So, many demos are delivered for opportunities that will never go anywhere. It frustrates sales management and dramatically drives up the cost of sales.

Without a buyer-aligned middle part of the sales process, it is impossible to weed out the bad deals or, conversely, find the great deals that may require more resources and support. Forecasting for sales managers becomes a complicated, separate process that consumes way too much time and rarely results in better forecast accuracy.

How’s the “middle” part of your sales process working out?