I think it makes sense to spend a few minutes on defining what is sales process.

Typically people describe sales process as a collection of steps and activities they need to take to win business. Collecting information, researching the potential customers, finding the right people, putting together presentations, booking meetings, selling and so on.

But this is just a half of the truth.

Sales and selling is a process which ends when a customer makes a decision (Go, No Go or No Decision). This is understood. But the thing is that one cannot define the sales process in absence of the customers.

Customer makes number of decision through out the sales process. Customer also performs part of the activities within the process. Sales people need to wait for the customer to provide information, bring the right people together and so on.

Designing a sales process without the customer, their process, actions and decisions would be like driving a car blindfolded. You can still turn the wheel, change gears and press pedals, but you are completely lost.

Organisations make lots of buying decisions. Number of people participate buying processes and there is structure to how organisations make decisions. One should first look into the how customers buy. This is the anchor upon which one can actually design the sales process.

Customers have different objectives and concerns in different phases of their decision. In the beginning of the process they might not even understand they have an issue, or they might be in the process of analysing and structuring the problem. After they agree on the need, they start to look at different approaches. Should we build the solution in house, should we outsource or should we purchase software (or labour) to fix it. Only then begins the comparison of different providers.

Organisations which have the capability to identify where the customer is in their process and support then with relevant information are typically much more effective than the ones trying to sell to everyone all the time. One should create questions that help sales people understand where one sales opportunity is in the process and then share information that is helpful for the customer at that specific point in the process.

Lean thinking is very effective tool when improving performance of any system. The key here is to define the system as it actually is. Sales process is not about how an organisation sells and manages selling, but it is about how both customer and provider go through the process of buying and selling.

To me, the objective of selling is not only to win. Objective of selling is to effectively and efficiently go through the process of finding mutually beneficial co-operation. This requires qualification, validation and selection by both parties. Providers can make this work easier and more effective for them by selecting the right customers (customer segmentation), focusing on the right sales opportunities (opportunity qualification) and allocating the sales capacity to where it creates most value with low effort.

When thinking about the sales process the next time, try and include customers’ buying process and only then draft your sales process.

Lean thinking is based on systems thinking. Both the customer and sales people are part of the process. Start with the customer in mind.

To summarise and answer the question.

Sales process is a set of activities that both the potential customer and the provider go through to find mutually beneficial business relationships.

Include your customer’s buying process into your sales process design.