Drive smarter sales processes

to win more deals

Tips for building integrated sales processes

to increase win rates and revenue

Key findings:

1 2 3
Why streamlined and How to achieve How to intelligently
automated sales processes are sustainable success in orchestrate sales processes
crucial for your organization corporate sales to ensure higher win rates
 2

STREAMLINED SALES PROCESS

The common denition of a sales process is a set of steps and activities for everything from receiving a lead to closing a deal. The majority of companies in
business today have a sales process in place. However, there is a huge gap between having one and acting upon it. Not many companies use their own sales
process as an internal sales methodology. Even less monitor and measure it on a regular basis or provide feedback to sales reps and have it automated in CRM.

The main objective of a sales rep at this stage is to assess a lead's potential.
Typically, BANT needs to be dened and four main questions need to be answered:

18% Companies with a formal sales process have 18% higher

revenue

50% The win rate exceeds 50% for 2/3 of companies with
a dened process in place

90% Sales teams that implement best practice processes across

their organizations have almost 90% quota attainment

It's important for every sales organization to create a formalized sales process that becomes an internal blueprint with a set of well-thought-out actions for
lead qualication to deal closure. A sales process should be fully integrated into a company's ecosystem to drive behavior that creates value by impacting sales
results. When implemented correctly, the sales process is accepted by sales reps and managers as a tool to improve their productivity and performance, giving
a clear understanding of all the steps within the process so they can identify what actions they need to take to successfully close a deal. Your sales team
shouldn't have to guess where a particular deal stands or how they should be managing opportunities at different stages.

It takes careful analysis and a clear understanding of important factors to make progressive changes to your sales process. Use sales
Pro Tip: metrics as a base for creating a dynamic and responsive sales process to help you improve results and reach your sales goals.
 3

PROSPECTING: QUALIFICATION & NEEDS ANALYSIS STAGES

After the processes and stages are dened, we can explore every stage of the sales funnel. Each stage in the process has its own objective and set of activities. Let's take a closer
look at each stage.

Qualification The main objective of a sales rep at this stage is to assess a lead's potential. Typically, BANT
stage needs to be dened and four main questions need to be answered:
Does the lead have a sufcient Budget?
What is the prospect's Authority - are the decision makers engaged or at least identied?
80% of reps think they are good at
qualifying opportunities

Does the prospect have an identied Need for your product or services?
Is the Timeframe for the purchase identied? 80% of prospects labeled bad leads by sales teams
actually make a purchase within 24 months

If a lead was not qualied as an opportunity it should be passed back to the funnel and the
lead nurturing process should be applied.

16.0% Identifying sales signals 14.4% Identifying target accounts:

10.3% Qualifying prospects

Needs The main purpose of this stage is to collect information on a client and determine the client's business model, requirements, needs and pain points.
analysis stage This data gives a sales rep an opportunity to tailor presentations and proposals to the client's needs.

Top 3 challenges of the Needs analysis stage:

Creating value and insight
27.0% during client conversations
Investigating client issues
Disclosing complete
and challenges to dene
26.6% information regarding the
decision-making process
19.4% the strategic impact of
your solution

Don't miss any of the key actions during this stage set up an initial meeting, create an opportunity in CRM and assign an owner. Use
Pro Tip: formal questionnaires for more sophisticated needs analysis and don't miss any details.
 4

WORKING ON AN OPPORTUNITY: PRESENTATIONS, PROPOSALS AND NEGOTIATIONS

Presentation The goal of this step is to prepare a high impact presentation or product demonstration based on the information obtained from the
stage previous stages of the sales process. It is also crucial to make sure key decision makers and inuencers plan on attending the meeting and
listen to your presentation.

56% Only 56% of sales reps can access key decision

makers 30% The probability of a successful deal during a
presentation is not higher than 30%

Proposal The main purpose of this stage is to coordinate all activities involved in proposal preparation in order to submit on time and address all
development identied needs, requirements and expectations. However, in many cases a proposal requires additional reviews and approvals before being
and submitted to a prospect. To eliminate bottlenecks at this stage, companies need a streamlined and automated process that orchestrates all
submission stages of proposal development including calculation, content preparation and approval.
stage

Negotiations Negotiation can be an art, a science or a play. Sales negotiations might take place over a series of meetings, conversations and phone calls,
stage or can begin and end within minutes. It's crucial to provide the ability to counter promptly and efciently manage all communications during
this step. The key challenge here is to ensure that sales reps tap the right negotiation strategy. This should be a very dynamic part of a sales
process with close supervision.

Top 3 challenges on the Negotiations stage:

Dealing with adversarial Customers who continue

29.2% Gaining higher prices 21.2% negotiations 18.8% to reopen the negotiation

Leverage the power of automated opportunity management processes to make sure all the work for an opportunity is done as
thoroughly as possible; all key inuencers attend the presentation, the proposal is customized to meet the expectations of the prospect
Pro Tip: and submitted on time, and a detailed plan of follow-ups on the negotiations stage is developed and executed. The process must guide
sales reps through all the steps required to get to the desired results.
 5

CLOSING THE DEAL: CONTRACT & CLOSING STAGES

Contract The contract stage has a lot of moving parts. The key task for a sales rep here is to align these moving parts into a coordinated process that
stages helps to manage interactions inside the company and plan activities with a prospect in order to sign the contract quickly.

Closing When a sale closes whether the opportunity becomes a win, a loss, a rerouted opportunity or a rejected deal it is very important to
stages evaluate the results and analyze each opportunity.

24% Only 24% of sales reps perform a win / loss

analysis 1.3 Closed-won opportunities involved 1.3 people from the client side
on average, as compared to only 1.1 on closed-lost opportunities

Top 3 challenges on the Closing stage:

Creating a compelling case

Competing with Differentiating
48.0% a low-cost provider 14.8% from competitors 8.4% for change in an attempt
to avoid a no-decision

Why was your company selected or not? What sales techniques were successful? What are the next steps to ensure a smooth transition to the service
delivery/account manager? Having all these questions answered and recorded in the CRM should be mandatory for every rep. This feedback is vital for other
departments such as marketing or product development to quickly x possible issues or review marketing messages.

Better orchestration and automation of the contract stage enables sales reps to focus on closing sales, while spending less effort on
Pro Tip: jumping hurdles in the process. The process has to be clear, solid and workable. When an opportunity is closed, it's imperative to
evaluate the results to identify strengths and weakness of the sales play and ensure more successful sales in the future.
 6

TECHNOLOGY TO SUPPORT SALES OPERATIONS

In order to improve sales operations, a guided approach to selling is needed. It should include steps that help reps avoid common missteps like failing to
follow up on time. A conventional CRM is commonly accepted to be an answer, however it has many limitations. The modern business environment calls for
more sophisticated tools that accelerate results with actionable data. A CRM backed with a powerful business process management (BPM) engine is a
technology that provides this kind of support.

Over 70% of organizations report that the tools and systems their sales reps use in the sales process are only somewhat or slightly connected. Even more
shocking, 22% of organizations report that their systems are not connected at all.

Over 70% of organizations report

70% that the tools and systems their sales
reps use in the sales process are only
somewhat or slightly connected
Even more shocking, 22% of
22% organizations report that their
systems are not connected at all
53%
of top-performing companies are
investing in CRM to drive sales
productivity

How BPM Automates routine sales tasks which frees up time for more lucrative activities
boosts sales Evaluates different approaches to identify bottlenecks and nd solutions to problems
Replicates the processes of the most successful salespeople and uses them as best practices
Creates processes that bring marketing, service and nance departments into the loop just when you need them
Constantly creates and automates new processes to respond to the needs of the rapidly changing business
Increases performance of new sales reps who need to follow clearly dened processes

CRM systems are simply an enabler to help you accomplish your business goals, not a magic wand that automatically makes your
company operate more effectively. However, by combining CRM with BPM, you can more easily actualize the business goals you're
Pro Tip: trying to achieve with CRM by reviewing your existing processes and identifying areas for improvement and applying industry best
practices to make your processes more efcient.
 7

Conclusion
Agile selling requires companies to operate at dramatically different speeds and levels of collaboration. When done strategically, it
can help to provide the exibility, accountability and responsiveness necessary to capitalize on growth opportunities in today's
rapidly changing business environment and customer behavior. Delivering a process-centric approach to your sales process,
tuned to industry requirements and targeted to specic business models, provides the highest value to an organization, which in
turn gives the ability to deliver a superior customer experience to the customers. A process-oriented approach to selling,
supported by process-driven technology, enables optimal sales performance and accelerates results.

#1 600 hours
 8

SALES FORCE AUTOMATION TOOLS TO MANAGE THE COMPLETE SALES CYCLE

FROM LEAD TO REPEAT SALES

ABOUT BPM'ONLINE
Bpm'online is a global provider of process-driven CRM for marketing, sales
and service. The beauty and the core value of bpm'online products is the
agility to change processes faster than ever and align marketing, sales and
service on a single platform. Users love bpm'online's engaging interface
with social look and feel, free from redundant information to keep them
focused on what's relevant. Today, the company employs 600+ experts and
serves over 6,500 customers worldwide.

Close more deals with efcient sales processes to manage the entire US: UK: Australia:
sales cycle +1 617 765 7997 +44 20 3384 0040 +61 261 452 888

Try it free www.bpmonline.com

info@bpmonline.com 2016 bpm'online. All rights reserved.