Designing a Sales Process Map
You’re running a business, and you can only grow it by increasing your business’s sales. The best way to uplift your sales is by planning your sales process or via sales process mapping.
The sales process includes steps at each step of the buyer’s journey to lead them from one channel to another resulting in a final conversion for your product or service. Maintaining a standard sales process for your products is also ideal, and it is only possible with sales process mapping. In this mapping, you can easily create a detailed sales guide accessible to all your employees and easily use them for maximum sales.
In this blog, you will learn how to design a sales process map and its benefits.
Preparing for the Sales Process Map
The first step in the sales process is to prepare the sales process flowchart. The mapping of the sales process of every business is different and varies in many ways; however, the basic structure is the same for all.
Identifying the key stakeholders
Any sales happening in a company result from a combination of customer service, IT, distribution, marketing, and many more departments.
Suppose you are running a hospital; if a patient comes with pain in any part of the body, it is not only the doctor that converts the patient and brings sales to the hospital. The sales process begins at the entrance, where the receptionist attends to the patient. Further, it goes to the diagnostic center, where the patient undergoes his x-rays, and the pathology laboratory, where the patient gives his blood samples. Then comes the doctor who attends to the patient’s health, and simultaneously, the nurse is also responsible for converting the patient. You can see in the above example that so many departments align together to generate sales processes for the hospital. Similarly, every business in any industry has the same process.
Hence, it is vital to identify the key stakeholders for the sales process mapping. Including key stakeholders to maximize your sales process outcomes is ideal. Planning together will reduce inefficiencies and redundancies in your process maps and also helps bring different perspectives to the table.
Defining the objectives of the sales process map
Yes, another essential concept of sales process mapping is defining the objectives of the process map at the beginning of the mapping to avoid deflecting or making mistakes.
If a person is very clear with his objectives for achieving his weight loss goal, there are few chances of him making any mistakes or failing the challenge. However, losing weight will become extremely difficult if the same person has no defined objectives. The same principle stands true in sales process mapping.
You must define the clear objectives of your sales funnel to create an ideal sales process map. Your goal can be anything, creating more customer engagement, increasing sales by X%, customer retention, customer conversion, etc. Defining your objectives will help you achieve success faster.
Gathering necessary information and data
You must collect all the necessary data to create an ideal sales process map. You may need the customer information, their buying patterns, marketing campaigns, etc.
It is essential to coordinate with all the departments of your business to finally collect all the information required to create the sales funnel for your business. Hence, it is crucial to analyze all the steps and the relevant data necessary for the best results.
Mapping the Sales Process
The mapping of sales processes in your business involves several steps. They are:
Identifying the stages of the sales process
Identifying the sales process stages is the key to exceptional process mapping. The different stages include the following:
1. Prospecting– It is a process in which you generate new leads at the early stages to begin your sales mapping journey. It involves researching social media platforms, like LinkedIn, etc. You can also get your leads at offline events, like conferences, workshops, etc. References via family, friends, or colleagues can also be among the best ways to generate prospects.
2. Qualifying leads involves connecting and communicating with your prospects to understand whether they are a good lead for your business or whether you can move them further in the buyer’s journey. A discovery call is a great way to understand whether your prospect will qualify as a lead.
3. Needs assessment-Once you find that your prospect may be your potential lead, it’s time to make a relevant assessment of the prospects. You must put yourself in the prospect’s shoes and empathize with their needs, demands, challenges, etc.
4. Presenting solutions– Once you have understood the needs and challenges of your prospects, you must present suitable solutions to them. The best way to do that is by offering your pitch which must include answers to their challenges and fulfillment of all their needs and demands. It would be best if you took maximum time to convert your prospect to a lead at this stage.
5. Handling objections– Once you have presented your pitch to your prospects, it’s time to answer their objections. It would be best to prepare for this stage of the sales process activities as it is non-negotiable. Protests are mandatory; you must handle them meticulously to convert them to your lead.
6. Closing the sale- After you surpass the above stage of handling objections, you finally lead, converting a prospect to a lead, and by closing the deal, you ultimately earn a customer.
7. Follow-up and customer retention- Closing the sale is not the end point of your sale processes. The only way to become the best in your business is by doing continuous follow-up. It will help retain the customers for your products and help you generate consistent revenue.
Defining the key activities within each stage
The above stages look very simple, but they have lots of background work behind them to make sales possible. It would be best to define the key activities in each stage to get a great final output.
Every stage, from prospecting to closing a sale, has several activities you must define to end the process well. When you have full clarity about all activities, you can easily fulfill the criteria in each stage.
Determining the desired outcomes at each stage
When dealing with a sales process, you cannot jump into it mindlessly. When you start the sales process criteria, you can determine the desired outcomes of each stage properly. The result may be different or the same; it doesn’t matter. When you determine the necessary outcomes of the sales process, the mapping becomes extremely easy, and it helps you find your path well while dealing with the prospect.
Transform your operations, achieve your goals
with our expert BPM consulting.
Establishing the criteria for moving from one stage to another
We are defining the stages, like Prospecting, Qualifying leads, etc. However, while dealing with a client, these stages could be clearer as the practical aspects of the process are much different than the theoretical ones. Hence, it is essential to establish criteria for moving from one stage to another. You will know how to deal with every situation by defining criteria.
Visualizing the Sales Process Map
Visualizing a Sales Process map is an important aspect of designing sales mapping. You must visualize in detail to get the correct format in reality.
Choosing a format for the sales process map
Process maps can be of several types, and choosing the one that best suits your sales process is crucial. You can use flowcharts or diagrams to represent your sales process. The idea is to provide clarity of your sales processes via these maps. These process maps must have details about processes and have high accessibility for better understanding.
Creating a clear and logical flow of the sales process
Clarity is the most important aspect of a sales process map. One of the objectives you must define before beginning the mapping process. When your maps require clarity and logic, they can help anyone understand your business processes without any complexity.
Using visual elements to enhance understanding
Visual elements are a form of attraction to the eyes. Did you know that most restaurants or fast food chains use yellow or red colors to design their logo and theme? It is because these colors visually attract most people. Similarly, if you add visual elements, like icons or symbols, to your sales process map, you can easily gain the attention of everyone, and it also helps with better understanding.
Reviewing and Refining the Sales Process Map.
Once you’re done with process mapping, it’s time for the sales process review. Reviewing your sales process map will help incorporate some improvement by refining certain aspects of the flowcharts or diagrams.
Conducting a comprehensive review of the map
It is ideal to do a comprehensive review of the map. While reviewing, you may find discrepancies or better solutions to the prevalent issues in the process maps. It will only help provide a scope of improvement in your process map.
Identifying areas of improvement and potential bottlenecks
When you comprehensively review the sales process map, you will find bottlenecks in your design or some processes. It will help you improve certain activities in your process maps and give you scope for improvement.
Incorporating feedback from key stakeholders
You must also include the relevant scope of feedback from the key stakeholders in your sales process map. These feedbacks are usually constructive as it will improve your sales process significantly. Also, it will help incorporate technology or other useful components in your processes to improve your business’s effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity by several folds.
Iteratively refining the sales process map
After comprehensively reviewing your process map and identifying the bottlenecks, it’s time to refine your maps. Once you refine your maps, you will create a superior quality sales process that will help you generate leads, retain customers, and more per your objectives. Hence, refining the sales map is one of the crucial aspects of this process.
Implementing and Communicating the Sales Process Map.
After reviewing the process maps, it’s time to implement the sales process according to your mapping. Sales process implementation is the final yet crucial step in the whole process. When you implement the design of the complete sales, you finally get the desired output.
Training the sales team on the new process map
The first step in implementing a Process map is to train your sales team effectively. Your sales team is your asset in bringing prospects and generating leads. You’re one step closer to achieving your dream sales by training them with a well-designed process map.
Ensuring alignment with other departments
Every company in the world with the proper alignment of all departments implementing new process maps includes gathering from all departments, like marketing, customer service, IT, etc., and discussing the same sales map to have an aligned output.
Communicating the sales process map to relevant stakeholders
Your company stakeholders play a crucial role in the sales funnel. They need to understand your sales map, and sometimes they can give you amazing inputs regarding any discrepancies or redundancies in your sales processes. Hence, it is ideal for communicating with the relevant stakeholders for maximum benefits.
Monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of the new sales process.
After implementing the new sales process map, it’s time to monitor it continuously to see whether its performance is as expected. The idea of creating a sales process map is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your company’s sales. While monitoring and evaluating, you will know the effectiveness of your sales process map as it gives you extra room for any updates or changes as and when required.
Continuous Improvement of the Sales Process Map
Yes, it’s true. You can make sales process improvements even after preparing the sales process map. Process maps are flexible elements of a business, and there is always room for improvements or upgradation in them. Some aspects of the new sales process map may work, while others may need to. The idea is to enhance the working conditions of all the aspects of sales process maps.
Collecting feedback from the sales team and customers
The best way to improve your sales processes is by collecting huge amounts of feedback from your sales team and customers.
You can get the best customer feedback because they’re the end-users, and they can pinpoint their pain points or challenges in your product or service.
Your sales team can also help in this context because they can describe the challenges they face while converting a prospect to a lead; the objection they face can be great feedback for your company.
Analyzing data to identify areas for improvement
Data is the best way you can identify your areas of improvement. The analysis and assessment of data from your customers, sales team, employees, stakeholders, etc.,
It can help you gain access to the inefficiencies in your process maps. It will help you enhance the process maps by tapping on the areas of improvement. It will help in every possible aspect to improve your company’s sales.
Conclusion
Sales process maps are highly beneficial to any business. There are different process maps; you can choose the best ones that suit your company’s sales funnel. These process maps clarify the customer journey relevant to each product. It also depicts the redundancies, inefficiencies, or bottlenecks in your sales process to make amends as and when necessary. Using a sales process map, you can easily update or remove a part of the process when it becomes redundant.
Through sales process mapping, you’re bringing all departments of your company together. Also, you’re increasing the visibility and accessibility of your sales processes, which every company member can utilize for maximum benefits. It also enables you to incorporate technology wherever necessary, improving the productivity and efficiency of your business. Overall, sales process mapping is one of the most crucial aspects of any business; embracing it can be your best decision.
You May Also like,
1. How To Identify When It’s Right Time To Perform Business Risk Assessments?
2. Why Is Process Mapping One Of The Five Steps In Business Process Improvement bpi?
3. Top 10 Business Process Mapping Tools For Increasing Business Efficiency
4. What are the benefits of providing BPM training to your employees?
5. How to choose the right Business Process Consultant for your Business?
6. A Beginner’s Guide To BPM Training
Take Action Now and Make a Difference
Feel Free To Contact Us for Further Information