February 07 2013 anchin No comments yet
Many companies are now implementing sales standards. It is very convenient from a management point of view - the correct algorithm for working with clients is drawn up, training is provided and employees begin to sell correctly. Evaluation standards are developed for the main aspects of the activities of commercial service personnel - the performance of sales managers, their commercial efforts and behavior during contacts with clients.
The ideal option is when sales standards are formed based on the existing experience of sellers with the participation of an external expert. Sales training with the development of sales standards allows all interested parties - sellers, sales managers - to get together and develop an optimal sales model under the guidance of an experienced trainer. Call +79102461609. Working without standards is a waste of time.
There are two schools of thought about sales standards, depending on whether the standards are developed for a process or for a result.
When considering sales standards as a result, sales standards are the achievement of certain targets within a given period of time.
When considering standards as a process, standards mean an established optimal sequence of actions at any stage of the sales business process.
Why are sales standards needed?
1. Improving the quality of service.
Standards are a way of communicating management and customer expectations to employees regarding their customer service activities. Customer-oriented companies standardize external services and then regulate the internal activities of the company.
2. Optimization corporate knowledge management. In the case of the implementation of corporate standards, the knowledge necessary for personnel remains in the organization, is enshrined in the standard and is transferred to new employees, regardless of changes in personnel.
3. Optimization of personnel management procedures: adaptation, selection, training.
In this case, the standard is a practical tool for adapting new employees to the team and involving them in the business process of customer service at the proper level. Also, the presence of standards leads to optimization of costs for personnel training, which in this case is focused on the characteristics of sales in a particular organization.
4. Improved control.
Defining standards is a key issue for effectively monitoring the activities of sellers. The presence of established standards in the activities of sales personnel allows us to build an effective control system.
5. Increased sales.
It depends on at what point and how the seller comes into contact with the buyer, how he starts the conversation, whether he presents the product correctly, and how he reacts to the buyer’s doubts. The art of selling is not so easy to put into the form of rigid rules, but by declaring and achieving 100% compliance with simple and obvious rules when selling goods, you can significantly increase your sales volume.
6. Company development.
The development process can be imagined as moving up a ladder; based on the achievements of today, you take a step up tomorrow. In this case, the standard is the formalization of the company’s best experience and knowledge, that is, it is the next step in the company’s movement towards greater efficiency.
Standards associated with the achievements of commercial service personnel should be presented in quantitative form. They should provide objectivity and the ability to compare with the actual results of the activities of commercial service personnel. Thus, the definition of standards is a key issue for effective control of sellers. The lack of an appropriate “scale for comparison” in the form of transparent, measurable and objective criteria makes it difficult to identify deviations in the activities of commercial personnel and understand their causes, which prevents the development of a program to eliminate them.
Business standards can be formed in various ways:
Standards obtained by the company from outside. These include
- standards focused on the activities of competitors - companies that directly compete with a given enterprise in a certain product market;
Directors of Soviet and Japanese enterprises meet. Enterprises produce exactly the same products and in the same quantities. The director of our plant asks:
– How many people work for you?
- Nine. And you?
Ours actually has five hundred, but he says:
- Ten!
The next day the Japanese says:
“Listen, I’ve been thinking all night and I just can’t understand: what is this tenth guy doing with you?”
– standards reflecting the so-called “best practices”, namely documented cases of effective actions of specific companies operating within a certain industry.
– standards focused on an industry norm or other average value with which the company can compare the results of its own sales managers;
It is very important to know the so-called “retention rate”, or repeat purchase rate (RPR). In research by I. Kachalov (Kachalov agency and colleagues), it turned out that it is impossible in principle to retain more than 90-95% of buyers. That is, even the most successful company loses 5-10% every year.
Knowing such information allows you to track the effectiveness of customer retention and plan the required number of new customers in a timely manner.
Standards developed within the company.
Standards belong to this type of standards. obtained as a result of analyzing the effectiveness of the activities of our own sales personnel.
In particular, the technology for generating needs using the SPIN sequence of questions was obtained as a result of analyzing the activities of effective sales managers. Currently, SPIN technology is a de facto standard for many companies.
The same type of standards includes standards that reflect a certain desired or planned state of affairs.
For example, through observation, a business manager can use his own experience or research to determine the optimal way to implement a business effort. This, in turn, allows you to determine the optimal number of sales visits or presentations in a certain period of time for a particular seller. This number becomes the standard against which completed tasks will be compared.
Forecasting situations and knowing the behavioral characteristics of employees allows us to determine the mandatory components of successful behavior in the process of serving a client. A tool for identifying such skills, as well as analyzing various behavioral options, can be a personnel assessment, which involves comparing the results obtained with the actual results of the employee’s work. Based on this comparison, we can create a formalized description of actions that actually demonstrate the desired behavior of the seller.
What do sales standards consist of?
Company standards may include both general requirements for all employees, for example, standards for appearance, and a description of the standards for performing a particular operation. Typically, the following types of standards are developed:
outgoing call standards;
standard conversation on the phone when there is an incoming client call;
standard for handling objections;
presentation standard;
standard of detuning from competitors, etc.
For example, the corporate telephone standard of a well-known company includes the following sections.
- 1. General rules for working on the telephone
- 2. Rules for dialogue
- 3. Technology of interaction with the Client by phone
- 4. Standards of conduct for specialists in the office and workplace
- 5. Information prohibitions for specialists.
- 6. Standard phrases to say in case of failures.
Each of these sections necessarily includes speech modules. Speech modules mean small, logically complete structures used by employees to:
greetings;
farewells;
arguing the advantages of the company's products;
answers to standard customer questions;
redirecting clients to other specialists of the company, etc.
As a rule, not one speech module is developed for each case, but a so-called speech module designer - a whole system of 10-20 text blocks, the choice of which depends on the situation.
Speech modules can often be used in conjunction with non-verbal modules - these include pre-rehearsed gestures, certain postures, facial expressions, position in space, as well as showing the company's products in action. All this together has a great impact on communication, although it is often missed by employees when communicating with a client.
Sales training with the development of sales standards is the optimal solution, since standards are not imposed “from above”, and the sellers themselves take an active part in this. Find out more about this by phone.+79102461609
The main requirements for sales standards are as follows:
Positivity. The standard should state what should be done, not what should not happen. The “don’t be rude” rule may imply implementation options such as being silent, being polite, joking, etc. It is necessary to define precisely what behavior will be acceptable.
Only in rare cases is it possible to prohibit something, for example, “It is forbidden to chew chewing gum” or “It is forbidden to start a conversation with the phrase “How can I help?” etc.
Certainty. Standards must be defined and specific. It is necessary to clearly define specific fragments of interaction with the client, moving from the general to the specific. If the standard requires that the buyer must be greeted, then it must be clearly stated whether the seller should sit or stand at the moment of contact, where he should look and what phrases to say.
Reachability. When developing standards, it is necessary to take into account all possible situations. It is necessary to understand that if the standard is not met one day (even for objective reasons), then there is a possibility that this standard will not be met even in more favorable conditions.
Importance to the business. If the goal of implementing standards is to increase customer satisfaction, then you need to be sure that each standard actually achieves the goal.
Measurability. When regulating services, you need to be sure that it is possible to track compliance with the rules, i.e. measure the result. Otherwise, how can we understand whether we have achieved what we want or not? There is a big difference in the definitions of “give a warm welcome” and “smile when greeting”. And this difference is measurable.
Time boundaries. The service speed factor is one of the most critical in the service process, so standards must include the time frame for completing a particular operation.
Implementation of standards.
Resistance to the implementation of standards is a classic example of resistance to change, which may be due to such reasons as, for example, distrust of management, reluctance to change existing stereotypes of industrial and personal relationships, reluctance to change one’s own habits, fear of demonstrating one’s own incompetence, and reluctance to take on new responsibilities.
On the other hand, employees who communicate with customers every day react very sensitively when standards introduced “from above” do not contribute to quality customer service. Therefore, when implementing standards, it is necessary to monitor whether the standards actually increase customer satisfaction.
The following ways to overcome resistance and implement standards can be identified.
Informing. One of the most common ways to overcome resistance is to inform people in advance. Gaining insight into upcoming changes helps employees understand the need for these changes and their logic. The communication process may involve, for example, a manager conducting a seminar for lower-level managers.
Involvement. If employees are involved in the development of standards at the very beginning of the process, then resistance to standards implementation on their part can often be avoided. During the standards development process, employees' views are heard and their advice taken into account. It is very difficult to resist the implementation of something that you yourself had a hand in!
Help and support. Support can take the form of providing opportunities to learn new skills. Since resistance to standards may be based on fear and anxiety that the employee will not be able to meet these standards, it is necessary to support employees and show that this is doable.
Negotiations and agreements. Another way to overcome resistance is to provide various positive incentives to active supporters of the implementation of standards, in particular rewards to the manager who most actively participated in the development of standards.
Compulsion. Coercion involves using negative methods of influence against those who oppose the implementation of standards or do not comply with them. Although coercion carries an element of risk, since people always resist changes imposed from outside, coercion is often the fastest and most effective method of introducing the necessary standards.
For example, many companies use monetary fines for the following phrases:
“how can I help” when contacting a client on the sales floor;
“are you concerned about...” when contacting a client by phone.
To successfully apply these methods, it is necessary to realistically assess the situation in the company and skillfully combine the approaches outlined above, taking into account their advantages and disadvantages.
One company used the following approach in the process of implementing standards. Because the staff needed to become familiar with the need to apply and use these standards. Therefore, during the first month, only employees were informed about the upcoming implementation of standards and the need for this implementation. During the second month, the standards were recommended for use, and feedback was collected from interested managers to improve the standard (engagement). Finally, during the third month, the standards were mandatory. If the standard was not met, the manager who failed to meet the standard was punished (coercion).
The best way to implement sales standards is sales training. Only during the training will it be possible to both assess the feasibility of the standards themselves and teach sellers how to comply with the standards.
Finally, in conclusion, we will indicate the main reasons why sales standards may not work.
It must be remembered that relationships with clients are not limited to meeting standards. Sales standards work only when the basis on which relationships are built is not lost: respect, trust, attention, care.
Although sales standards help a firm maintain a consistent level of service, they can block employees' efforts to rise above the average level. This can demotivate top salespeople who won't have the opportunity to show their best abilities.
Finally, the emergence of various unexpected situations can disorient salespeople who, accustomed to operating in a stable and predictable environment, may be unable to find creative solutions.
First, it is advisable to become familiar with the concept , since the concept of sales standards is based on it.
There are several things to consider when developing and using sales standards.
a) Yes, (for example, sales algorithms to individuals, distributors (intermediaries) and end companies (consumers) will differ.
b) The same “standard” may differ for different sales departments within a company, which are determined by the internal specifics of a particular department. For example, one holding company developed an internal sales book for its commercial service that did not differentiate between sales to individuals and to corporate customers. As a result, sales volume in the corporate segment was dismal.
c) Only “practical” experience is described and systematized, i.e. there is no “textbook” from which you can make a brief summary. The “standard objection bank” is only a small part of the workbook for the sales department, although in most cases this is what most consulting/training companies offer in the form of developing a sales book.
e) Commonly accepted methods for describing business processes for developing or describing sales processes are not very effective; there are different languages for describing business processes, each of which is effective for solving different sales.
To develop a sales standard (document), you need to clearly understand who the user of the document is and how practical it is, i.e. can be used in the practical activities of the sales department.
Sales standards are directly related to the commercial division management system and the regulations on the commercial division management system.
When developing a provision about the commercial division management system you must follow the following rules.
1. Users - who they are intended for:
Head of department,
Division manager/s,
New employee.
2. “Regulations” may consist of a set of documents intended:
For general access of all employees, what concerns their work,
Only for the manager, what concerns his work,
For new employees (this is a question regarding the procedure for introducing new employees and their adaptation).
3. The document is developed “bottom up” and not “top down”, i.e. from a description of basic work procedures, work processes, and only then systematized in the form of regulations/regulations or a “workbook” for the manager.
4. The concept of a work standard is principles + rules, and regulatory documents establishing these rules. They allow you to reproduce a given technology (procedure) of work and help identify typical errors.
Standards have two purposes:
a) employees receive ready-made solutions for typical tasks,
b) managers receive clearly formulated, formalized requirements for the performance of employees.
You can use the term “operating standard” - it answers the questions:
- what to do?
- when to do?
- how to do it?
- what is it for?
Often the “manager's work standard” may in turn include a list of internal standards.
For example, standard of work for a “regional sales manager with a new region” includes:
a) Stages of work of a manager working with a new region,
b) Methodology for collecting information about the region.
c) Criteria for selecting key clients for work in a new region.
d) Distribution map methodology for starting work in the region.
e) Methodology for assessing the sales potential of a regional client.
f) Stages of working with a new regional client.
g) Algorithm for negotiations with a regional client.
h) Reporting system for working with a new region.
i) Methodology of control questions for monitoring the quality of work of a regional manager for a new region.
Standard for working with new clients includes:
a) Advantages and benefits of working with the company's product
b) Knowledge of the company’s product by managers + methods for monitoring the quality of knowledge among managers
c) Stages of working with a new client
d) Methodology for assessing the quality of a manager’s work at each stage
e) Initial contact standard with a list of mandatory information that must be collected during the initial contact with the client
f) Algorithm and contact scenarios for each customer segment (multi-level scripts)
g) Algorithm for dealing with typical client objections
h) Methodology of “control questions” to check the quality of work with a new client
i) System of indicators and reporting for working with new clients
5. For the developed standard, after development and implementation in the current work of the department, a procedure for monitoring its compliance must be provided. (During implementation, 3 stages can be distinguished from the personnel point of view:
Stage 1 - it interferes with work,
Stage 2 - forced evil,
Stage 3 - working procedure.
6. After a certain period of time, there should be an analysis of the effectiveness of using the standard and its possible adjustment if necessary. (This is a typical mistake when using formalized rules (technologies) in a commercial service; they can and should be modified as the company develops.)
7. In the most general form, the provision on the management system of a commercial division should include 4 enlarged blocks, which are detailed in the process of developing the document.
A) A system for organizing and monitoring the current work of an individual manager.
B) Management system for the commercial division as a whole.
C) System of recruitment, training and adaptation of personnel.
D) A system for assessing the effectiveness of applied sales technologies and solving problems aimed at developing the existing sales volume.
8. They are adapted (developed) for a specific department and may vary for different commercial departments within a commercial service.
9. In this case, we are talking about the most general structure of such a document, which should be based on actual business processes that are carried out in the sales department.
11. The document should reflect a number of standards, which may vary for different sales departments:
Manager's current job - these are standards that describe the current work of a sales manager:
planning current work,
system of indicators for assessing the effectiveness of the manager’s current work,
reporting system for the work of sales managers,
system of performance indicators for managers,
assessing and maintaining the manager’s qualification level,
algorithm for working with new clients,
algorithm for working with existing clients.
Is it worth spending your valuable time on sales, but at the same time sacrificing promoting your brand and company? Or is it better to organize sales department, which will help establish effective sales without consequences for other areas of the company?
1. Understanding the current situation
How do you know that now is the time to create a sales department? When the director of the company comes to the conclusion that he can no longer control all sales on his own. Even small businesses, when the market is broad and interesting, need a sales department from the very beginning of the enterprise. The management function is more difficult to delegate at the initial stage compared to sales itself. Therefore, owners usually attract a team of sales managers, which they can manage themselves, acting as a “field commander.”
2. Development of sales department standards (download the list of sales department standards at the end of the article)
An important step in organizing the work of the sales department is the development of standards. The entire work of the company depends on the correct formation of standards. Practice confirms that each sales department employee needs appropriate training in the basic rules of work. With sales department standards, employees can avoid confusion and confusion.
What should the company's sales department standards include:
- introduction of the manager to the company;
- information about the product and customers;
- information on how work with clients should be structured;
- how your company will reward the manager for doing the job and punish him for mistakes.
3. Search and attraction of employees
After determining the standards of sales departments, you should smoothly move on to searching for employees. The first thing to do is to draw up a portrait of the seller who, from your point of view, is ideal for the company. You need to determine whether you plan to rely on young workers full of excitement, or on professionals who have significant experience in your industry and have a perfect understanding of the market: they do not need to be trained, just provided with the tools for the job. Typically, managers and business owners prefer the second option. After all, you won’t need additional time and effort for training.
Pay attention to what kind of sales, “long” or “short”, the candidate can do. Let's look at two examples.
Example 1. Company “N” hired a manager who had previously worked for a large corporation in the sales systems market. The company had a fairly long sales cycle, but the responsibilities of managers were limited to consulting clients, maintaining contacts with them, and supporting transactions. This specialist, who was accepted into company N, faced serious discomfort - there were difficulties with “short” sales, when you need to achieve results in literally 1-2 conversations with the client. As a result, he was transferred to another non-sales position.
Example 2. At company Z, a talented salesman worked on the sales floor. He was able to easily make a first impression, find a common language with the buyer, convincing him to buy a certain product, etc. Then he moved to a B2B company operating in the wholesale market. The manager was lost in this segment: he did not have enough patience to bring sales to completion. After all, he was used to acting quickly, but here a long process with serious preparatory work lay ahead. He was forced to leave this company.
To create a successful sales department, we recommend not taking into account the age and gender of candidates. Age and gender do not affect the ability to sell successfully. Of course, there are exceptions (for example, young people are better at selling youth clothing), but generally successful salesman skills depend on character, but not on age.
The candidate’s portrait must be drawn up taking into account a number of parameters:
- segment of the company's work (b2b or b2c);
- what it sells;
- average deal size;
- duration of the sales cycle;
- functions of sellers, including the obligation to support concluded transactions, availability of business trips, etc.;
- what results the company should provide after a certain time.
16 atypical interview questions for candidates
The General Director magazine has prepared the most non-standard questions for a candidate for a position in your company, with the help of which you can identify the strengths and weaknesses of his character. The best employees are selected in the same way at Google, IKEA and Microsoft.
1. Check the availability of loans. As a rule, the financial difficulties of employees eventually lead to worries for the manager. After all, the employee will be focused not on work, but on his life circumstances. Therefore, ask the applicant about his financial situation, whether he has loans, whether he rents an apartment or owns it, whether he is married or not. The fewer problems in a person’s life, the easier it will be for him to concentrate on work issues.
2. “Sell me a pen.” At the interview, first of all, you need to assess the ability to sell - it is important that the manager is sufficiently decisive, passionate, to a certain extent arrogant, and ready to play. If you hear an offer to sell a pen: “Oh, you know, I can’t handle a pen, I’m used to selling expensive equipment,” this is a bad sign.
3. Train sales managers. It is important for good salespeople to be able to effectively present your company's products and interact well with customers.
4. Trainee Corps. A two-week program for employees to join the sales department works well: they work in the trainee corps. However, this principle differs from an internship, when an employee immediately begins to work. The employee will not only have to become familiar with the product, but also master sales technologies and perform various tasks. It’s better to talk about this right away during the interview.
5. Exchange of experience between sellers. To help your managers improve their skills, you can record their achievements on video, photos, audio, or in text format with a description of best practices. It is important that you stick to your best practices - there is often a strong desire to benefit from the experience of other organizations. But in practice, it is much more effective to learn from your own examples, because they fit the requirements and characteristics of your business.
- Interviewing a job seeker: 7 reliable methods of personnel selection
4. Control and management of the sales department
How to implement sales department standards
- Dose new norms. You should not try to specify everything at once in as much detail as possible. Experience confirms that standards still need to be improved after a certain time. When implementing standards, the root causes of failure should be analyzed.
- Use visual aids. Cheat sheets should be included in the folder describing company standards.
- Assign responsibility for monitoring standards. If the department head is responsible for sales processes, another employee should monitor deviations.
- Determine the frequency of monitoring.
How to identify weaknesses in the sales department
In case of dissatisfaction with the work of the sales department, the existing causes of the problem should be identified. Managers take different approaches to identifying deficiencies in the performance of their salespeople. I will focus on the two most common and effective methods in practice - direct testing and certification.
Direct test
The basis of this method is the “mystery shopper” procedure. A specially trained person approaches the company under the guise of a buyer. Based on the results of such a check, he talks about the deficiencies found. The verification process itself, if the company has a large number of employees, can turn out to be quite lengthy - then employees may guess, and this will lead to ineffective verification. Therefore, this technique will bring effective results when checking only one or three employees of the company.
Certification
Certification has proven itself to be an effective solution for organizations with large sales teams. Sellers and sales department secretaries will have to pass an appropriate exam, which will assess their ability to interact with clients. To certify 5-15 sales employees, one to three days may be enough. These certifications will allow you to determine the theoretical and practical level of employees.
Why do managers perform poorly?
They allocate their working time ineffectively. For an effective sales department, the following indicators are assumed.
The sales manager’s working hours should be organized so that he can hold 8-12 meetings with customers (if he goes to them himself), while making arrangements by phone for the next meetings, preparing the necessary data and materials for communicating with the client. Although the typical average is three meetings per day, it is up to management to identify and eliminate wasted time.
Fundamental distribution of clients between managers. It is necessary to analyze the distribution of clients among the sellers of your company. When classifying clients, the following rules should be followed:
direction of activity;
geographical position.
One tool for different clients. Collaborated with an organization selling hand tools. This company was focused on working with car services and industrial enterprises. Wrenches were only consumables in car service centers, but they were very highly valued in the work of manufacturing enterprises. Sellers were divided into two categories - those working with enterprises and car services. The company managed not only to identify the specific needs and priorities of different categories of customers, but also to formulate an individual pricing policy.
Lack of evaluation criteria. A prerequisite for effective management of the sales department is clear criteria for assessing the activities of this department. Including control of the number of items sold, monthly financial turnover, number of clients, etc.
Secondary benefits for sellers. Poor sales performance may be due to a reluctance to sell. Sometimes it is not profitable for sellers to do quality work. Since the employer, when the seller fulfills the plan for this month, can increase it by the next. This is just one possible example of a secondary benefit for sellers.
Sellers are not always interested in decisions that benefit their company. One company was facing some pretty serious sales problems. The management was unable to correct the situation - there were no clear conditions for product shipments and commercial offers. The sellers stated that this was due to the specifics of the market and it was impossible to correct the situation. But in reality, the whole situation was invented by two employees who lobbied for the interests of their customers.
Errors in the formulation of the final goal. The manager must have a clear goal - positive and measurable. When working with a vague goal (“sell”, “search”, etc.), you often cannot count on a special sales result. It is enough to make changes to the wording (“Sell”, “Find”) to significantly change the situation. Don't criticize employees for failure if they have to work with a non-final goal. There is also your shortcoming here.
- Motivation of sales managers: everything you need to know if you are a sales director
How to get managers to work at 100%
Work organization. The work of your team must be organized so that employees devote 90% of their time to working with the client. All accompanying work (including letters, invoices, documents) can be carried out by less qualified personnel.
Employee competence. Some have a real talent for selling, others require training. To achieve the ideal effect, periodic training and training is required.
Motivation. Even with excellent knowledge and work skills, an employee will not be able to achieve the expected result without proper motivation.
Control of results. Performance monitoring is one of the most important parameters for assessing the work of your employees. Activities in many areas are monitored. The main criterion is whether the results achieved correspond to the plans and how working hours are planned. Everything else is usually additional parameters.
- Also read,
Vadim Morozov K. psycho. PhD, trainer, psychologist of the Association of Business Trainers
Business magazine “Business Key”, No. 5 for 2007
A distinctive sign of the stability of a company selling goods or services on the market is an established sales system. Managers whose business has emerged from the survival zone, acquiring trends of stable development, find it advisable to restore order and create a clear working structure for effective sales.
A corporate book of sales scripts (or standards) is:
- a set of rules and regulations adopted by the corporation;
- a collection of language forms and norms of behavior of a sales representative and seller in the sales process;
- a textbook with theory and practice for sellers of a specific corporation.
Essentially, a corporate sales playbook describes:
a) unique characteristics of the organization that inspire confidence and special favor with the buyer;
b) the peculiarity of the company’s offers for sale on the market, motivating the client;
c) unique characteristics of the product that attract the buyer and arouse his sympathy.
A corporate sales script book is one of the few really working tools for systematizing the sales process in the hands of a manager. Thanks to the book of sales scenarios, a manager can, without involving external resources, optimize the sales system and, accordingly, increase the company’s profit.
|
Product: corporate sales script book |
||
|
Properties |
Advantages |
Benefit for the client |
|
A distinctive sign of the company’s stability in the market today is its well-established sales system. A sales script book is a product that allows you to systematize the sales process. |
Not a chaotic and random construction of the sales process, but order, structure and system at the basis of building sales effectiveness. |
Business processes are optimized and profits are increased using internal resources, without investing additional funds. |
|
The standards for appearance, preparation for contact with a client, maintaining a client base, product presentation, handling objections, and working with documentation are described. |
1) The mentor to whom the new salesperson is assigned does not subjectively describe the sales processes, the way he wants and how he imagines it, but according to developed standards. 2) Mentors do not need every time |
The time for adaptation and introduction of a new salesperson into the workplace is reduced by 30-50%. |
|
Knowledge of sales standards. |
In contrast to the situation when everyone searches for and establishes sales methods based on personal experience, the organization develops standards that are common to all employees and unique in the market. |
It is possible to form and maintain a corporate culture, and to convey the perception of this culture to the market through sellers. And this forms not a random, but a thoughtful image of the company. |
|
Sales standards and rules collected in one place. |
As a rule, you have to collect them piece by piece from different “leftist” sources. |
A training program is clearly built, based on well-known sales standards and rules, and an understandable procedure for assessing and certifying sellers is being prepared for everyone. |
Direct benefits received by an organization in the presence of a book of sales standards are as follows:
1. In sales - order and clarity.
- Availability of work standards that are clear and transparent to all sales department employees.
- The client has a unified perception of the company, regardless of the manager working with him.
2. In the selection and adaptation of sales department specialists - efficiency and time saving.
- Clear criteria for recruiting new employees - the risk of recruiting the “wrong” specialists is reduced, and this saves costs on filling a vacancy.
- Quick adaptation of new employees to work; quick start to productive work; There is no need to distract leading employees from their current work.
- When choosing a training program, the presence of methodological material and nothing superfluous.
- Clear criteria for selecting training exercises to develop the skills of sales specialists.
- Investments in personnel training are becoming more predictable in terms of return.
- Availability of detailed methodological support, which allows training of sales department personnel without the involvement of a trainer, and this saves on paying for hired specialists.
Interested in creating a book of sales standards:
- the head of an organization for whom the book of sales scenarios is an internal corporate regulatory document that defines sales standards in his company;
- the immediate head of a sales department or unit, for whom the book of sales scenarios is a set of sales norms and rules that create conditions for training, motivating and monitoring employees;
- sellers, sales representatives, sales managers, for whom the book of sales scenarios is the “corporate sales bible”, a textbook with theory and practice, analysis of difficult cases and answers to the most pressing questions;
- HR manager who is interested in the fact that thanks to the book of sales scenarios, the time for adaptation and introduction of a new employee into the workplace is reduced;
- a training manager (or an employee involved in training sellers), who, based on the standards and rules of sales known to everyone in the company, can clearly build a training program, as well as prepare a procedure for assessing and certifying sellers that is understandable to everyone.
Contents of the corporate sales playbook
Here's an example of a one-page corporate sales script book. This is a page from the “Presentation” section. Cliché phrases for product presentation.” This page is created based on well-known technology used to train salespeople at sales training “Properties + benefits + connecting phrase + benefits.”
Section 1.
Preparation for sales and communication with the client. Subsections:
1.1. Seller's appearance. Corporate identity, clothing and shoes, personal hygiene, accessories and jewelry.
1.2. Sources of information about the client. Client database card file: key clients, actual clients, promising clients, probable clients, potential clients.
1.3. Client information sheets. Constant sources of information about the client, operational sources of information about the client in a certain period.
1.4. Meeting scenario planning form.
1.5. Sales plan for a certain period.
Section 2.
Telephone negotiations. Subsections:
2.1. Standards for conducting telephone conversations.
2.2. Cliche phrases when communicating with a client on the phone.
2.3. Working techniques for bypassing the “secretary barrier”.
Section 3.
Establishing contact. Subsections:
3.1. The influence of nonverbal messages.
3.2. Standards for establishing verbal contact.
Section 4.
Collection of information. Identifying client needs. Subsections:
4.1. Cliché questions used to identify client needs.
4.2. Active listening cliché.
Section 5.
Presentation and handling of objections. Subsections:
5.1. Unique competitive advantages of the company.
5.2. Facts that arouse interest and respect for the company.
5.3. Unique competitive advantages of the offer (for the proposed group of products).
5.4. Successful examples (statistics, sources), product presentation metaphors.
5.5. Product presentation cliché.
5.6. Product presentation cliche card.
5.7. Translating a question, doubt, objection into a need.
5.8. Standard for the seller to deal with doubts and objections.
5.9. Cliche phrases of frequently asked questions by customers and possible answers to them.
Section 6.
Completion of the transaction, sale of goods. Subsections:
6.1. Cliche phrases about agreeing on subsequent actions.
6.2. Cliche phrases at the stage of completing a contact.
6.3. Standards for working with accounts receivable.
Section 7.
Job descriptions. Subsections:
7.1. Job description of a sales representative.
7.2. Job Description for Sales Manager.
Section 8.
Working with primary accounting documents. Subsections:
8.1. Procedure for concluding an agreement.
8.2. Issuing a delivery note (signing a certificate of completion of work).
8.3. Sample contracts.
Since a sales playbook is a unique product of an organization, its structure and content vary depending on the nature of the company's sales policy.
Creating a corporate sales playbook
In its most general form, creating a sales playbook takes three steps. Firstly, decision-making and planning by managers and sellers of the project to create a book, secondly, collecting information for the book and, thirdly, documenting the materials.
Today, the company usually has experienced salespeople with sales practice, competent managers who have attended many trainings and seminars. Therefore, with persistence, great desire and diligence, you can create a corporate book of sales scenarios yourself, without resorting to the participation of external consultants. However, if there is an understanding that there are moments in which the presence of a consultant, trainer or moderator is important, you can invite him to one of the stages of the program. The author also offers a special guide to creating a corporate sales script book, which simplifies the process and reduces the time it takes to write it.
The first important thing to do is to decide to create a sales playbook. Realizing that its creation will require from one to several months of work on its creation with further support. It is necessary for one of the managers to take responsibility for managing the implementation of such a project. The most interested parties are the HR manager and the immediate head of the sales department. It is possible to recruit a support group from among experienced sellers. The book is created in small but consistent steps. Little by little, collecting information in questionnaires, interviews, and conversations with each group of competent sources. The book can be created in large blocks, using intensive groups: brainstorming, training, meetings. And, of course, these methods can be combined.
It is important to remember that a corporate book of sales scripts is a “living book”, and not a second-hand book or gift edition that can be pushed into a desk or put on a shelf and forgotten. The book of sales scenarios is constantly updated with newly gained experience in interaction with clients and customers, from trainings and seminars. The pages of the book are constantly adjusted, improved, and updated. And the book itself is a working tool, popular literature, current news with an exciting plot. Once you start writing this book, it is impossible to stop with a growing and developing business.
The “Business Help” project, in which assistance to small businesses is carried out through an analysis of the real difficulties of specific organizations. In this article, Maria Shushkova, director of the training company Center-Profi, tells how a corporate sales standard should be created.
Formulation of the problem: Individual entrepreneur Igor Iofin, in 6 years, has turned his business supplying food products for catering establishments and hotels into one of the best in Vologda. The number of personnel under his command is 30 people. “Since 2008, our organization has been providing representatives of the Vologda ferrets with food,” says Igor Zinovievich. — Almost all sales managers have been working since the foundation of the organization. A professional team of managers works with clients: they are competent in the product, the needs of Vologda clients, and the market of food manufacturers. Now is the time to expand into new markets, so the sales team is moving from a customer service standard to a proactive sales standard. This is a serious change for the staff: previously the manager was focused on telephone conversations with already won clients, but now he has a plan for personal visits to new “cold” clients. Managers have concerns, since visiting “cold” clients is a new job for them.” Thus, the manager needs to develop and implement a new sales standard in the sales department.
Expert commentary. Each company intuitively and each has its own understanding of how the process of interaction with a client should be organized so that he is satisfied and chooses the company over others. However, it is important to remember that self-perception and the outside view are not the same thing. Therefore, first of all, to develop a standard in a company, it is necessary to study its own “cold” client, his needs and expectations from cooperation.
But before developing a sales standard, a manager needs to understand why he is doing this. What management task he decides first of all.
Here is a list of some quite “feasible” tasks for sales standards.
Standards provide a general understanding of the sales process and an agreement on how to act in a given situation. Here's a practical example. In one of the trading companies, managers were asked to describe the technology for working with a personal application and the process that the sales department manager should carry out. From five managers we heard five (!) completely different technology options and criteria for evaluating this work. Needless to say, the company was faced with the fact that the deadlines for completing personalized applications were constantly missed, and the clients who used this service were extremely dissatisfied.
Standards prevent common human errors. So, if the company does not have a clear rule that the manager must introduce himself and say hello first when accepting an incoming call, he will not do this.
Standards provide reliability and controllability of sales results. For example, when your company’s documents specify how the presentation of a particular product should take place, you can be sure that clients will hear the necessary information, and not what the manager comes up with on the fly. In addition, by prescribing a standard for interaction between a manager and a client, you remove the objections of staff regarding new and not yet established work for them: “Selling is hard, so take it and try it,” “We did everything possible,” “This will not bring results.” …" and so on.
When developing a standard, like any other corporate document, you should ensure that it is easily understood by the “end user”—the company employee. Therefore, it is of particular importance sales department presentation structure.
It may be different. Often a sales standard is created based on checklist— a questionnaire containing parameters related to the quality of interaction with the client. Such parameters that must be fulfilled by company managers may include:
Establishing contact: compliance with the rules of business etiquette, customer focus, mastery of dialogue techniques, etc.;
Identifying client needs: active listening skills, effective feedback, etc.;
Product offer: orientation in the company’s products/services, mastery of techniques for translating their properties into benefits for the client, etc.;
Working with objections: mastery of relevant technologies, ability to predict possible objections, etc.;
Closing the sale: knowledge of methods of influencing further interaction with the client, the ability to strengthen the client’s confidence in the validity of his choice.
Core values of the company;
Principles of the company's work with clients;
Corporate standards (appearance of sales managers, the process of personal selling or the process of negotiating with clients over the phone, maintaining and developing relationships with clients, interaction between sales department employees and between other departments, document flow and work with information).
Stages of development and implementation. Since there are no “standards for writing standards,” we can only outline the necessary (mandatory) steps for creating and implementing a standard.
1. Analysis of the characteristics of the product, customers, competitors. At this stage, it is important to form two types of visions: a vision of the “ideal” organization as a whole and a vision of the “ideal” work of the manager at each meeting with the client. To do this, a survey-conversation with regular customers is conducted (What do they expect from the company? What kind of service?) and interviews with the company’s managers, as well as with the most successful employees (How do they achieve such results?), an assessment is given of the current level of service, including from competitors (for example, using “secret client” technology).
2. Development of a service standard. Writing a document called “Sales Standard” can be done either “from scratch”, i.e. directly during a joint discussion with representatives of interested departments, or first instruct the initiative group to develop a draft document and then discuss it jointly.
As a rule, in the first case, a work session (seminar, training) is organized, during which employees are involved and independently create a document and formulate the necessary norms of behavior. In the second case, a session can also be held at which the draft text proposed by the working group or external experts is discussed, criticized, and corrected. It is important that everyone agrees with what is written in the standard, because after approval, each employee will have to follow the new rules.
3. Implementation of the standard. In order for implementation to be as effective as possible, this work must be carried out systematically and consistently, and sufficient time must be allocated for it (with the right approach, the full implementation of standards can take about 6 months).
This stage includes informing employees about the introduction of standards, explaining to them new procedures and rules, conducting training on the implementation of standards (or training in the “field” mode).
An important element of the final stage is the organization of control, because what is not controlled is not executed.
Thus, to ensure the quality of active sales, managers must: know, what and how to do, be able to do it, want do this, understand that the quality of their work is regularly controlled and is evaluated (ideally, both by the company’s management and by clients).
Express test
In order to understand whether there is an urgent need in your company to develop and implement a personnel performance standard, answer “yes” or “no” to the questions:
1.
In your company, sales occur “randomly” depending on the mood of the employees (there are no formalized
official rules)?
2
. Is it difficult for you to describe how you want to see the sales process in your company?
3.
Employees in your organization are confused: who is responsible for what in customer service and company promotion?
4.
Are you seeing signs of staff demotivation due to fatigue caused by disruptions in customer service?
5
. In 90% of cases, does your staff choose the easy, but low-quality way to solve a work problem, which affects the quality of the service and the appearance of a flood of complaints from clients?
If more than three questions received a positive answer, then the need to develop and implement standards can be considered high.
