There are many nearly successful companies, who have great goals and ambitions like you, however encounter many problems. Some of the key issues that they may be facing are as follows;

• The sales team is converting less than 10% of opportunities into sales.
• There is no process for lead qualification and many leads are falling through the cracks.
• The sales team is not following defined sales processes.
• There is a lack of adequate sales management.
• There is no measurement of Key Performance Indicators.
• There is no consistent format for pricing proposals being used.
• There is no process to gauge customer satisfaction levels.
• There is no process to gather customer testimonials.
• There is no process to obtain customer referrals.
• It is not clear what leads are generated by the marketing spend.

Do any of these seem familiar? Could you improve anything and grow your business?

Even though you may have designed the best sales process in the world, too often there is a disconnect between sales, marketing and customers, which leads to disharmony and many prospects turning to your competitors.

You probably know already that if you can get the whole sales team to consistently follow best practices, your sales revenue will increase dramatically.

The one common trait that all successful sales people seem to share is that they seem to hate and are particularly bad about paperwork, but who cares anyway? You care and so do your customers. If sales people find it easier to prepare a proposal and mange their time based on a system that you give them, they will use it.

However, the most important factor of all in getting sales people buy-in to any new sales process or system is to ask them to help you design it. If they feel they have created a process that makes their life easier, and enables them to earn more money – they will use it. And you all win.

Now think what needs to be done to have the process you’ve just designed introduced in your company. Outline your plan.

You can use the following hints:

• Ask sales people what they are doing currently
• Ask customers what could be improved  from their point of view
• Search for an online/offline sales software that would make it all transparent and easy to use
• Start paying commissions to sales people based on the data they enter into the system
• Etc.

Since the dawn of free trading only two things have ever mattered; producing a quality product or service and the ability to sell it successfully. By successfully, I mean ensuring that you achieve maximum profit from the sale, while the customer is delighted with their purchase. In most cases the Business owner understands what they need to produce, but more often that not rely on someone with sales skills to sell it.

Would you know a good sales person from a bad one?

While many company founders realize that they may not have the requisite sales skills, would they be able to recognize and hire someone who could sell? It is a recognised fact that four times as many business fail due to poor salesmanship, rather than poor products. Can you afford an other Sales person, based on the margins of what you intend to sell?

Click here to learn more about Interviewing Sales People in Ireland.

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