How To Optimise Your Sales Process To Increase Profits
Major Points of the Podcast
In order to optimize your sales process you need to create a repeatable structure.
The process will vary based on whether it is a brick-and-mortar business or a digital business.
You should look to collect data throughout the sales process in order to find ways to optimize it.
Through optimization, you can save more than 10hrs a week, which can be better spent on other tasks to help grow your business.
Within your business, you most likely have all the different departments such as marketing, fulfillment, human resources, and more. But if you don't, you most likely have a small business with only a few employees, with those employees having shared responsibilities.
Either way, in order to grow your business, you will need to optimize your processes in order to increase speed, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. One such process is your sales process and by improving this process you will be able to increase:
your sales volume
the average value per transaction
the customers' satisfaction and expectations
the repeat purchase rate (essentially they come back to you more often)
How To Structure Your Sales Process
In structuring your sales process there are 3 key phases that need to be considered.
The first one is the discovery phase. This is the point where people have become aware that you exist and they are learning about what you do, what you offer, and how you will be able to help them. In order to increase the chances of them moving to the next phase, you should listen to their pain points and work towards establishing a rapport so that you can build trust.
The second phase is the structuring phase. With the trust from the previous phase, you can now demonstrate that your business has the correct product or service that helps to address their problems. You will then be able to structure/bundle your products and services together so that their problem is addressed in its entirety.
The last phase is the cost pricing system. This is where you will work out a price that is both satisfactory for yourself and also for the client/customer. Essentially, you need to be able to make profits, and the client/customer will be able to afford it.
***To listen to the full podcast - simply press the play button below***
The Two Types of Processes
Now the above 3-phase process is the general structure of what a sales process should look like. However, you must consider that there are two sub-categories for this and they have slight differences between them.
The first of the two is for "Brick-and-Mortar" businesses. These are businesses that have a physical location often providing a product or service right away, such as a grocery store, a burger joint, a clothing store, and more... With these types of businesses usually, there is a script of how they speak to the customer such as "welcome to our store, just letting you know we are having a 10% off sale today", and alike.
The most popular and well-known process for a brick-and-mortar store is from McDonald's... "Hello, let me know when you are ready to order".... then "would you like fries and a drink with your burger", and so on... By Mcdonald's introducing this script and adding in the upsell, the average price per sale increases by as much as 10%, and that is a great markup just for adding one question to the sales process.
The second of the two is for "Digital" businesses. These are businesses that can also have a brick-and-mortar presence, but in this case, the sales process is performed online. In this situation, you will need to consider how you can psychologically connect with the visitor to your website. This can be through the written words on the page (the copy), the email marketing that follows after, and even in some instances, a follow-up phone call or text message.
Essentially in this process, there is no, to extremely limited, face-to-face communication, meaning it has to be through the written word and through carefully sequenced and connected web pages.
The Two Levels of Tickets
When structuring your sales process you must consider that there are two types of tickets and these are low-ticket items and high-ticket items.
What is meant by this is low-ticket items usually do not sell at a high price, and often have a high level of repeat purchasing such as a skincare range, a petrol station, and more... Which translates into some general rules of what to expect. These are:
the customer is quick to make a decision and buy
the sales process is short
it usually does not require a high level of relationship building
the product or service is delivered fast
And then, in terms of the high-ticket items, these are sold at a high price, and often are once-off purchases such as a car, medical equipment for a clinic, and more... In this instance, it translates into different general rules of what to expect. These are:
the customer is slow in making a decision and will consider your many competitors
the sales process is long, sometimes going into years
it requires a high level of relationship-building and trust
the product or service is (sometimes) delivered slowly or over a long period of time
How Do You Improve And Optimise Your Sales Process
So largely, this article has discussed the structure of what a sales process should look like and in order to improve yours, and optimize it, you should consider all of the following:
If you haven't already, structure and write down your sales process. By writing the process down you will be able to communicate it effectively to all of your staff, creating the "this is how we do business" mentality.
From there, you should then practice through roleplay. Get your sales team (and the other people involved in the process) to act it out. This will allow them to become comfortable with the process and even in some instances help you to find ways to improve it.
During the implementation of your sales process, you should collect data to test and measure the efficiency of the sales process. Just make sure you know what you are testing first, be it the percentage of sales from visitors, volume of sales for a particular product, and more...
And, this is the last one, which is to automate where you can. By automating a process you can essentially increase your efficiency saving you time and money. In fact, if you were to use a CRM system you can save more than 10 hrs a week through the automated steps.
What Does Your Sales Process Look Like?
Is it structured, written, communicated, tested, and continually optimized? If not, then you are leaving money on the table and you are missing out on collecting more profits. This can be in the millions or even 10s of millions. So if you are needing help in this area you should consider the team at Paradelta Strategy. They have helped people like yourself to triple profits in as little as 1 year, as well as helping their clients in many other areas to grow.
They are a business strategy and brand equity-building company that specialises in reviewing and improving your business. Over the years, we have helped businesses across Australia to grow and expand, nationally and internationally, and grow significantly in profits. To get assistance with your business, simply email us at hello@paradeltastrategy.com.au or schedule a no-obligation discovery call here.
