Lean Into to the Sales Process - Jeremy Gray

Jeremy Gray - "Practical Solutions to Difficult Problems"

Sales employees are expensive – salaries, incentives, bonuses, expense accounts and often a company car. And yet sadly they are unable to optimize their time selling because the sales process is broken, they spend time on non value added activities – waste in the terminology of lean. So let’s take a look at how techniques originally developed for operations or manufacturing can improve your sales operation.

Value stream mapping is an important tool for achieving continuous improvement of the way you work. The main benefits of value stream mapping are:

• It allows you to visualize and structure your process.
• It helps you optimize the way you deliver value to your customers.
• It helps you identify the process steps with the greatest significance

5S leads to an  organized environment that is a productive and safe working environment.

The 5 S methodology was introduced by Toyota. The Ss stand for: Sort, Set in order, shine, standardize and sustain. Applying 5S to the sales process will result in

• Reduced costs
• Higher quality
• Increased productivity
• Greater employee satisfaction
• A safer work environment

Lead qualification:
Identify your customers profile. Not everyone out there is a potential customer, for each product or service you offer there are primary customers who are an ideal fit for your product or service and secondary customers who may be interested in your offering but are not the ideal target

Understanding your customers needs using tools such as:

• BANT: Budget Authority Need Timeline
• CHAMP Challenges Authority Money Prioritization

Lead Nurturing:

• Longer buying cycles as customers research alternatives
• Keep the customer warm by:
• Sending valuable content
• Personalized e-mails
• Telephone calls
• Do not become a spammer

PDCA is the backbone of lean and continuous improvement and can be applied to almost any aspect of business. It’s its cyclical nature that results in continuous improvement, you keep repeating the cycle getting better each time. How can you use this in your business?

​

F3.11.3AA