Frictionless Selling Framework: 1 Enable, 2 Align, 3 Transform.
These are 3 phases and you must go through them in order: there is no transformation (3) without aligning your team with the target buyers (2), and there is no alignment with buyer without a well organised and focused sales team (1).
- 1 Enable your team to spend more time selling:
- focus on getting better leads, not more leads
- remove administrative tasks
- one system with a lot of automation, instead of dozens of tools not working together
- team work, not siloed work
- prioritization: who to call first? who to call next? where’s the focus? this should be done automatically, sales representatives shouldn’t lose time searching for what to do next.
- go from being blind to being well informed about your leads
- focus on the best leads, stop the “spray and pray” calling everybody
- How to enable frictionless sales:
- identify all the tools used,
- eliminate duplicates
- observe how a day of a sales team work
- what are the pain points
- how to become more efficient
- remove administrative work
- how long does it take for a sales rep to complete key tasks
- how much times sales rep really spend connecting with customers?
- identify things that can be automated
- 2 Align your team with your target buyer
- buyer should be able contact sales reps outside of working hours
- buyer should be able to book a meeting in one click, not 5 back and forth emails
- sales team should be transparent with prices and discounts: no time lost with negociations
- buyer should easily buy and cancel, don’t force long term commitment
- the buyer wants to be in control
- 3 Transform your team through a culture of learning
- sales team should learn, grow, improve
- no more spreadsheets: only live synchronised data
- be consistent
- manager should focus on coaching, not reporting
- write playbooks and training, don’t let new sales rep alone
- sales team also accountable for the after sale
- How to transform frictionless sales
- sales team should easily access data
- train the sales rep, old and new, they should stay up to date
- help reps to learn from each other
- prepare competitive battle cards, best practices
- have an eye on customer retention
- what’s the rep productivity and happiness?
- are reps confident and satisfied with their job?
Turn sales reps into experts, make them learn more, coach them, analyse, what are the frictions, are they happier, are our customers happier and more willing to purchase from us?
Analyse:
- time to complete main tasks
- time to communicate with customers
- time to sell to customers
- sales goal achieved
If the goal was not better achieved than before, then the quest to remove friction is just at its beginning.
How to align with the buyer: focus on the buyer’s journey. The buyer’s journey is how a buyer searches actively for a solution to a problem and finally purchases.
But for a sales team, the journey is : prospect, demo, close. A buyer doesn’t care about that. A buyer wants education, support, guide helping him through his buying process.
The buyer’s journey consists of 3 phases:
- awareness phase: buyer becomes aware of his problem
- consideration phase: buyer looks for a solution
- decision phase: buyer decides to purchase your service
Sales process is typically:
- identify a lead
- the “identify phase”
- get as much info as possible from the lead
- prioritize on the best leads
- connect with the lead
- how to track conversation with lead
- make it easy for lead to contact sales rep
- make it easy to book a meeting
- explore the lead’s needs
- advise the lead how solve his problem
BANT framework: budget, authority, need, timeline: not a good qualification framework for the explore phase.
Instead, the sales rep is giving an expert consultation, helps the buyer understand if the service proposed is the right solution, and enables both the buyer and the sales rep if there is a match or not. Feels like dating.
Advice phase: reps prepare personalized presentation. The buyer has already found a lot of information himself. Job of sales rep is to show to buyer how the service propose is a great match for the unique need of the buyer.
What a sales rep should not say:
- who we are
- who we work with
- what you the buyer told me
- how our service solves your buyer problem
Sales rep should focus on providing value, not talking about his own company. Sales rep should be a good advisor, not somebody just pitching the services of the company.
What a sales rep should say:
- this is what you the buyer told me
- this is how most people like you solve this problem
- these are the pros and cons of each options to solve this problem
- this is the approach that seems to generate the best result for you
- this is why this option makes the most sense for you
- this is how we can help
Transform is all about learning and coaching.
GROW coaching model stands for
- Goal
- which goal the rep wants to achieve?
- rep should know his own numbers and compare them with the team overall
- ask rep where they want to improve:
- increase new leads?
- improve close rate?
- quantify, time: how many sales? for when?
- Reality
- where is the sales rep right now?
- what’s the goal?
- is the goal realistic?
- make sure the first 2 steps of frictionless sales are achieved: enable and align: you need reliable numbers if you want your sales rep to face the truth about his sales and his buyer’s needs
- how sales rep spends time?
- how sales rep meets prospects needs?
- Option
- what are the options to get where the sales rep wants to go?
- Way Forward
- if rep knows where he is, where he wants to go, and how he wants to get there, what will he do to make it happen?
- new habits?
- new skills?
- listen to the rep, once decisions taken, how can you help?
- sales leader should create sales playbooks
Coach should support sales reps and hold them accountable.
One-on-one meetings with reps: at least on a monthly basis. In general manager should spend a minimum of half an hour with each sales rep per week, 2 hours per week would be best.
Also encourage team members to coach each other. Once a month listen to recorded meetings together. Share tips and tricks.
Pipeline meeting: review all potential sales they are currently working on.