In my experience, having worked with hundreds of different salespeople and businesses I’ve found that there are steps that they have to go through if they want to be at the top of their game. I think of these as levels on a ladder, which the higher you are, the better results you get.
So, today we are going to be talking about the five levels of the sales conversion ladder. It doesn’t matter if your business has a proven, and refined sales process or if it hasn’t. These levels apply anyway, the thing is though, if you want to keep moving forward and reach the highest one there are some things you need to know.
We can say that the bottom of the ladder is precisely the lack of a sales process. This might sound strange, how can a business be profitable if there is no documented, structured sales process?
Well, you may be surprised. In fact, I was talking to a guy that runs a business networking group and he did a survey with three hundred and seventy small business members in Western Australia and he found that only six percent of those people actually had a sales growth plan.
As you can see it is a very common practice, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good one. Just imagine how the implementation of a well-thought plan could help any of these businesses become more profitable.
Another common situation I’ve seen is that many times, customers buy from a business in spite of the process rather than because it helps them find a solution in the best possible way. Making sure you provide a solution to the customer’s needs while making them feel invited to come back with you again is a sign of a good sales process structure.
But difficulties do not apply only to customers, sometimes salespeople have to work harder than they should to actually make a sale.
Let’s visualize a particular situation. If a member of the staff relies mostly on his computer to generate sales but it is no longer working as it should, this person could refer the issue to the IT department. However, if the company’s policy says that a computer should only be replaced until it is broken the worker will be stuck with malfunctioning equipment delaying the process and forcing him or her to work harder for the same results.
Here is where the importance of these levels resides, by taking care of the fundamental things you can make sure you and your team work your way up to the highest level. You can pretty much move from one level to the next if you treat leads correctly, which obviously means that you have a plan worked out that lets you know how to act in every scenario.
But don’t think that because your business is small or because you have no idea where to start you’ll find this impossible. Another thing I’ve learned throughout the years is that even if a business is completely disorganized, static, or if it has lost its focus there is still massive opportunity to increase its profitability and to help others. If your business exists to help people with the solution that you’ve got there’s a massive opportunity to help even more people.
If we think about it, optimizing your organization and building your way up the ladder is not only beneficial for your business. It also pushes stress and complications away because the structure will provide a way of making sales that is friendlier to you, your customers, and your team.
So, if you want to know what the other levels are and what to do in every one of them to get the best results I encourage you to listen to this week’s podcast. I’m sure you’ll find it very useful.
To DOUBLE your lead-to-sale CONVERSION with the leads you already have, go to http://JohnBlakeAudio.com for his exclusive, free, no-fluff, audio training and companion PDF guide.
Inside you’ll get word-for-word email followup templates, phone scripts, and more that you can put to use today.
