Understanding the difference between sales process and sales methodology can be confusing as they often get mixed up. In order to maximize the effectiveness of your sales team it is important that you not only understand the difference between the two, but how each improves sales performance in different ways. In this blog post I'm going to help you determine, which does your team need, sales process or sales methodology?
In this blog post I'm going to share with you how and why you should build your sales methodology around buyer journey, qualification criteria.
Before I launched Menemsha Group and before I was promoted into management I was a sales rep selling IT staffing and consulting services. I did it for about seventeen years. That's right, I pounded the phone day in and day out. I wouldn't have considered myself the most talented rep. In fact, I would say that my internal reputation with my peers was built on my work ethic and persistence. I think I mostly outworked my competitors but I don't believe my approach (early on anyway) was the most sophisticated. Making 100+ dials a day and converting 3-5 new sales leads every day was standard operating procedure, all while managing my existing book of business. But I always had a fire in my belly to figure out a better way, a more effective way to get better sales results from the time and energy I was already putting in.
I've written consistently about the need for IT staffing firms to adopt a sales methodology to build a scalable sales organization and accelerate growth. With a sales methodology, your IT staffing firm will be able to accelerate new hire onboarding, getting new reps selling productively faster, according to your proven playbook. A sales methodology will bring consistency to how your team sells, eliminating wild performance deviations and night-and-day differences between branches.
You’re fully convinced a sales methodology can help your IT staffing firm scale . You know that getting all your reps to follow the same sales methodology will drive consistent, repeatable performance. You understand it will allow your firm to bring new reps on board faster and more effectively and accelerate time to quota attainment.
There are dozens of different sales methodologies out there. Many however are “one-size-fits-all.” They’re not customized for the product or service you sell or the industry you sell to — not to mention your ideal buyer personas and the buyer's journey.
The majority of the fastest growing IT staffing companies use a sales methodology. And the majority of those firms built their sales methodology from them the ground up . But you don’t have to do that because the hard work has already been done for you.
Do you know what makes you such a great salesperson? If you had to teach someone to replicate your success, could you? (If you’re not a great salesperson, think about the highest performer on your IT staffing firm’s sales team.)
Sales and sales methodology enthusiasts like me may be guilty of sometimes letting ourselves get swept up in our enthusiasm for our topic. We might forget that the terminology we use — while necessary for explaining important concepts — can be confusing. We throw around words like “sales process” and “sales methodology” without slowing down to clearly define the subtle yet critical differences between them.
Do any of the following characterize your IT staffing firm’s sales organization?