Sales standardization can help enterprises solve different problems at different stages, such as improving efficiency, achieving refined operations, and so on. So, what is the right situation for sales standardization? What strategies can be followed for the implementation of sales standardization?
The full text is divided into three chapters, including "Entropy Reduction Growth Strategy", "Is it troublesome to land?" "How to get funnel management? 》。
1. Entropy reduction growth strategy
If there is no goal promotion and planning constraints, many things are easy to be shelved, shrunk or even disappear; If there are no external forces, consciousness, like the environment, will spontaneously move from order to disorder.
This is the law of increasing entropy in thermodynamics, and if we want everything to be orderly, then we have to constantly reduce entropy.
1. What is the relationship between normalization and entropy reduction?
When you see this picture, what are the key words that come to mind, orderly to chaotic? With content or without content? Focus on the distraction?
This is the law of entropy increase proposed by a German named Clausius in 1854: in a closed system, heat always flows from hot objects to low temperatures, from order to disorder.
What is entropy? Entropy is the chaotic state of a closed system, and more and more chaotic is an increase in entropy, and more and more orderly is a decrease in entropy.
What does it have to do with me? Chaos leads to inefficiency, and most of what we do in real life and work is to do things related to "entropy reduction" for ourselves or for the company's operation.
What exactly has been done or what characteristics have been obtained, that is, "entropy reduction"?
For example, in the diagram above, after "entropy reduction", a clear process is formed, forming letters, straightening letters, sorting as needed, presenting words, so as to express the meaning of "entropy".
For example, what we are going to talk about today, standardized sales, after "entropy reduction", a clear sales process under the new purchase scenario is formed, "customer acquisition-verification portrait-invitation visit-N visits-transaction", and a clear customer funnel is formed "clues-target customers-intent customers-high intentions-paying customers"...
Concentrate; The following discussion scenarios are mainly from the SaaS field, and partners in various fields or industries are welcome to correct and discuss.
2. What problems does sales standardization specifically solve?
Sales standardization includes the standardization of sales process and talent development, and solves different problems at different stages:
- From the 0-1 stage: find the standard play and get it verified.
- From stages 1 to 10: Ensure that everyone in the entire combat team can fight and win battles, that is, improve efficiency.
- From the 10-100 stage: when the individual combat capability is improved and stabilized, the overall business capability will be replicated to ensure that the tailwind situation can be quickly deployed and occupy the key points, that is, large-scale growth.
- From 100-10 X stages: to ensure that when the headwind situation or the key points can be defended, steady and steady, that is, refined operation.
Further dismantling, what indicators do we need to get at the three levels of efficiency improvement, large-scale growth, and refined operation? Take the empirical data of the SaaS industry as an example:
Performance Improvements:
- Goal: Have a clear and unified sales process SOP; The per capita production capacity has increased from 2 to 3; 3. The proportion of manpower with more than one order capacity has been increased to more than 60%;
- Path: 60-80% of the sales actions and skills are unified to ensure that the actions can be replicated, the process is funnel, the results are predictable, and the per capita efficiency is improved;
- Action: The standardization of the sales process in the early stage and the standardization of talent training after the SOP is mature.
How do you grow at scale?
- Goal: Performance-oriented; Have a clear recruitment portrait and training plan; Ensure that the production capacity of 3 orders or more continues to grow to meet the needs of performance growth (e.g., more than 40% growth per year);
- Path: Reduce the requirements for recruitment portraits through the standardization of the sales process, and achieve manpower growth and overall production capacity growth by casting a wide net and sweeping the sand;
- Action: Business relayout + standardization, continuous iteration according to business layout.
How to achieve refined operations?
- Goal: Profit-oriented, profit model correct; That is, unit human efficiency > = per capita cost, including sales system breakeven, sales system + middle and back office breakeven;
- Path: Achieve profit growth through budget planning, organizational design and strategy implementation;
- Action: Business focus and standardization + organization streamlining and stabilization.
3. What exactly does sales standardization include?
4. What is suitable for sales standardization?
There are two questions here, is it worth standardizing sales for any business? At what stage of the company's development should it standardize sales?
First of all, to answer the first question, the business of sales standardization needs to have at least two preconditions, and the lack of any one will make standardization twice as effective or even wasted:
- Customer scenario needs can be met by standardized products;
- The business is not complicated (you can use 1-2 phone calls or face-to-face interviews to clarify the needs and explain the plan), and the customer unit price is not high (generally within 60,000);
At what stage is the development of a business with standardized conditions suitable for sales standardization? (Here is a quote from Mr. Wu Hao's entrepreneurial roadmap for analysis)
1) Initiate the standardization of the sales process:
Qualitative: Generally, in the late stage of the validation stage, when it is necessary to prepare for marketing expansion, it is necessary to start the standardization of the sales process;
Quantitative: There are sales and a total of 3 orders are opened in a row (the order cycle is 0.5-1 month);
2) Start the standardization of talent training:
Qualitative: Generally, in the middle and late stages of the marketing stage, after the standardization of the sales process has been fully verified and feasible, it is necessary to start the standardization of talent training;
Quantitative: The standardized sales process can cover 60%-80% of the sales group.
The picture quotes Wu Hao - SaaS Entrepreneurship Roadmap
2. Is it troublesome to land?
Continuing from the previous article "Sales Standardization - Entropy Reduction Growth Strategy", this article will be based on the customer funnel to describe the specific standardized content of sales funnel, sales action, management action, and training action, as well as the specific landing plan suggestions and problems that will be encountered in it.
The overall implementation needs the underlying support of the content, the assistance of tools and the promotion of management. This article focuses on the content and landing, and the next article will start from the sales process management at the management level, and specifically talk about sales funnel management.
1. Standardize content
Annotation:
1. This standardized content is applicable to the direct sales model of TOB business, and telemarketing can be streamlined and fine-tuned in combination with actual business scenarios;
2. The process management (i.e., business opportunity management) after the implementation of the standardized process needs to clarify the different stages, stage definitions and actions, which can be increased or decreased according to the actual management requirements, see the third part - sales process management for details;
3. You can choose the customer funnel stage or the sales funnel stage for business opportunity management, the order cycle of the telemarketing and direct sales model is relatively short, and the sales stage is relatively flexible (maybe 1-2 times to meet and complete multiple stages), and you can use customer funnel + sales action for business opportunity management; The sales model of large customers has a long order cycle, a long and detailed customer decision-making link, and a relatively solid sales stage, and the sales funnel can be used for business opportunity management;
4. Recruitment involves talent portraits, recruitment and retention funnels, which are not directly related to customer funnels and are not shown in the figure.
2. How to land
Landing principle:
- Only one problem is solved in one stage: starting from the core focus at the beginning, and gradually bringing out the whole process after forming;
- The core of the visit: the core focus is on the visit link, which can start with the visit SOP landing;
- Closed-loop management: There needs to be a management mechanism for data monitoring and review and summary.
Landing plan:
3. What are the common problems?
3. How to get funnel management?
1. What does a funnel look like?
Illustrate:
1. The conversion rate and transaction rate of the funnel are used to see whether the conversion quality of the sales opportunity at each stage is healthy; The funnel structure is used to determine whether the replenishment consumption of sales opportunities is balanced;
2. Conversion rate refers to the probability of advancing from this stage to the next stage, and the conversion rate of X to Y stage = the number of new sales opportunities in the X to Y stages of "one time range" / the number of new sales opportunities in X stage of "one time range";
3. A time frame: it is necessary to consider the product order cycle and sales management cycle to determine, the general face-to-face sales and telemarketing models are carried out on a weekly and monthly basis, so the funnel analysis and empirical data confirmation can be carried out according to the layer-by-layer transformation and transaction of new sales opportunities or cumulative sales opportunities in a certain month;
4. The transaction rate refers to the probability of advancing from this stage to the transaction, and the calculation logic is the same as the conversion rate;
5. The funnel structure accumulated in each stage of the month refers to the structure formed after the number of sales opportunities is advanced from stage X to stage Y, and the number of sales opportunities in both stages will be accumulated.
2. How do I use a funnel?
When the funnel data is not mature, it is necessary to combine the iterative convergence of empirical data with manual customer feedback; Reverse can help the sales team to approve the number of sales opportunities and process volume based on the target, and ensure that the production capacity results are stable and controllable by focusing on the process volume and sales opportunity inventory in stages;
How do you use funnels to predict performance?
The calculation scheme is selected according to the actual stability of the sales opportunity funnel each month, and option A is preferred in the case of immaturity, as follows:
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How to use funnels for process volume management?
How many sales opportunities do I need to complete my monthly goal? According to the accounting method of the performance forecast table, the number of new high-intent customers can be reversed;
How much process volume and sales opportunities are needed to ensure qualified workforce? According to the human efficiency production capacity as the target value, using the accounting scheme of the performance forecast table, the number of high-intent customers and the number of visits can be reversed;
What indicators to focus on in the process?
- Whether the number of sales opportunities at each stage of the sales funnel keeps up with the time rhythm and business rhythm, and whether the conversion rate changes;
- Whether the number of daily or weekly visits and the number of weekly high-intent customers keep up with the time rhythm and business rhythm, according to the empirical data of 3-4 single production capacity & above funnel conversion rate, it is necessary to ensure 3-4 visits and high-intent customers per week;
- The number of visits to the same customer, the distribution of the first visit and the continuous visit (non-first visit before the transaction), the first visit is generally used in the middle and early months to expand sales opportunities, and the continuous visit is generally used to promote conversion and transaction in the middle and second half of the year.
What are the supporting management tools?
The core is the customer inventory table, the process quantity management table and the supporting CRM system.
This article was originally published by @朱佳斌Plus on Everyone is a Product Manager. Reproduction without the permission of the author is prohibited
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