Sunderland Software City

Richard Lane, Engleby Associates

In our latest masterclass blog, Richard Lane from Engleby Associates explains how making small changes to your sales processes can have a huge impact on your sales figures.

Do you know why your clients buy from you? How about how they buy from you? 

When you understand the answer to these pivotal questions you can start to make sensible assumptions about your sales processes and the strength of your pipeline.

I am fortunate to be able to spend my time helping companies maximise the effectiveness of their sales people and their sales processes.  Engleby’s Sales Process Review engagements are particularly exciting because of the rapid impact even small process improvements can deliver.

I love creating company-specific sales blueprints that an organisation can re-use to garner ongoing success in a simple, clear, concise and systematic way. 

But don’t just rely on my experiences. Research from The TAS Group provides inspiring insight into how relatively small improvements in a number of areas can deliver significant positive change.

Increasing the performance of your business by just 10% in the number of deals, the value per deal and your percentage close rate, while decreasing the length of your sales cycle by 10% can leverage a 48% increase in sales value. Multiple small improvements working together!

This poses a number of questions you could be asking yourself.

What can you do to find a few extra opportunities that will increase your sales pipeline by 10%? What questions can you ask to identify additional value that will help you increase your average order value by 10%? What can you do to close one more deal in every 10 opportunities that you work?  How can you sharpen your sales cycle to shave 10% from the time it takes to move from qualification to close?

Most importantly of all, is your sales process working as effectively as it could be?

Make time with your team to brainstorm how you can create efficiencies and improve individual and team performance. Once you have identified how, put a plan in place to capture and measure your success.  Let the power of multiplication work its magic.

Engleby Associates and Sunderland Software City have released a condensed programme designed to increase the skills and confidence of more sales professionals working in the North-East.

The programme includes two half-day sales workshops, full of activities, case studies and practical exercises, as well as 3 months unrestricted access to an online learning portal packed with sales related e-learning courses, books and simulations. The course aims to give you an understanding of selling best practices for software and technology sales and well as increasing your confidence in your own sales abilities.

More details are available here