Without a repeatable, effective sales process you will struggle to achieve sustainable growth.

This weakness can affect SMEs at all stages of their development:

• Smaller businesses may be struggling to develop a reliable sales process at all
• Established SMEs may be over-reliant on their owner to deliver new business and finding this is a ceiling on growth - as well as a value-limiting risk to the business
• Larger SMEs with a sales team may worry that the team is not delivering what it could and should deliver

Traditional sales training and sales methodologies address the sales function in isolation and take a one-size-fits-all approach.  They assume that everything around the sales function is established and stable, assumptions that are inappropriate in an SME, where often:

• Market positioning and strategy is evolving
• There is a dearth of good-quality opportunities from marketing; marketing and sales seem disconnected
• There is no clear or consistent sales process
• The sales leader may not have a sales background or have managed salespeople before
• There is no real sales management process, with targets, reviews and coaching
• There is no sales management system in place, or it is not being used to understand and improve sales
• There is no incentivisation scheme, or the scheme is ineffective or inappropriate
• There is a high turnover of salespeople
• The sales leader is trying to run the rest of the business at the same time

The SME Sales Framework© is designed to help business owners develop, implement and run an effective sales process, tailored to their business.

• It is holistic - it starts with the unique strengths and competitive positioning of the business, and the provable customer benefits you deliver
• It is people-centric - it follows our approach to business consultancy and coaching in general, which is that to develop a successful business you must develop the employees
• It is systemised and scalable, creating repeatable processes and accountable employees

The SME Sales Framework© consists of five layers:

• Marketing Story.  What is the basis on which you compete?  Who are your customers, what is their pain and in what ways is your solution better than that of the competition?
• Sales Process:  What are the events and stages between a new opportunity and a sale?
• Sales Conversation:  How are your sales meetings structured so that you control the flow and the prospect arrives at the conclusion that yours is the best solution?
• Performance Framework:  How do you manage the sales process and salespeople, how do you measure and improve performance?
• Rewards Framework:  How do you incentivise salespeople?  How do ensure that this aligns with the aims of the business and optimises performance?

Implementing The SME Sales Framework© is tailored to your situation and requirements, but follows this process:

• Assess.  We use interviews to gather evidence, review and analyse this and prepare a report highlighting strengths and weaknesses and giving recommendations for action.  This will generally include some measurement of current sales productivity.
• Plan.  We help you create a detailed plan to make the necessary changes to your sales operation.  This will generally include some target for sales productivity.
• Execute.  We help you apply the plan.  In some cases, this includes hands-on involvement in things like training and system implementation.  In others our involvement is limited to project reviews and advice.
• Support.  We help you get the benefits of the changes you have made.  This may extend to involvement in the sales management process but is generally limited to coaching and support for the sales leader.

If you would like to know more about The SME Sales Framework© then you can download the ebook below. If you'd rather talk to someone, just request a call.