Guided selling involves providing guidance to sales and channel partners to sell the company’s products and services. Guided selling takes the complexity out of selling by guiding the salespeople or channel partners at every stage of the sales cycle, helping them take the right actions in order to close a lead. This blog discusses how companies can benefit by making guided selling a part of their sales process.
A guided sales process
The foundation of guided selling lies in a guided sales process. A guided sales process is one which is documented to a T, covering all possible aspects and scenarios that a salesperson or channel partner could be coming across when selling the company’s products or services. It is also repeatable, meaning, it should be possible for the salespeople and partners to replicate the steps or actions indicated within the guided sales process for each scenario.
Key benefits of having a guided sales process in place
Saves salespeople and channel partners time, while improving chances of lead closure
Having a guided sales process saves considerable time of salespeople and channel partners. With a guided sales process in place, they already know how to deal with their prospects irrespective of varying prospect profiles and position in the sales cycle. Plus, a guided sales process put in place by the company is usually tried and tested, which means, the chances of lead closure go up exponentially.
Shorter sales cycle and faster ramp-to-revenue route
Guided sales processes also work to reduce the overall sales cycle length, by cutting down the time taken to close a lead. Along the same lines, it also reduces the ramp-to-revenue time frame taken by salespeople and channel partners. After the sales/partner training and onboarding process, the time taken by the salesperson/channel partner to become an expert at closing leads and generating sales revenue can be significantly reduced by having a guided sales process in place that handholds them through every step of the sales cycle.
Ability to focus on new leads
With a guided sales process that shortens the sales cycle, you also free up your salespeople and channel partners considerably to focus on new leads, thus driving up the overall sales revenue.
The various elements of a guides sales process
A guided sales process is more than just sales workflows and a couple of sales and marketing materials thrown together. A guided sales process is a complete package that offers salespeople and channel partners all the information and tools they need to close any lead at any stage of the sales cycle. Some of the key elements of a guided sales process include-
- Playbooks
- Template based sales and marketing materials
- 360-degree prospect profiles
- Use cases
- Sales scenarios
- Personalized sales presentations
- Personalized proposals
A guided sales process and guided selling tools can help keep the corporate brand and messaging intact
From the company perspective, providing the salespeople and channel partners with guided selling tools, allows it to retain greater control over the sales process–especially in an indirect sales/channel environment. A guided sales process answers the 3 key questions that salespeople and channel partners face when selling–
- What to say to a prospect?
- How to say it?
- When to say it?
If salespeople and partners don’t have the answers to these questions, they tend to shape the answers on-the-fly, which often results in brand and messaging dilution. Without guided selling tools, sales may end up “customizing” the standard presentation they have to suit each prospect profile–which can impact the brand and messaging. Also, lack of a guided sales process and tools make it difficult for the salespeople and channel partners to effectively shape sales conversations around specific buyer profiles at different points in the sales cycle.
Tracking content usage and effectiveness with a guided sales process
Another benefit of having guided selling tools is the ability to track content usage by sales/partners and its overall effectiveness. For example, when the corporate marketing team provides salespeople and partners with sales playbooks containing ready-to-use email campaigns, call scripts, presentations, brochures, and other assets, they will also have full visibility in terms of how, when and where these assets were used, and by whom. Corporate marketing will also be able to track the recipient’s response to these assets. This allows companies to decide which content pieces are effective and which ones don’t resonate with the buyers and need to change.
Building a guided sales process with sales playbooks
Dynamic playbooks help you build a guided sales process by allowing you to define the process flow for all types of leads and all the steps in your sales cycle. Such playbooks detail which marketing and sales assets should be used at each step of the sales cycle and target that information by customer vertical, geographic region, or other criteria.
