At some stage during the process, the potential of the sale will be qualified. In other words, the value of the sale and when it is likely to be closed will be ascertained. This can generally be assumed after the first meeting with the client has taken place, but it could be done over the telephone too. You will need specific classification fields set up in your sales portal application software to cover this such as:
- Potential Value
- Expected close month
- Main Competitor
- % Confidence.
The latter is an interesting one. Most salespeople are 100% certain of getting the deal. That’s why they’re sales people after all – they need to be optimistic! But optimism alone should not drive a forecast. You need a reality check. Your business portal should be configured where possible with a parameter-driven “weighting” system for forecasting. For example, there are a number of very firm criteria that you can apply to the over-optimistic forecast:
- Is the salesperson talking to the real decision maker i.e. the person who can sign the cheque? (20%)
- Is the budget agreed? (20%)
- Has a payment plan been agreed? (20%)
- How many competitors are there? (reverse graded scale up to 20% - fewer competitors, higher the score)
- Is there anything pushing the sale or decision? (20%)
All of these weighting factors -- common the world over -- will affect that % likelihood. Ideally, your business portal software should come configured to automatically calculate this weighting and even provide feedback for salespeople on the outcomes.
The crucial step in all sales processes is the one immediately before the deal is won (or lost).
In most cases, that will be a Quotation or Proposal phase and in your sales portal software you need to signify this by some form of Current Activity tracking.
Ideally also, your sales portal software should also allow you to add an attachment so you can physically attach the quotation document to the sales opportunity at this time. This is very useful as a) it keeps the documentation with the relevant sales opportunity and b) it sets a timeline for the quotation: some quotations are only valid for a specific period. Remember also that you could give your customers selected access to your portal so you could let them view the Quotation online in this way.
Of course, in some situations the Quotation is not the last task pre-close. There may be an evaluation stage; a pilot stage; a Board approval stage. You can easily set up your portal to reflect these other stages. In any event, you need to identify the very last stage of the sales process before the deal is won or lost.
Then you must track all activity through the portal around that stage in order to determine what strategies and contacts are working for you.
In the last article on this series we’ll take a look at managing for profit and reporting.
Chic McSherry
CEO
Iport4business.com Inc
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