Is Your Sales Process Backwards, Upside Down or Stupid?

My wife and I recently watched the new funny but sad movie, Here and Now, written and directed by Billy Crystal, who stars as comedy writer Charlie Burnz.  In one scene, Charlie recalled a happier time when his family used to have what they called “upside down day.” On upside down day they started the day by eating dessert, had dinner for lunch, and finally ate breakfast for dinner.

Speaking of meals, we recently dined in a restaurant which had its rules laminated and affixed to the table. Their very first rule read, “Food must be ordered with alcohol” instead of what it should have said, “Alcohol must be ordered with food.”  Words are important and these words were backwards. (100 bonus points if you can guess the restaurant name.)

In between the meal and the movie, we attempted to shop at a well-known French retailer.  Before entering, they required scanning a QR Code, registering on their website, and waiting to receive a call from an associate before being allowed to shop.  Also frustrating was the problem that most of their products were not on display so you needed to know exactly what you were looking for because browsing in this upscale retail store was not encouraged.  Retail is all about browsing and at this store, they forgot about making it easy to buy and replaced it with making it difficult to get started.  Brand stupidity. (100 bonus points if you can guess the French brand.)

Last night I was pulled over by a Massachusetts State Police Officer for changing lanes when there are double solid white lines.  I don’t think it was the first time I’ve done that in 50 years of driving, but I’m certain I’ve never been pulled over for that before. I broke the rules.

Let’s take upside down, backwards, rule breaking and stupid and use those four conditions to dissect sales processes.

When we look at the sales processes that most companies have in place, there are usually elements of upside down, backwards and stupid.

Some companies have a dedicated team of BDR’s that work the top of the funnel before they hand-off the opportunity to an account executive. The very poor conversation to meeting ratios are an example of a serious combustion point with this scenario. There are many reasons for these unacceptable ratios that companies invariably find ways to justify (see my article about Why We Should Blow up the BDR Role).  While inexperience and ineffectiveness are the two most obvious reasons, another significant reason is the use of BANT which stands for Budget, Authority, Need and Timing.  (See my article about Why BANT Can Kill Opportunities.) Put another way, BDR’s are not only charged with reaching decision makers, engaging them in conversation and scheduling first meetings, but many of them are also supposed to qualify those opportunities so that account executives don’t waste their time.  While it’s smart to have account executives working qualified opportunities, it’s upside down, backwards and stupid!  A decision maker has no incentive to answer qualifying questions this early in the sales process before there is some compelling reason for them to buy what you have.  In other words, while you want to start the sales process with a decision maker with authority, you start with whom you start and go from there.  You can’t qualify a prospect’s ability to buy or get to the actual decision maker  until there is enough urgency for them to take action!  At that point, they’ll ask you what you need from them!  When it’s done at the right time in the sales process, it’s much easier!

Another problem with most of the sales processes is the sheer number of steps that have nothing to do with selling.  For example, Marketing has worked its way into the sales process and while the lead generation work flow is important, it does not belong in the sales process.  A signed contract is an acceptable final step in the final stage of the sales process but the steps that legal undertakes are part of the legal team’s process, not sales. 

Sales processes tend to emphasize three major steps – prospecting, presenting and closing – but seriously lack the actual selling-based stages and milestones. If we wish to sell value and create urgency, a consultative approach is required.  Without it, the conversation will invariably turn to price and your attempts to sell value will go right down the drain.

In this case, the sales process is not upside down or backwards, it is inside out – the inner core is missing!  For a better explanation, watch this ten-minute video that explains the difference between sales process and sales methodology, the milestones a good sales process must include, and the differences between some well-known sales methodologies and processes.