Big Red Car here. Going to be another sweet day in the ATX and why the Hell not? This is one of the loveliest times of the year in Texas.
About 60F right now and will be about 85F and mild later today. I bet it doesn’t get quite that warm. But who cares? Lots of sunshine.
Well while I am blowing a bit of sunshine at you, I wanted to get back to the issue of the sales process and the notion of a graphic that we discussed last week. That blog post is here. ><<< click on link
I had a couple of calls for a graphic exemplar and unfortunately all the ones I have are for real companies and I cannot breach their confidentiality. So I have made a new generic one. It is not going to win a Pulitzer or a Nobel Prize but it will help you visualize the idea.
Sales process graphic
Here is the promised sales process graphic. It is perfectly obvious and there are no tricks at work here. Click on it to see it at a more useful size.
Show the normal rain cloud and funnel driving your business intelligence to create a logical list of suspects. A bit of organization showing the progression from suspects to prospects to players to closers. You can use any names that are logical to your business.
In this graphic there is also an attempt to show the CEO’s involvement at critical times in the sales process as well as some suggestion of appropriate marketing collateral. Again, nothing alarming or earth shattering here.
Use a bit of the same thought process to make your own sales process graphic.
Here is a PDF of the same thing. Generic sales process graphic <<< click here to get PDF.
Managing the sales process
Henry Yates, founder and President of Estate.Create in London, suggested a particular piece of sales management software — www.pipedrive.com — which looks very promising. I love its flexibility and the ability to move and name everything. It is worth a study.
Communication
One of the reasons why it is useful to graphically depict the sales process and to use a piece of sales management software is to be able to discuss and communicate about the status of individual sales efforts and the collective effort.
In this manner, the CEO can discuss sales with the confidence that everyone is using the same nomenclature and that the pipeline is understood clearly. Everyone knows where everything is headed when they are all using the same map.
Good hunting this week and have a great day. After last week, we all deserve a bit of peace and productivity.
But, hey, what the Hell do I know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car! And, please, do not sell me.