The word ‘Sales’ depicts a vast topic with several important yet micro aspects. Sales process and sales methodology are two integral aspects. In the world of sales, you must have noticed that people use the terms, sales process, and sales methodology interchangeably.
However, these terms have critical differences. Understanding the meaning of these terms and how to integrate them is the sole key to successful sales for your organization.
What does the Process and methodology of sales mean?
If you consider the sales process as the roadmap, sales methodology is the turn and direction of reaching your destination. The sales process guides your sales reps throughout the stages of making a sale. It is basically the step-wise journey of finding a prospect and instigating the potential client to make the final purchase.
On the other hand, sales methodology basically focuses on the “how” aspect of this journey. It is an approach to optimize the sales process. Sales methodology is the key to boost the efficiency of the sales process by focusing on certain areas.
The sales process involves a guide to sales reps of the actionable steps to conduct a buying journey. But sales methodology is the set of practices that can help sales reps achieve the desired results through the sales process. While the sales process is unique to your brand and may vary from your competitors, sales methodology can be the same for you and your competitors. Sales methodology aids your sales process by providing guidance to deal with challenges that come up during the sales process.
Sales Methodologies are easily accessible and broadly known in the sales industry. However, choosing the best fit sales methodology to build your sales process can greatly improve your sales effectiveness and improves sales behavior in the long run.
Integration of Sales Process and Sales Methodology
The sales process is the path to guide sales reps through the sales cycle. It is structured according to your product/service, target audience, market trends, sales organization structure, etc. Therefore, the sales process is distinct for your brand and plays a key role in gaining leverage over your competitors.
Sale is a dynamic process and often unpredictable. Hence, integrating sales methodology to optimize the pain points of your sales cycle boosts the productivity of the sales reps. Either you may use one of the widely known sales methodologies or blend in multiple methodologies as per your business needs.
Implementation of most sales methodology requires initial investment and extensive training but it definitely pays off well. Popular sales methodologies such as SNAP selling, NEAT selling, Solution selling, challenger methodology, etc. cater to different problems in specific stages of the sales cycle. Therefore, it is important to research well to decide on the type of sales methodology that will serve your sales process the best back-up.
Familiarizing sales methodology aid your sales reps with different sales strategy and also standardize sales behavior. Adopting sales methodology to shape up your sales process can help you attain consistency and effective sales strategies.
A sales process without integrated sales methodology may fail to reflect company identity and culture which may lead to loss of potential prospect. Sales methodology helps you to drive new clients and sales by reflecting your business identity, culture, and value. It serves as a guiding philosophy to the company as well as the sales reps to evaluate and resolve problems with the existing clients as well as engaging new clients into the sales cycle.
Adopting sales methodology along with sales process aids sales reps to know the sales strategies and find exact “how” answers to sales stages. It helps out the sales reps to cover their weakness and perform with their individual strengths and the right sales strategies.
Final Thoughts
The sales process is definitely an essential aspect of every organization. Therefore, it is essential to design a clean and well-defined sales process so that sales reps perform as per the path laid for them. However, the sales process alone cannot aid the sales reps to drive sales. Sales methodology if implemented properly adds value to the organization as well as the sales reps.
Sales methodology provides the sales reps the right tools and strategies to execute the sales process. The right combination of the sales process and right sales methodology helps the organization to develop a successful sales cycle by combating all the challenges that come up during the sales process. Do visit Pragna Technologies website for more blogs.