What if these hours were simply misused (at least in part)?
One of the causes to consider is indeed the lack of structuring of the sales chain, which can cause a loss of efficiency and sometimes significant hidden costs. We at KESTIO know something about this, since we ourselves faced this internally before readjusting our sales process by optimizing it.
Here's how, and with what results.
1. What does "optimizing your sales process" mean, and why should you do it?
This involves seeking the best cost/result ratio at each stage of your sales process, to achieve optimal performance!
There are at least 2 reasons to do so:
- The current economic climate encourages optimizing the return on investment of each action implemented: tight market, no "natural" growth, therefore a greater commercial effort to provide, a tendency to lower sales prices and increase distribution costs... The companies that fare best are therefore those that manage to preserve their margins, and optimizing marketing costs contributes very directly to this!
- Many companies have not yet truly organized their sales function. However, studies show that at least 40% of salespeople's time on average is spent on "doing administrative work"1. In other words, 40% of your sales payroll is not focused on what creates the most value, namely interactions with prospects and customers! Considering that a salesperson is (sometimes very) expensive and difficult to recruit and retain, it is essential that they focus primarily on their core business…
2. A real-world example of sales process optimization.
Here's an example directly from our own experience at KESTIO to illustrate how a seemingly insignificant activity can quickly become very costly if you don't adopt this approach to reduce its impact.
INITIAL CONTEXT:
- At KESTIO, we have been working for some time with 3 in-house sales representatives in charge of handling the first appointments (qualification of needs) with our prospects.
- Across all their telephone appointments, we observe a rate of approximately 20% of 'no-shows' (which is a good rate compared to averages observed elsewhere).
- With 10 appointments scheduled per day per sales representative, this results in a potential of 30 clients per week (2 per day x 3 sales representatives x 5 days per week) to contact again, solely to schedule a new appointment…
- This represented (until we changed our process) 1 to 2 hours of work per week for each salesperson, which, for 3 salespeople, totaled up to 24 hours per month (or 3 working days) spent on a task with no added value!
When you know the salary cost of an experienced salesperson and calculate what this simple position represents annually, it encourages reflection...
THE SOLUTION IMPLEMENTED:
That's why we decided to implement an automated workflow system: the prospect who misses the appointment automatically receives an email offering 3 new time slots, and if necessary, a reminder a few days later.
This system now allows us to re-book 80% of missed appointments, and the remaining 20% are followed up with a phone call by a specialized provider.
Implementing this simple workflow has allowed us to save several thousand euros per year, while creating better working conditions for our sales representatives, who now spend most of their time practicing the profession they love and are skilled in.
And this example represents only one element among many others on which it is possible to act to benefit from a positive leverage effect!
To identify all potential areas for improvement, it is necessary to ask, for each action implemented, what is the appropriate level of effort to produce in relation to the expected result and the potential generated.
3. How to implement such an approach within your company?
To do this, start by reviewing each step of your sales chain (prospecting, qualification, sales proposal, closing, etc.) by analyzing the tasks attached to them in light of this key question: "Given the same result, what is the most efficient (fastest, least expensive, etc.) way to accomplish this task?"
Based on this, you can build an effective sales system by applying this method:
- Identify potential areas for optimization. For example: time spent by sales representatives on administrative tasks.
- Share best practices within the team. For example: sharing a tool allowing prospects to access available slots in the salespeople's calendars in real-time, without seeing the details of their agenda.
- Define an optimized process. For example: building an automated workflow to follow up with prospects who were unable to attend their phone appointment (integrating the use of the tool mentioned above).
- Test and improve the defined process. For example: improve the wording of the standard follow-up email. Please note: always modify only one element of the process at a time to analyze the impact of each change.
- Generalize and disseminate the optimized process to the entire team for implementation and feedback (continuous improvement loop).
Following this approach for your entire sales process will allow you to build an optimized sales operating model and thus reduce all losses related to uncontrolled factors, to ultimately improve your sales results.
Focus primarily on high-impact and easily achievable areas for improvement (in short, optimize the optimization process itself! 😉)
As you progress, you will improve the performance of your entire sales chain to spend better and less, while increasing the interest in the missions entrusted to your teams!
Want to optimize your sales team's time? In this webinar, learn how to refine your targeting and use appropriate tools to double the number of sales appointments you get per month:
1 : An IKO System study on sales representatives' working time dating from 2013 even put the proportion of this working time spent on what they called "non-sales" at 59% at the time!
