2mm to Sales Mastery | 10 Benefits of a Standardized Sales Methodology

Last week I was on a webinar with a few thought leaders in our space of learning, enablement, and development. We discussed some key recommendations for Sales Enablement for next year and one of them was the “don’t set it and forget it” Sales Methodology. Forrester shared that in the coming year 89% of companies would be looking for a new sales methodology. So, with that thought in mind, I wanted to share 10 benefits you can expect from a standardized sales methodology. However, before we go there let me first share four MUST haves for any methodology to be successful:

1. Executive Sponsorship
2. Change Management
3. Manager involvement and accountability
4. Reinforcement

I will take a deep dive into these four areas in my next article. But for now, let’s get into the 10 benefits of a standardized sales methodology.

1. A clear path for sellers to follow
   • Only 15% of all salespeople have Consultative Selling Competency as a strength. Knowing what needs to be done and what tools to use at each stage of the sales process provides a significant advantage for all client-facing sellers (including pre-sales, SDR/BDR roles, AM’s and AE’s as well as Professional Services and Customer Success), this also helps the teams supporting sellers such as Enablement and marketing teams.
2. Improve speed to market and accelerate onboarding
   • When everyone from the CRO down to the newest SDR is using the same tools, processes, and best practices to support the sales process it helps to improve speed to market and accelerate onboarding. As a matter of fact, according to CSO Insights sales organizations with consistent sales training and enablement functions outperform their peers by 19.8% to 31.6%.

3. The ability to constantly iterate and improve on the method as the business evolves
   • When the entire sales org has a standardized approach, it is much easier to learn what is and is not working and to iterate on the existing methodology and improve it over time. This aligns with the point from the webinar that you simply cannot “set and forget” your sales methodology, it must be a living, breathing thing that can constantly be improved overtime as the organization changes. Sales managers who devote at least 50% of their time to coaching have salespeople who have a sales effectiveness score 28% higher than those managers who devote little-to-no time coaching.

4. Predictability of sales revenue
   • A scalable, measurable, and repeatable process with standardized tools, frameworks, and steps to follow at each stage of the process allows leaders, managers, and sellers to know exactly where there are issues and how to address them which improves focus and therefore predictability of when things will happen. AWS has seen an average of 134% increase in pipeline created and 32% increase in opportunities created QOQ.

5. Increase in quantity and quality of qualified leads, prospects
   • With a standard approach, processes, and best practices to follow, sellers will be able to know exactly how to properly qualify a deal and be able to better filter-out low-potential leads, which will also increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the sales force.
6. Increased effectiveness and efficiency of salesforce
   • With everyone talking the same language and following the same process and method, sellers will be able to spend more time selling and less time looking for new ways to do things now that they have a clear path to follow.
7. Improved communication between internal teams and members of the sales and marketing org
   1. If everyone is speaking the same language and adhering to the same customer journey it is much easier for teams to collaborate and help each other to succeed, using the right tone, language, and approach toward prospects and customers to ensure success.
8. Improved data and insights
   • With no structure it’s near impossible to measure anything, a standard process and method provide more data points for leadership and enablement to measure, which provides more clarity and makes it easier to determine the root cause of problems as they arise.
9. Customer experience
   • Having a standardized approach that the entire sales organization follows, with the customer’s outcomes in mind creates more satisfied and happier customers because they can now enjoy a process that is created for their benefit, and no matter who within the organization they are dealing with everyone is using the same best practices and approaches which create a seamless experience and reduces friction.
10. Improved customer retention
    • Happier customers that are being led on an enjoyable end-to-end journey focused on their outcomes want to continue to do business with companies that are flexible and make it easy to work with them.

Now that we have covered those, some things to keep in mind when choosing a methodology are:

• Are you selling to small, medium, or large businesses?
• Is your sale complex or transactional?
• Is this for inside or outside sellers, or both?
• What type of customer will you be dealing with?
  • According to Harvard Business Review, only 30% of customers like to be challenged, while 30% want someone who is trusting and comfortable and 40% would prefer someone who listens well and matches their style.

We will discuss this further in a subsequent article. Please do share any thoughts or comments as we would love to hear from you.

Isidro Iturralde