Digital Sales Processes Digitization
Digitalization and management of sales processes make it easy to control and manage activities such as workforce, capacity, time, and capital in order to meet the market needs of the business in an effective and profitable way.
Sales Processes Optimization
When considered strategically, one of the most important factors in forming the bridge between the strategic plan and monthly business plans of a 5-year company and the daily plans of the company is the management of sales processes.
In this context, sales process management increases the cooperation within the company and enables different departments to focus on a single purpose and target. Therefore, it has an important place in the scope of OKR targets of companies. The stronger the management of processes at the point of sales force management, the stronger will be its contribution to customer satisfaction, turnover, and profitability. The creation of sales processes within the company, their regular follow-up, and management of the processes go through healthy handling of the organization. It ensures the realization of the goals that all business partners and process owners within the company unite around the common goal and the formation of the process management infrastructure. For this reason, it is absolutely necessary to check whether the sales processes of the enterprises are working well.
Critical Questions in Sales Processes
A company that thinks it manages its sales processes well should be able to answer the following questions:
How many sales opportunities did our company receive last month? What is meant by a sales opportunity is: We are a production or service company, in this sense, how much is the demand for our products and services?
Determining the quantities of claims can be realized in the following ways. How many e-mails and phone calls have been received via e-mail to our website about our products and services? They can also request it by phone, they can also say that they want to receive the following product or service from social media and social media communication channels. Sales opportunities that come with the forms we put on the website or through references, or new demands from our current customers from the companies we already serve and where we sell our products are also important in determining demand. After all, we have to ask how many opportunities came in the last month, how many, a thousand or five hundred.
If you cannot answer, you need sales process consultancy and effective management in sales processes. The answer to the question of when and why I need it is to ask these questions.
- How much of the sales turned into real sales?
- How much of the incoming sales opportunities led to the purchase of products and services from us in real terms?
- What is our rate of closing sales based on incoming opportunities?
- On the basis of sales channels, how many % came by call and % by e-mail?
- If you ask why we can improve the channels with fewer sales opportunities.
Is there a person who is interested in incoming sales opportunities, if so, is that person an expert in his field? Who is responsible for sales opportunities?
How soon was the response time since the sales opportunities came to us?
When was the last time we were contacted with the incoming sales opportunity, is the communication continuing, do we follow the processes?
If we cannot answer these questions satisfactorily, if we do not have a good command of the systems or managerial issues, it means that there is a need for sales processes consultancy.
Let me keep it like this and call this e-mail together, not as if I sent this e-mail for the last time, but there are so many sales opportunities systematically, there are companies that we have not touched, we have never contacted, they sent offers to these companies, made presentations to them in some way, demo We have done it, we have sent a product or promotion, but we should question whether the response has come or not, what will be the result.
The goal here is to actually close the sales as much as possible. It is to bring the sales to the point where we can issue real invoices and receive payment from the customer while we have the sales opportunity. For this reason, we can determine whether we can answer these questions or not, and based on this, do we manage our sales processes and sales force well.
We say that if our customers cannot fully answer these questions during their sales processes, you may consider getting sales process consultancy or sales service consultancy.
What is Sales Management?
In order to increase profitability for businesses, the most important feature that distinguishes sales from other marketing departments is that it provides income. While sales activity makes money for businesses, other marketing activities cost the business.
Sales management is the creation of a sales force outside of the planning, execution, and control of sales in businesses. An effective sales management, greatly affects the sustainability of businesses from generation to generation, as it is the only activity that creates income, profit, growth, and resources in businesses for companies to survive.
There are some duties that sales managers must have in order for companies to reach their sales targets. These;
- Planning, selecting targets
- Organizing, determining task determining
- Directing, duties, and responsibilities for the execution of activities
- Coordination, arranging the actions to be taken in harmony
- Staffing, establishing the sales team, and developing the team
- Control, supervising the activities and taking regulatory action,
- Analysis, examining other environmental factors,
- Management, creating the sales plan
Digitalization of the Sales Processes
How long did it take the company to convert this sales opportunity into real sales, that is, when did we cut our invoice, when did we receive our payment? This is one of the issues that should be followed. The follow-up of this varies from company to company.
If the company provides services in the "be to be" area, that is, if it is a company that sells products or services from company to company, there may be short or long-term sales periods at this point, it varies according to the sales volume of the product sold and the sales processes.
For example, the production company will make a new mold, the molding process of the product, the production time of the mold, the mold negotiations may take a long time. Or a supplier agreement, a company that will be a subcontractor of a company, at this point it is also called sales, project processes can be long or short. Even in a full automation system, demand comes and the demand is met within a day or two, for example, this is the case in the field of electronic commerce. The demand comes, the purchase is made at that moment, there is an instant sale. It is necessary to compress the sale towards these sides as much as possible. Therefore, it is important to keep these deadlines.
Another important issue is how our monthly averages are going, and we can compare our monthly sales averages with the sales of the previous year. Whether there is improvement or regression, we have to follow them. Because these data will give us signals about whether the works that are valuable for the company are going well.
Many companies actually sense and know this, but how do they do it?
He knows by looking at the invoices he has issued and the point where the sale takes place. It is very important to follow these issues here, how much demand has come, how much is the number of demands, how much is the sales opportunity, are these sales opportunities increasing, if they are increasing, how much, what percentage of them have been converted into sales, if we follow them, there will be improvement opportunities here.
For example; Let's say 10% of incoming sales opportunities turn into real sales. Can we make 10% to 15% here, why 10% can we go into the details of this? Therefore, the goal is to convert inbound sales opportunities into as many real sales as possible. In this sense, if we follow all these, actions will emerge here. All of what we have mentioned is one of the indispensable follow-up topics.
Another issue is to follow the performance of our sales force, our sales personnel. In this way, it is observed which of our sales personnel provides more performance. This tracking system can also be connected to bonus systems, it is also important to follow them systematically.
Sales Processes in Pandemic
The pandemic process reminded all of us how important digital transformation is, and that companies should be managed systematically in a digital environment in sales processes. During the pandemic process, it was felt much more deeply that digital transformation is mandatory in all areas of life.
Sales processes were normally carried out manually or with excel spreadsheets. Managing these processes does not mean digitizing. The fact that companies use computers does not mean that there is digitalization. Digitization has to systematically reveal data integrity and that data integrity should be in a format that can be analyzed and guided in other areas. This is what digital transformation means.
The pandemic has shown us again how important this is. Systems, software, customer relations, business management software, or CRM have gained a lot of importance at this point. For what purpose is CRM used, you can reach our article from the link.
There is a fact that whether there is a pandemic or not, systematically managing sales processes also provide: Your sales and our departments are growing and new employees are joining. You already have a data and information system for those employees. When the data is kept systematically, the new sales personnel can read and see all of them in this sales management process and learn how to do it. Therefore, it adds significant value to corporate memory.
After the company first contacts you, that sale should be finalized within a certain time so it's important to seize the momentum. Losing time in such access or confusion while catching the momentum will negatively affect sales.
The importance of this has increased even more during the pandemic process; Mobility has gained importance to be able to manage and access all sales data through a single system, regardless of location or location. At this point CRM software, companies using, and customer relationship management systems continued without any problems, but companies that do not use these systems too much or that do not use these systems effectively are now seeing the importance of this. We see that institutions that have adopted digital transformation during the pandemic continue their activities without slowing down. At this point, if there are companies that do not manage their sales processes in this way, we recommend that they adapt quickly. This is how we can summarize the management of sales related to the pandemic process through digital systems.
How Should Sales Management Be During the Pandemic Process?
The COVID-19 epidemic, which affected the whole world, had many effects on businesses. Companies that completed or used digital transformation before the pandemic process adapted to this process in a less painful way. The transition to digital transformation enables companies to continue their sales activities during the quarantine period. Companies began to seek solutions to reduce the impact of this epidemic on employees and to ensure the continuity of sales and marketing. In this process, companies developed some software to communicate effectively with customers:
- Provide internal and external communication with the help of technology, to
- Make presentations and meetings effective using management software applications such as CRM, to activate video conference, phone presentations, video call
- Existing customers or contacting potential customers,
- Developing new methods that will benefit existing customers with the active use of the reference system,
- Maintain your position in Google, being at the top of search results gains importance to catch potential customers. In other words SEO is really important.
- Positive attitude and optimistic approach, the
- Experiences of rival companies during the pandemic process should be followed,
- Team training, provision of training and education for employee morale and motivation for interior and exterior in the process,
- Enhance existing CRM systems to adapt to a pandemic period
