Knowledge
How to move from founder-led to systematic sales?
If you have to attend every important client meeting in person, most proposals need your corrections, and when you are busy delivering projects, winning new clients slows down… then you are probably reaching the limit of this way of growing a company.
Perhaps you already have a salesperson. Maybe even a few. Except they still come to you with questions about what to propose, how to reply and whether you can join the conversation because “it is an important client”.
The company has grown, there are more people, and you still take part in almost every sale.
The transition to systematic sales consists in describing and testing the way you acquire clients, and then gradually handing it over to the team. You need to define whom you sell to, what value you deliver, how the process runs and how you will know it works. Knowledge of all this also has to exist somewhere outside your head.
Sounds reasonable. So why do so many companies struggle with it?
Why do sales depend on the owner for so long?
Most small companies start in a fairly similar way. You know something well, you spot an opportunity, you win the first client. Then others follow. Someone recommended you, someone knows you from a previous job, you met someone at an event. It is a natural path. It lets you check whether the market needs what you offer at all. Over time you get to know clients’ questions, their concerns and the situations in which cooperation is worthwhile. You know what to ask about. You can bring up the right example. You can sense when a client is interested and when they are just collecting proposals.
The problem begins when you try to hand sales over to someone who does not have all those experiences. You say: “Here is our offer, here is the contact database, go ahead”. And that person goes ahead. Only differently than you imagine. From your perspective, certain things are obvious. From theirs, they still have to be guessed. And then you hear questions about “obvious matters” and think it would be quicker to do it yourself.
This is exactly how we cement the company’s dependence on ourselves.
Will hiring a salesperson solve the problem?
I often see the idea of solving a lack of clients by hiring someone who will “finally take care of it”. Preferably a person with experience, contacts and good results at their previous company. But pay attention to the conditions that person worked in before. Perhaps they had a recognizable brand, a proven offer, materials, a client base and a defined process. They were good at using what the organization had already worked out. In your company they will first have to establish it: whom to sell to, what message to go out with and why anyone should buy. That requires much broader competences.
Building a sales process and testing it in a small company is the owner’s responsibility. You can use support. You can create this process together with the team or with someone from outside. What is needed, however, is your involvement, your knowledge of clients and decisions about the direction of the company. Only when you have a proven way of working can you sensibly pass it on to other people.
Where to start building a B2B sales system?
1. Choose specific clients and the scope of the offer
If your company can do almost anything for anyone, it will be hard to teach someone how to sell it. You may be able to find your way in such a situation. You have experience, you know the team’s capabilities and during a conversation you put together a solution that fits the client. An employee needs clearer rules.
To begin with, choose one client segment and a problem you are good at solving. Preferably one that clients already pay you to solve and on which the company earns a reasonable margin.
Define:
- which companies you want to win;
- whom in those companies you need to talk to;
- in what situation your help makes sense;
- when cooperation will probably not be a good idea.
“We serve small and medium-sized companies” does not explain much yet. A description of the specific situation in which a client starts to need help says much more. For example: a service company has hired its first salespeople, but the owner still has to lead all the key conversations. There is a problem, there are its consequences, and you can check whether the client wants to do something about it.
A starting point defined this way makes communication, client qualification and later training of the team easier.
2. Describe the value from the client’s perspective
The next step is to establish what you will actually talk about with this client. In my Value Triangle the order is as follows: problem, desired result, solution.
You start by understanding what is troubling the client. Then you establish what they would like to achieve. Only then can you sensibly address how your company can help them.
If you give a salesperson only a product presentation, they will talk about products. If you give them knowledge of clients’ situations, their problems and the results they care about, they have a chance to lead a conversation in which the client feels understood. So write down the questions that help you recognize the client’s situation. Add examples of projects that show you can help. Also describe the most common doubts and the way you clear them up.
In sales, everything is a hypothesis until it comes from the client’s mouth. That is why these materials are meant to help in the conversation and in understanding the answers. They have to be verified later in real contacts.
3. Lay out the sales process and the conditions for moving on
A sales process is a defined sequence of actions that helps the client move from the first contact to an informed decision about cooperation. In B2B services it may include qualification, needs discovery, presenting a solution, agreeing the terms and handing the client over to delivery.
Merely naming the stages, however, changes little. For each one you need to know what is supposed to happen and what result allows you to move on.
Take needs discovery.
The information “we had a meeting” only says that you spent some time with the client. After a well-conducted conversation, you should be able to point to their problem, the consequences of that problem and the expected result. The client should also confirm that you understood them correctly.
Only then do you have a basis for preparing a proposal. The same goes for the proposal itself. Merely sending the document does not explain whether the client sees the value, who will make the decision and what is supposed to happen now.
So for each stage, set the goal, the information needed, the person responsible and the next step. This way the employee knows what you expect of them, and you can assess the quality of the work done.
4. Move the knowledge from your head to a shared place
I often ask entrepreneurs where the knowledge in their organization is gathered. In reply, they point to themselves or to specific employees. As long as those people are available, it somehow works. When someone falls ill, leaves or goes on a longer holiday, problems begin. In sales you need a place where you gather the company’s way of working. You can call it a sales playbook or simply a manual for running sales.
Put there a description of the clients, the value proposition, the process stages, needs discovery questions, examples of proposals, rules for agreeing terms and answers to typical objections. You do not have to create huge documentation right away. Start with what you most often explain to others. If you are once again showing how to prepare a proposal, record a short walkthrough using an example. If you regularly correct the same mistake, add a rule and explain why it matters.
Such documentation starts to have value when someone can actually use it while working.
5. Ensure a steady inflow of new sales opportunities
You can have well-described conversations and great proposals and still be the only person thanks to whom new clients appear. That is why the sales system must also cover the way you reach the market.
Referrals are valuable. The very fact that clients recommend you speaks well of what you deliver. It is hard, however, to base a growth plan solely on the expectation that someone will happen to mention you. Choose a way of acquiring clients that fits the segment you operate in. Define who is responsible for the activities, how regularly they run them and what results you check. At the beginning it is better to get to know one channel well and refine the communication than to launch several activities that nobody later runs consistently. You need to know where conversations with the right people come from and what you can do to have more of them.
6. Hand over sales in stages
Once you have the foundations, you can start delegating individual parts of the process. A good start is working together on real examples. First the employee observes how you run a given stage and learns the reasoning behind your decisions. Then they take the lead while you observe and give feedback. Next they work independently, and you regularly discuss selected cases together.
You can start with qualifying enquiries, preparing proposals according to set rules, or leading some of the conversations. The choice depends on the person’s competences and on what you have already tested. Also set the scope of independence. What terms can the salesperson propose? When do they need to consult? What commitments to the client should they not make without the delivery team’s involvement?
If every decision still requires your approval, you will constantly interrupt your own work to handle sales. And one more thing. The employee will probably lead the conversation a little differently than you. Give them room for that, as long as they correctly recognize needs, follow the arrangements and achieve the required result.
7. Measure activities and improve specific places in the process
Many owners check sales at the end of the month. There is revenue or there is not. If it is missing, mobilization begins. Except that by then it is hard to influence the actions that should have happened a few weeks earlier. That is why you also need to see the intermediate numbers: new qualified contacts, conversations held, needs discoveries, proposals presented and transitions between stages. Plus the length of the sales cycle, the reasons for losing clients and the profitability of the orders won.
If there are few conversations, look at how you reach clients. If conversations take place but rarely lead to a next step, check qualification and needs discovery. If clients stall after receiving the proposal, check what was missing in the whole earlier process. Numbers help you decide where to look. Specific conversations and cases help you understand why.
It is also worth tracking how many deals the team handles without your intervention. After all, one of the goals of this change is to get your time back.
What role does a CRM play in systematic sales?
A CRM helps keep the contact history, keep track of next actions and see at what stage individual deals are. It should allow another person to understand the client’s situation without asking you about every detail. Merely implementing an application, however, will not determine whom you sell to, what you ask about and when you prepare a proposal. These matters have to be worked out. So choose the tool to fit the way you work and use it consistently. Even a simple system will be helpful if the data is up to date, responsibility is clearly assigned and every active deal has an agreed next step.
When can the owner step back from day-to-day sales?
When the team can repeatably run the process entrusted to it, and you can assess how it works without personally taking part in every conversation. One contract signed without you is a good sign. You still need to check, however, whether the next ones can also go through the process, whether quality is maintained and whether the company earns on the agreed terms. You can still take part in selected conversations, develop partnerships or work with the most important clients. But it is good for that to be the result of a conscious choice and the value you bring, not of necessity.
Building such a way of working takes time. The pace depends on the complexity of the offer, the length of the buying process and the team’s preparation. It is worth starting before the lack of new clients forces you into a nervous search for a solution. To begin with, take a few recent sales and reconstruct what you actually did. Where did the clients come from? What did you ask about? What helped them trust you? At which points was your involvement necessary, and why?
Choose a recurring part, describe it and teach someone to run it on their own. Then check the results and improve what needs improving. This is how you gradually build a company in which the owner’s experience becomes available to the whole team.
If you want to put such a process in order in your company, get in touch with me. At TechMine we help build the SalesMachine B2B sales system, covering client segmentation, value communication, the process and measurement of activities. We will start the conversation with where sales most need your personal involvement today. And if you prefer to first check on your own what level of sales maturity your company is at, you can take the online sales diagnosis (in Polish).
