Product Lines and Contact Grouping

Does your organization have multiple product lines that you sell? Do they have different sales processes for each? Do you possibly have different people that specialize in certain product lines and you want to track how they are moving along in a sales process? Maybe someone at your company has a specific industry they or market segment they work in that you want to be able to run call or opportunity reporting for.

If this sounds like your company you are not alone. I have dealt with many different companies and their sales processes over the past 20+ years and these items I mentioned are very common. In fact, most companies don't even realize they have different sales processes that are unique to each product line and missing or adding a step could loose a sales opportunity.

I find it interesting that when you first start talking with an organization about automating their sales processes it always makes them think through how they do things manually, or how they currently try to handle these processes in a disjointed fashion in multiple software applications and spreadsheets. Remember, if you try to automate a process that you don't really understand or have not thought through you are setting yourself up for failure or at best case a inefficient way of doing business which cost you money. If you sell a product or products that takes more than a impulse to buy in a retail store in less than 5 minutes you probably have a more complex sales process. Have you written down what your sales process really is? Most salespeople I know have the sales process in their mind and know it intuitively. However, when you write it down and share it with your other sales associates or managers you may find out there are some important steps you are missing that if taken can increase your chances of a sale or a faster close time. Better yet, what if you could look at your pipeline and see all the prospects that are in the same sales stages that you could review and easily identify common needs and move them to the next stage in a better or faster way? So many salespeople are so busy making calls and sending emails that they miss the little things that are right under their noses that could be that one thing to help them close a deal today. Being able to first identify your sales processes per product line, then your market segments or industries is the first step. Then take this information and populate it into your Contact database so you can quickly move your prospects along the sales stages is important. Don't just try to lump your contacts together in Hot, Warm or Cold groups. You know that in a complex sales cycle there is much more to it than that. In a market like the one we are in time is valuable. Make sure you are using yours wisely.

Also if you have to do any sales prospect reporting to your boss he/she will be very impressed that you have not only taken the time to think through your processes but to organize your leads in a way that matches your entire sales work-flow.

You can find below a sample sales process flow chart along with some screen shots of our ISIS products with sample Product lines and Sales stages.