Ascend's Intuitive Selling Process® is a simple and flexible, yet pragmatic approach to selling.

My recent discussions with business leaders have uncovered a common assessment as they look to grow revenue – they perceive their sales teams are underperforming. Their investments in new product innovations, business acquisition, and marketing are not being converted into the expected revenue growth. In some cases, they now realize that last year’s celebrations of growth recognized overall marketplace growth versus their share growth – they achieved less than what was possible. 

In some cases, their solution was to replace the sales team – some had wholesale turnover from sales leadership to the individual “boots on the ground” salespeople. Others watched their revolving door of salespeople – they lost both desired talent and underperformers. From my outside looking in vantage point, I saw some of these “underperformers” being hired by other companies with celebration and great anticipation.

According to the Harvard Business Review, many of these business leaders may have achieved their revenue objectives if they had also invested in a credible, formalized sales process. In fact, HBR research suggests there is an 18% difference in revenue growth between companies that defined a formal sales process and companies that didn’t.  This revenue growth is driven by a shorter and more predictable sales cycle, more accurate forecasting, increased close rates, and proactive contingency planning.

So, what is a formalized sales process and how do you set one up in your company?

In my experience, the sales process is unique for your business – it should align with how your customers buy, it should amplify your benefits as experienced by your customer, and it leverages the unique strengths of your organization. Many sales teams use generic sales processes, and consequently get generic sales performance. 

How does this relate to Ascend’s Intuitive Selling Process®? 

As I developed the mission for Ascend Commercial Solutions, I recognized that Ascend needs to tailor its approach to the unique objectives and intents of each client – in both leadership competencies and commercial acumen. To do this, the three foundational pillars of the Intuitive Selling Process®were designed to be very intuitive:

• Align value drivers with customer decision makers
• co-create and Close a mutually beneficial agreement
• faithfully Execute this agreement with excellence

Under each of these competencies are suggested skills and tools that may be used, modified, or replaced with similar skills and tools that are used by your sales team and considered effective. The Intuitive Selling Process® is a simple and flexible, yet pragmatic approach to selling.

As I consider the elements of a high performing Sales Team, I reflect on the sport of rowing. In rowing, everyone on the boat needs to be synchronized to perform as a winning team. There cannot be one superstar that “carries” the boat. Of course, you need strong performers for a champion team, but they all need to be synchronized – a strong stroke can actually topple the boat. And you cannot force the synchronization – it needs to be tailored to the team of rowers in the boat.

Similarly, a high performing sales team needs to be synchronized. The Intuitive Selling Process® provides clearly defined stages and gates that result in these commercial and organizational benefits:

• Everyone on the sales team understands the selling process and how your customers move through their buying process. This extends to EVERYONE on your sales team – including Customer Service, Tech Support, Supply Chain, and anyone that touches your customer. 
• The expertise of “tenured” sellers is recognized and rewarded as you harness their commercial acumen for coaching and supporting the newer sellers and cross functional business partners. 
• The energy and natural inquisitiveness of newer sellers is provided a challenging yet secure environment to grow their product and customer knowledge.
• Succession Planning becomes more effective. You can quickly recruit, on board, and train new salespeople to the business and build strategic staffing plans vs tactical replacements.
• And the CRM system lubricates the selling process – it does not increase friction for the customer engagement.

As a dear friend and colleague once told me, sometimes things are simple but not easy.

Connect with Ascend Commercial Solutions to learn how you may harness the power of the Intuitive Selling Process® to transform your sales team: 

• Synchronize your customer-facing team members – with everyone talking the same language and following the same process and methods it is easier for teams to collaborate on achieving marketplace and customer success.
• Grow predictable sales revenue – a scalable, measurable, and repeatable process allows everyone to know exactly where they are in the customer journey, and to determine the root cause of problems and how to address them as they arise.
• Build robust staffing succession plans – with everyone using the same tools, processes, and best practices you can hire from a broader staffing pool and accelerate onboarding.
• Improve customer retention - having a standardized approach that the entire sales organization follows, with the customer’s outcomes in mind, increases customer satisfaction.
• Fully integrate your CRM and sales process - using the aligned best practices and approaches create a seamless customer management process and reduces administrative friction.

Want to learn more? Feel free to sign up for a no-obligation 30-minute review of your challenges and possible actions we may take to overcome them by pressing the “Get Started” button on LinkedIn or “Let’s Talk!” button on the AscendCommercialSolutions.com website. 

Happy Selling!

George

Ascend Commercial Solutions brings our expertise in Customer Engagement, Sales Management, and Market Development to overcome your barriers to growth. Our structured approach is tailored to your specific company objectives and the challenges you face. The improvements to your business and organization will stand the test of time.