Even though you may have designed the best sales process in the world, too often there is a disconnect between sales, marketing and customers, which leads to disharmony and many prospects turning to your competitors.

You probably know already that if you can get the whole sales team to consistently follow best practices, your sales revenue will increase dramatically.

The one common trait that all successful sales people seem to share is that they seem to hate and are particularly bad about paperwork, but who cares anyway? You care and so do your customers. If sales people find it easier to prepare a proposal and mange their time based on a system that you give them, they will use it.

However, the most important factor of all in getting sales people buy-in to any new sales process or system is to ask them to help you design it. If they feel they have created a process that makes their life easier, and enables them to earn more money – they will use it. And you all win.

Now think what needs to be done to have the process you’ve just designed introduced in your company. Outline your plan.

You can use the following hints:

• Ask sales people what they are doing currently
• Ask customers what could be improved  from their point of view
• Search for an online/offline sales software that would make it all transparent and easy to use
• Start paying commissions to sales people based on the data they enter into the system
• Etc.