Zoom Out from Your Sales Process

Remember that “Observable Universe” video from way back in the day? Where you zoomed out from planet Earth x 10 every 5 seconds to show just how big you the universe really is?

Time to zoom out from your sales process in the same way and start thinking about what a customer does, how they engage and what they experience before that sales process kicks in and starts systematically moving them towards their purchase.

When consulting motorcycle dealerships, I’ve found the sales process has been documented, spliced and optimized to death. Regardless of how many little chunks you slice it up into, the process has remained the same for quite some time. Greet your customer, get to know them, offer them a product, demo the product, ask for the sale, take their money, give them the product. There are known industry benchmarks for conversion from one step to the next. Usually depicted as a funnel, put in customers at the top and sales will fall out of the bottom.

What if your marketing efforts could be identified and managed in the same way? What if you zoomed out of your sales process to include what happens before and after the sale? Then identified, optimized and benchmarked all of those interactions as well? What if you took into account that your customers repeat their purchases? What if you counted on customer referrals to hit your sales goals?

If that sounds interesting to you, stop thinking funnel and start thinking circle.

Think of a merry-go-round. People (customers) jump on a giant disc. Then there is a mechanical element under the middle that allows the disc to spin. The best ones have the least friction and spin forcefully even when a little pressure is applied. Imagine your sales associate and your marketing associate are standing on opposite sides of the disc each helping to spin the merry-go-round for your customers sitting on it. They are each adding energy to the spin so it goes faster and for longer. Without one it would be much harder for the other, and more jerky for the customer.

Time to take your customers for a ride.