My friend Tibor had a good post up yesterday, asking whether or not a company should have a sales process.  You should check it out.

The fact that companies still question whether or not they should have a sales process is baffling and in my opinion a stupid question.  The question shouldn’t be; should I have a sales process but rather, should I know what it is.

What many people don’t recognize is that sales processes exist regardless of whether or not you chose to identify it and leverage in your selling.

Every sale, I mean every sale has a set of stages or processes that must happen in order for the sale to be made.  You can’t get around it.  With Socially Booked, it includes an introduction via our white paper, two demo’s, a meeting with marketing, a price and MSA negotiation and more.  We have yet to see a sale close that didn’t go through this process.   We didn’t create it. We didn’t draft it on a white board and anoint it the sales process.  It’s what we saw as we continued to sell.  Patterns arose as certain things continued to arise with every prospect, regardless of who was selling it, or who the prospect was. Sales processes exist whether or not we accept them.

Understanding this, the question shouldn’t be do you need a sales process but rather should you know what it is.   When you ask it like that, the answer should be pretty simple.