If you think jumping straight into a sales pitch is the key to success, think again. Stoked Oats founder Simon Dinato learned the hard way that building rapport is just as important as your product pitch.
“I should have started the meeting with, ’Hi, my name is Simon. I’m the founder of Stoked Oats. Thanks so much for having us here. What can we do to help you? What would you like to know about our company?’” he says on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast. “All my meetings now start this way, as opposed to, ’Let me tell you about why we’re so awesome.’”
This is an example of sales process optimization: the process of looking critically at your sales approach and adjusting it to be more effective. Here’s how to optimize sales with advice from Simon, who used trial and error to build Stoked Oats into a national brand sold in major retailers.
What is sales process optimization?
Sales process optimization is a strategic approach to refining your sales efforts by targeting improved customer relationships and increased revenue. Ultimately, you want to align your sales funnel with your sales goals, setting lead generation and customer acquisition benchmarks that you aim to surpass. Optimizing sales performance is an ongoing process, driven by continuous improvement through collaboration between sales and marketing teams.
A typical sales optimization process starts with analyzing every stage of your sales cycle—from how you discover and contact target customers to how the sales team members close deals. Identify pain points in the sales pipeline to improve the customer journey and align overall sales strategy with company goals. You might adopt new automation tools, upgrade your software, or refine your website’s checkout experience and customer support processes.
Sales optimization is ultimately about building lasting relationships with your customers. Simon stresses that successful sales are grounded in understanding your buyer and fostering trust—not just selling a product. “You need to understand who your buyer is and adjust your strategy to build that relationship,” he explains. “It’s all relationship-based. You’re not selling the product. You’re selling a relationship.”
Benefits of optimizing your sales process
Sales process optimization offers numerous benefits beyond improving lead quality. It can help you:
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Streamline operations. Analyzing your sales activities reveals how they translate into revenue. This helps you pull the plug on the resources and methods that aren’t creating more deals, redirecting your budget toward strategies that build and foster customer relationships.
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Identify valuable resources. By evaluating your sales journey, you can pinpoint strategies that bring in qualified leads. You can then focus your efforts and sales reps on those effective methods and enhance them with new tools and resources.
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Reduce errors. Auditing your sales process uncovers outdated practices or inefficiencies that can cause issues down the line—by addressing these, you can prevent problems before they arise. For example, if your team is still manually entering customer data instead of using automated tools, it can lead to mistakes and delays.
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Increase business potential. An efficient sales process frees up more time and resources to track leads and improve customer interactions, resulting in greater potential to meet and exceed sales goals.
How to optimize your sales process
- Map out your current process
- Identify leaks in your funnel
- Evaluate the data
- Identify and implement solutions
- Iterate and recalibrate
If you’re looking for a winning sales optimization tool set, here’s a step-by-step process sales leaders can use to analyze and improve their sales pipeline:
1. Map out your current process
Start by getting all your key players on the same page about where your company’s sales process currently stands. For a small team, this might be a cinch, but for a larger company, it may mean coordinating with your lead management team and sales managers. Getting your marketing team involved would also be advisable. Before you book a meeting for everyone to come together, align on a clear goal and ask participants to think about these questions in advance:
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Are there any gaps in our current sales process that could use standardization?
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Which aspects of our sales process do you find most challenging?
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Where are you experiencing the most success?
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What data do you need to analyze customer interactions more effectively?
Together, you can map the typical customer journey, from a customer’s first contact with your company to their final purchase. Getting everyone on the same page about your current process can reveal differences in understanding and approaches.
For example, your marketing team may think the average customer purchases something after seeing a targeted ad, but your customer service team reveals they’ve been fielding lots of questions from first-time web visitors. This insight can lead your team to set a new goal of designing a more informative homepage that clarifies customer questions from the jump.
2. Identify leaks in your funnel
Once your team agrees on the sales process, dig into the data. Use tools like Shopify Analytics, web traffic analysis software like Google Analytics, and your customer relationship management (CRM) to gather customer data—like demographics, purchasing behavior, and engagement—to understand where they’re entering the funnel and, more importantly, where they’re dropping off.
Look for areas where your process loses momentum. Where are people getting stuck? Are there stages where customers consistently bounce, like at checkout? Each leak can give you a clue about what’s preventing conversions and where to adjust your approach.
Focus on metrics like shopping cart abandonment rates, follow-up email effectiveness, or conversion rates from your marketing channels. For instance, you might look at Instagram engagement next to Shopify analytics to see which posts bring in website visitors—and which don’t. Identifying these gaps sets you up to find improvement measures in the following steps.
3. Evaluate the data
Analyze sales data to benchmark your marketing and sales performance against your goals. Look for weak points, like ad budgets yielding poor returns or cold-email strategies that aren’t building customer relationships. For example, your t-shirt business might find higher click-through conversions from its email newsletter than from social media posts. This could indicate that, as you consider solutions, a shift in budget toward email might be more effective.
“Be ready for some harsh feedback,” Simon advises. This is the step where you critically assess what really needs improvement. “I’m always ready for ‘No,’ and, ‘Hey, not innovative enough.’ That’s constructive feedback for us to go back and adjust or take a look at our innovation plan.”
You don’t need to do all the number crunching on your own. Data analytics software can provide valuable insights you might have missed, and AI tools can spot patterns, revealing missed opportunities or areas for improvement.
4. Identify and implement solutions
Next, use your data-driven insights to identify and address problem areas. For example, maybe your data shows that your sales team is stretched too thin with tasks like rote emails. You may decide to explore AI tools or lead management software, which can streamline routine tasks and reduce stress.
Solutions vary by industry, business, and goals. For example, your gathered data might show that your targeted ads have been successful in converting customers—but that you’re not getting repeat customers. There are a few different solutions you may consider:
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You might shift your marketing strategy to prioritize influencer marketing over ad spend to build a stronger brand community.
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You could also implement a stronger system for collecting customer contact info, like a newsletter sign up or an insider perks system.
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Or, you may choose to build out an automated system for sending follow-up emails to keep in contact.
Sometimes optimization isn’t about tools or resources, but your personal approach. After years of experimenting with sales styles, Simon realized he wanted his brand to be more people-focused. “Just being genuine, having passion about what you do in the brand, having knowledge, and being able to help solve issues for [your customers] is the most important thing.”
5. Iterate and recalibrate
Put your new findings and action plans into practice to start a fresh chapter in your sales and customer success journey. This also marks the start of a new round of optimization—you might start thinking of sales optimization as a way to provide continuous feedback for refining your sales game.
As your process evolves, your goals to improve sales performance should adapt accordingly. For example, your new strategy might involve focusing on quality over quantity by pursuing fewer leads or shifting your social media efforts by posting more frequently on one platform and reducing activity on another. Make sure you involve your entire team in setting achievable goals, and allot time for training, refining, and data gathering before you switch up your strategy. If you’re targeting an entirely new demographic, for instance, it may take some time before your ads are calibrated and you start to see the numbers you want.
By continuously analyzing your sales process and integrating new tools and methods to address weaknesses, you can develop a more effective, optimized sales strategy that will help you reach your goals.
Sales process optimization FAQ
What is sales optimization?
Sales optimization focuses on improving sales practices to boost lead quality, customer acquisition, and revenue. It involves analyzing your current sales process, assessing its effectiveness, and implementing the right strategies, tools, or solutions.
What is an example of process optimization?
A company selling keychains online might use sales process optimization to evaluate ad performance. If its ads aren’t delivering the desired return on investment (ROI), it might adjust its strategy by reallocating budget to influencer marketing or targeting a new demographic.
How do I know if I need to optimize my sales process?
Optimize your sales process if you’re not meeting sales goals or if your strategies aren’t yielding quality leads or customer satisfaction. Ideally, keep optimizing to spot weak points in your customer journey and identify tools or resources to improve efficiency.
