The 7 Systems Every Business Needs, Part 3: You Are Not a Sales System

There is a sentence I hear from business owners all the time:

“Nobody can sell this business like I can.”

And you know what?

You might be right.

You know the company better than anyone. You know why you started it. You know your customers. You know the work. You know every weird little question someone might ask because you have probably answered it 247 times.

But here is the problem.

If you are the only person who knows how to sell your business, you do not have a sales system.

You have a salesperson.

And that salesperson is you.

Welcome back to my series on the 7 Systems Every Business Needs.

We have been talking about the systems that allow a business to grow without everything constantly landing back on the owner.

Because that is what happens in so many small businesses.

The owner generates the leads.
The owner answers the phone.
The owner gives the estimate.
The owner follows up.
The owner closes the sale.
The owner handles the customer when something goes sideways.

Then everybody wonders why the owner cannot get out of the weeds.

Well…there is your answer.

Sales Cannot Live Inside Your Head

A real sales system should answer questions like:

• What happens when a new lead comes in?
• How quickly does someone respond?
• What questions are asked?
• How do you determine whether that person is actually a good prospect?
• When is an estimate or proposal sent?
• When does follow-up happen?
• How many times do you follow up?
• What happens when someone says they need to “think about it”?
• How do you track the people who are not ready today but might be ready six months from now?
• How do you know whether your sales process is actually working?

If the answer to most of those questions is:

“Well, I just kind of know what to do…”

That is not a system.

That is tribal knowledge.

And tribal knowledge is one of the fastest ways to make a business dependent on its owner.

“But I’m Really Good at Sales”

Fantastic.

Then you are exactly the person who should be documenting the process.

I am not telling you that you need to immediately hire some slick salesperson with a shiny suit and a rehearsed pitch.

In fact, please don’t.

What I am saying is that you need to start identifying what you are already doing that works.

Think about your last five good sales conversations.

• What did you ask?
• What objections came up?
• What made the customer trust you?
• What information did you give them?
• How did you follow up?
• Where did the lead come from?
• Why did they ultimately choose you?

That information is gold.

But right now, for a lot of business owners, that gold is stored entirely between their ears.

And that makes it almost impossible to duplicate.

A Sales System Is Bigger Than Closing

Sometimes we think “sales” means convincing somebody to buy something.

That is a pretty narrow definition.

Your sales system starts long before someone signs a contract.

It begins the moment a prospect enters your world.

Maybe they called.
Maybe they filled out a form on your website.
Maybe someone referred them.
Maybe they met you at BNI.
Maybe they found you through social media.
Maybe they have been receiving your emails for six months and finally decided they were ready.

Whatever the source, something needs to happen next.

And it should not depend on whether you happen to remember.

That sounds simple.

It is supposed to.

Systems do not have to be complicated.

They have to be repeatable.

Follow-Up Is Probably Where You Are Losing Money

I will say this until business owners get tired of hearing it:

The fortune really is in the follow-up.

And most businesses are terrible at it.

Someone asks for a quote.

You send it.

Three days go by.

Then five.

Then two weeks.

You get busy.

The customer gets busy.

Nobody follows up.

Eventually you assume they chose someone else.

Maybe they did.

Or maybe they were waiting for you.

According to Salesforce research, customers increasingly expect companies to understand their needs and provide consistent experiences throughout their interactions. A structured sales process makes that easier than relying on memory and improvisation. Read the Salesforce research here.

A follow-up process could be incredibly simple.

Day 1: Send the proposal.
Day 2 or 3: Check in.
Day 7: Follow up again.
Day 14: Reach out one more time.

Still not ready? Put them into a longer-term nurture process.

The exact timing will depend on your business.

But the point is this:

There should be a process.

Not, “I’ll remember to call them.”

Because you won’t.

You have 97 other things going on.

Your CRM Is Not Your Sales System Either

Here is another mistake I see.

A business owner buys a CRM and thinks:

“Great. We have a sales system now.”

Nope.

You bought software.

Software can support a system.

It cannot decide what the system should be.

HubSpot describes a sales process as a series of repeatable steps that moves a prospect from an early-stage lead to a customer. The technology can help organize those steps, but the business still has to define them. Read more from HubSpot here.

Before you start building complicated automations, figure out the basics.

What are your sales stages?

Maybe yours looks like:

Great.

Now decide what has to happen at each stage.

That is how you start creating something another person could eventually follow.

The Goal Is Not to Remove Yourself Tomorrow

Business owners sometimes hear me talk about systems and think I am telling them:

“You should never talk to another customer again.”

That is not what I mean.

You may continue selling for years.

You might love sales.

You might be fantastic at it.

Your involvement is not the problem.

Dependency is the problem.

There is a big difference between:

“I choose to handle important sales conversations.”

and

“If I stop selling for three weeks, revenue stops.”

One is a business decision.

The other is a bottleneck.

Here’s Your Homework

Look at your current sales process and ask yourself:

Could another capable person follow this without me standing beside them explaining every step?

If the answer is no, start documenting it.

1. Where your leads come from.
2. What happens when a lead arrives.
3. What questions you ask.
4. How you qualify the opportunity.
5. How you present pricing.
6. How you follow up.
7. How you track the outcome.

Do not try to build the perfect system in one afternoon.

Start with what actually happens today.

Then improve it.

Because the goal of systems is not to turn your business into some robotic corporate machine.

The goal is to build a company that can function even when you are not touching every single piece of it.

And if every sale still requires you?

We just found one of your bottlenecks.

Next up in this series: another one of the seven systems that determines whether your business can grow without creating even more chaos.