Managing Your Sales & Marketing Process

Last week we discussed the sales and marketing pipeline, as part of our coverage on using the business process approach to sales & marketing. Well-defined and aligned processes not only use measurement to continually improve, they also have built-in methods of communication to increase the flow of important information within and between departments.

Unaligned and disconnected Marketing and Sales efforts mean lost leads, the uncaptured voice of the customer, and wasted opportunities. The goal is to understand, plan, and improve the sales & marketing process, and not leave its success or failure to chance.

Managers Initiate Structure through Well-Defined Processes

Sales and Marketing efforts, however, will not magically align and unite. Cooperation begins at the highest levels of sales & marketing management, as well as at the executive level. The concept of a reflectively developed and documented process can apply to exercising management responsibilities as well as to executing the daily business functions.

Constructing and employing clear, well thought out policies and procedures that follow the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) format can be used to create vision and mission, and to define “big picture” strategies, goals, and objectives.  A culture of communication, teamwork, measurement, and improvement that well-defined processes can bring to the top levels of an organization will inevitably have a positive effect on downstream business processes.

A Process Approach to Synchronize Disparate Operations

The same concept also applies to product management functions. Many of us know from experience how important a good plan and clear, coordinated communication are to activities like product development and product launch.  Using a business process approach, these activities are methodically designed to have clear inputs and outputs, execution steps, and measurements that help identify areas that need corrective or preventive action in order to meet targets. Plus, as we discussed previously, the flow of important information is built into a well designed process.  Not only can problems be identified and corrected during the execution stage, but the information captured and analyzed can be used to make the next product launch even more successful.

At Bizmanualz, our mission is to help organizations employ a philosophy of continually improving their processes in order to achieve greater success and higher levels of customer satisfaction. We have a wide range of off-the-shelf policy and procedure manuals covering an array of business topics such as Accounting, Human Resources, ISO 9001, even Disaster Recovery. Plus, orders are now being accepted for the new Bizmanualz Sales & Marketing Policies, Procedures and Forms Manual that will be shipping soon, and which includes sections covering administration and management.

Bizmanualz also offers training and consulting to help businesses reduce waste and enhance value through defining and aligning processes, and through implementing & auditing quality management systems (ISO 9000) and defect reduction philosophies (Six Sigma).

In our next article, we will discuss specific sales & marketing tactics, and examine the drastic changes that the internet and e-commerce are bringing to the field.

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Originally published in 2007 by Bizmanualz, Inc. under the title Managing Your Sales & Marketing Process. All rights reserved. Reproduction permitted with attribution only. www.bizmanualz.com