In the business world, consistency, efficiency, and productivity are all crucial to success. With employees working in a variety of environments, across different time zones, and towards diverse goals, companies need to implement “standardized practices” to drive positive results.
That’s where Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) come in. An SOP is essentially the step-by-step guide employees can follow whenever they’re completing a crucial task. Companies use SOPs for everything from onboarding new employees to qualifying leads.
Today, we’re looking at what SOPs mean to the sales team, and how you can create the right standard operating procedures for your high-performance staff.
What are Standard Operating Procedures? The Basics
Standard Operating Procedures, or SOPs are the step-by-step instructions employees follow when executing a routine task. They essentially walk your employees through everything they need to do successfully accomplish something, whether making a cold call, or creating a marketing campaign.
While different companies take various approaches to creating standard operating procedures, most SOPs have the following elements:
- A Title: A title that encapsulates the purpose of the procedure.
- Purpose: What the SOP is used for, and who its intended audience is.
- Instructions: The step-by-step procedure employees need to follow. Usually, businesses use a numbered list to outline each step in order.
- Definitions: Overviews of what specific terms, acronyms, and references mean.
Some SOPs may also guide employees towards other resources that may be able to help them. For instance, an SOP covering how to onboard a customer may include links, or information on how to find resources for employee education and training.
Common SOPs for The Sales Team
Standard Operating Procedures are common in virtually every part of a business, for all different types of employees. For sales teams, they’re often used as a tool to help drive productivity, increase revenue, and improve win rates. After companies find out which “processes” lead to better conversions, higher retention rates, or loyalty, they create SOPs to help replicate positive results.
There are many different types of SOPs sales teams can use, such as:
- Sales Process SOPs: These SOPs follow the specific steps an employee should take throughout the entire sales process or buyer journey. It includes everything from initial prospecting strategies, to how employees should contact customers, follow up with them, and even pass them onto the customer success team. It may also include references to other SOPs for specific things like cold-calling, or social media selling.
- Lead generation SOPS: With this SOP, businesses aim to outline the process of identifying and generating leads for the sales team. They might provide insights into the target audience the company wants to reach, and how to “validate” a lead. They can also offer insights into outreach strategies, lead nurturing efforts, and follow-up methods.
- Lead qualification SOPs: Often accompanying lead generation SOPs, lead qualification SOPs help employees to determine whether a lead is suitable for the business. It provides insights into how to determine the quality of each lead, based on their purchasing power, business size, preferences, goals, and pain points.
- Employee training SOPs: SOPs for employee training outline the process of training new and existing sales employees. They can cover everything from the types of training and coaching available, to how to set goals for training initiatives and track program results. They can also include guidelines for assessing employee performance and skill gaps.
- Sales pitching SOPs: With this type of SOP, companies can outline how employees should create and customize “pitches” for different customers. The SOP might outline how to identify a customer’s needs and link their pain points to specific product features and benefits. It can also include how to present a sales pitch, with demonstrations and other tools.
- CRM SOPs: Customer relationship management SOPs outline the process for managing and building customer relationships. They can cover things like which information a company should collect from prospects during initial conversations, how they can track the various stages of the sales journey, and how to evaluate customer sentiment.
- Sales Reporting SOPs: Reporting SOPs for sales teams look at how to track important metrics, such as win rates, conversion rates, retention levels, sales volume, and other factors. They also highlight how these metrics should be presented, and how they can be used for other purposes, like sales forecasting.
- Sales Territory management SOPs: Territory management SOPs look at how managers should assign and manage sales territories, from setting geographical boundaries to creating sales targets. By effectively managing sales territories, companies can unlock opportunities for revenue growth, and achieve more business targets.
An Example of a Sales Team SOP
The types of Sales team SOPs outlined above offer just a brief snapshot of all the various standard operating procedures that can be leveraged in a business environment. Sales leaders can design SOPs for everything, from succession planning, to conducting market research.
Ultimately, any process that can benefit from repetition can be enhanced by an SOP. The right document gives your employees the guidance they need to successfully complete a range of tasks, and replicate the results you’ve already achieved in your organization.
Here’s an example of an SOP for a cold-calling process:
Title: Cold-Calling SOP
Scope: Applies to all team members conducting cold calling activities.
Purpose: Standardizing the cold-calling process based on previous insights into which strategies and methodologies work.
Process steps:
- Begin by researching the target prospect and collecting information about their business size, needs, preferences, and how the product/service can benefit them.
- Identify the decision maker in the target business, and collect contact details (email addresses, phone numbers, social media profiles).
- Use the cold calling script (Script SOP 101), and adapt it with the information you’ve collected about your lead to personalize the conversation.
- Make the call, introduce yourself and the company, as well as our service offering.
- Introduce the product or service, relating the benefits available to the prospect’s pain points or goals.
- Ask questions to validate the lead as a member of our ideal target audience, and gather insights into their interest in the product.
- Arrange a follow-up call to discuss further, and send an email to the customer summarizing the discussion, and what happens next.
- Record the call’s outcome, and any valuable notes in the company CRM system. Note any follow-up actions required.
Additional resources:
- Lead qualification SOP
- Sales pitch template
- Sales call template
- Customer research guidelines
- CRM workflow SOP
How to Create an SOP for Your Sales Team
Now you understand what Standard Operating Procedures are and how they work, you can start building SOPs of your own. As mentioned above, this can be an excellent way to standardize processes in your business, and improve overall efficiency and productivity.
Fortunately, writing SOPs isn’t as complicated as it seems. Just follow these steps:
Step 1: Create a List of Essential Processes
To start, you’ll need a list of essential “processes” that are crucial to how your team members work every day. In the sales landscape, there are various processes that could benefit from standardization, from how your employees approach prospecting, to how they validate leads.
Your list of “essential processes” might include things like:
- Validating and qualifying leads
- Conducting research (prospecting)
- Collecting information through customer calls
- Pitching products or services to customers
- Transferring customers to a customer success team
- Transferring leads to a sales team
- Monitoring sales success and creating reports
- Forecasting sales opportunities
Step 2: Format the Process
There’s no one-size-fits-all way to presenting SOPs effectively. Your SOPs might feature your specific brand voice, videos, and images, as well as step-by-step guidelines. The key to success is making sure your SOPs are easy to understand and follow.
If you’re not sure how to format your SOPs, speak to your teams. You can ask for insights into the kind of documents they consider to be most useful in their workflows. Once you have an idea of how to format everything, make sure you’re consistent with your process every time you create an SOP.
This will help to minimize the risk of unnecessary confusion among your staff members.
3. Communicate with Your Team
To ensure your SOPs are successful, you need to check that your step-by-step instructions are accurate. This means speaking to the employees that are going to be using your standard operating procedures every day.
Ask them how they complete certain tasks already, and what kind of resources and guidance they need to make them more efficient and effective. Collect data about the processes and strategies that have worked for your business in the past, for a data driven approach.
After you write your SOP, ask for feedback from the employees it is intended for. This will help you address any errors or gaps.
4. Write your SOP and Implement it
Now, it’s time to write your SOP, following the structure you defined above. Remember, simple, straightforward instructions are crucial to success. Don’t use too much jargon or confusing terminology, and try to keep your SOPs as brief as possible.
The fewer words you can include in your step-by-step guide, the easier it will be for employees to use and remember each crucial SOP.
Once you’re happy with the SOP, share it with your team members, and encourage them to follow the instructions provided (or share feedback if there’s an issue).
5. Review When Necessary
Many SOPs, particularly those in the sales environment, need to be updated regularly. Your business processes, customers, and teams will change, so your procedures will evolve too. Every year or so, review all of your SOPs and make sure they’re still relevant.
In between “review” periods, make sure you’re open to listening to feedback and information shared by your employees about how you can improve the standard operating procedure.
Mastering Sales SOPs
Creating SOPs for your sales team might not seem like the most exciting way to empower your staff, but it’s more valuable than you might think. The right SOPs are fundamental to ensuring internal processes can run smoothly. They help to save your staff members time, familiarize new employees with your workflows, and increase results.
If you want more tips on how to optimize your SOPs, or you need help training your employees to become more productive, join HSE today. Here, you can learn from industry experts, implement gamified training experiences, and optimize your workforce.
