Lean Six Sigma In Sales Industry

A Lean Six Sigma principle can be used to measure the inputs to any process and report the outputs. In sales, the outputs are the results or orders. You can start with Identifying the few vital management inputs that are qualifying factors assigned to the opportunities in the pipeline.

Examples include discount rates, proposals, mutual plans and access to power decision-makers. Once you’ve identified them, you need to manage these inputs to measure and report the actual business results.

Sales managers must focus on reducing defects that drive up costs, such as unproductive sales calls, counterproductive conversations and unqualified opportunities.

By consistently and rigorously qualifying prospects, you can minimize the variations in the pipeline and focus on qualified opportunities. Time and resources wasted on no-decision opportunities are unrecoverable costs to a sales organization.

A quality initiative in any process will incorporate best practices. Convert the best practices to common practices and make this the motto for a successful sales process. The recipe for success is making sure you are generating predictable outcomes.
Just as all great chefs have their own recipes to eliminate the variation in their end products, leaders in world-class sales organizations rely on a sales process to reduce the variations in qualified prospecting and, thus, maximize their revenue and margins.

A sales team is no different than a manufacturing organization. Think of sales as the manufacturing arm of any business that “manufacturers” customers from the “raw materials” of leads and prospects.

With the help of Lean Six Sigma you can deliver the results as expected, manage the vital inputs to maximize the quality of your results and achieve the highest productivity.