Sue Barrett, the founder of Barrett Consulting Group, is a well-known name in the sales circle for creating sustainable sales systems. She is an educator and a leading strategist. She is here to shed light on the selling systems that create lasting success. Sue reveals below how to remove chaos and build processes for sales that can be repeated and brings sustainable success to the business. According to her, most sales processes are random in nature. Some ways allow you to model sales success. If you can shape sales success, you can repeat it with minor tweaks. It will make success repeatable. What is a sales system? A sales system is an open system that lives and breathes inside the organization and interacts with markets, clients, workers, and society. Marketing is the interface between customers and sales. A sales system is a well-coordinated super highway driven by: Intention Strategy Communication Information Behavior Tools/Technology Actions It flows effortlessly between the customer and the organization. Types of sales systems today in business All the organization has some form of sales system. Some are well-polished engines, and some are not. Invariably there are two kinds of methods: An amalgamation of tools, vague guidelines with multiple salespeople is doing their own thing without a proper direction. A tightly managed team with a laser focus on numbers. With a set up of right protocols, and too many administrators with any breathing space. Why do you create sales systems? Either a business establishes the sales system by design or default. The question you need asking is, how operational is your sales system and is it working for you? Most execs try to reply to this question by lead to a deal conversion rate or the number of leads in the system. Even though the numbers may look good, it fails to answer if the system will sustain itself if no leads are generated through external interference (new leads through cold calling, social media, and any other similar sources). Can it be sustained through an existing group of customers? The answer is no in most cases. How do you turn it around? How do you convert the answer to yes? The answer is creating sales systems. Before creating a system, develop an understanding of your customer, have a feedback loop system in place that can help you align your sales activities, and prevent you from losing focus. The execs are mostly fixated on the number to find what they can control and what they cannot, and make the forecast more predictable. The input and output measures that most execs focus on are: Input Measures are: behaviors, activities, and quality Output measures: numbers, quarterly targets, results It makes it quite evident that somewhere down the line, sales get misaligned with business goals while focusing prudently on the number game.