Your Sales Process and Property Management Automation

• What does your BizDev person or team do all day—do you know?
• Can you predict with some accuracy how much business you'll have two months from now?
• Can you read the growth status of your business based on your current pipeline?
• Do you know where most leads drop out of your current sales cycle?

If you've answered 'no' to any of these questions, you might not have a solid sales process and reporting structure in place.

Why the emphasis on a defined sales process? Well, a defined and structured process is necessary for creating improvement. Think of it like a sports team; football, for example. All good teams have a playbook that the team learns and plays from. Then, after the game, the team will review what worked and what didn't—and look for places to make improvements. If you just run around wildly on the field, there aren't any legitimate 'plays' in place. Plus, that doesn't give you much room to refine a strategy that yields wins.

The sales process works in the same way—so your first step is to create a defined and repetitive sales process (your playbook). From there, you can test your 'plays' to find the ways in which your sales process can be improved—and automated. So, how do you create a defined sales process if you don't already have one?

Let's take you through the basics. If you find this blog useful and would like us to put together a downloadable guide to creating an effective (and automated) sales process, let us know! We're always looking for ways to provide applicable content to property management companies.

Step One: Choose a Sales Methodology

If you don't already have one, your first step is to choose your sales methodology. Another way to look at this is that you're selecting the way you will sell before you implement your process. The methodology is your 'how,' and your process is the steps you'll take to fulfill that 'how.'

This is why it's crucial to settle on your 'how' first. Imagine trying to take a vacation without ever booking your transportation!

Step Two: Document Your Process

Take some time to create a 'script' for your process based on your methodology. Ultimately, this is going to help you down the line when it comes to property management automation potential.

What steps are required—and who takes them? List out (in order) what is going to happen in an average interaction. It might look something like this:

1. Sales: A lead comes in.
2. Sales: Attempt to connect with the lead.
3. Sales: Set a meeting.
4. Sales: Pitch company and services.
5. Prospect: Evaluate options.
6. Sales: Follow up, sometimes many times.
7. Sales: Get approval.
8. Sales: Send contract.
9. Move deal to fulfillment.

Now, if you're choosing to use a CRM to help your sales team out, this is a good time to bucket these stages into the categories you will use in your CRM. That might look something like this:

1. New Deal
2. Attempting to Contact
3. Nurturing
4. Appointment Scheduled
5. Working Deal
6. Drafting PMA
7. PMA Sent for Signature
8. PMA Signed, Onboarding
9. Drip/Circle Back
10. Complete/Won
11. Lost

From here, you can make a sales playbook for your business development team. Write out the best practices for each stage of the sales cycle and create a sales playbook that your team will reference at every stage. Bonus points if that sales playbook is built into your CRM.

Why a sales playbook? Well, no matter how well your team knows your company and your service, it is easy for a call to completely derail with little to no warning. A playbook will help your sales team keep a call on track. It is also a great place to put reminders on where to pose the questions that need asking to make these moments of lead contact work in your favor.

Your team isn't going to be able to convert every person they speak to; not everyone is at the same point in the buyer's journey, after all. That is why property management automation is so important; it will nurture the leads that aren't ready.

For automation to work for you—and for your best shot at sales—you need data. A sales playbook will help your team remember and document crucial details at key moments in the sales cycle. If you ask how soon a prospect is looking for management, and find out that it is six months out or more, a best practice is to put that lead into a long-term drip and create a task to circle back in four months to get back in front of them.

This is why documenting your sales process and creating workflows helps you execute your vision and make fixes.

Step 3: Make Data-Driven Decisions

Now that you have officially picked a process and documented it, here is where the actual magic comes in. Once your team is using your defined process, CRM, and playbooks, you should be able to gather data about what isn't working.

If you have good success, and response rates are up through, say, the nurturing stage before your deals start to drop off and stop responding, you'll know you need to optimize your nurturing process. Can't get a lead to book a meeting? Maybe you need to look at your property management website to see if your messaging is in line with what your sales team is saying. Ensure your leads aren't accidentally 'turned off' by crossed wires!

With a delineated system, you'll make changes that are driven by evidence instead of gut feelings. No matter how well things are running, there is always a need for this kind of data: you never know when the tide of business is going to turn! Agility is crucial in property management.

By having a complete process, you'll be able to spot the trends in the data before they become a problem, fix a problem that you're currently dealing with, and ultimately convert more leads.

Geekly Media is ready to help you bring your sales process into the HubSpot CRM and automate it, so your business development team has leads that are ready to convert! You'll have the data you need to optimize your sales pipeline for the best results.

Book a quick discovery call with us to see if we can help you take your sales to the next level with property management automation!