A recent visitor asked “How can the salesforce use Lean?”
There are lots of possible answers, and the reader left no context for what they might be concerned about. Here are a couple of general thoughts that might be useful:
- Lean can help sell more stuff!
Lean seeks to maximize value to the customer and eliminate waste. This means you find ways to make it easier for the customer to buy from you, and make it easier for salespeople to sell to them.
Sales forces can use Lean by zeroing in on waste. For example, brochures no one reads, websites that do not help customers do anything, sales “leads” that don’t (and may never) qualify, proposals that are not purchased … all these are all waste.
As a salesperson, you are probably thinking “duh!” The thing is this: Lean brings a new arsenal of weapons to attack these age old problems: Data, evidence, and logic to figure out why people are not buying, for one thing.
A systems view is another thing. Lean process thinking recognizes that the whole company must support sales process improvement, not just the sales department. …