How to Pinpoint Sales Cycle Strengths with Process Mining

We’ve all heard it — the sales pitch. Perfected in an elevator or thoughtfully detailed in a pitch deck, businesses must craft and deliver a strong sales message to win clients and close deals.

But the sales pitch is just the lead actor in an otherwise process oriented sales cycle.

Multiple supporting roles and stages work before and after a sales pitch to help transition a prospect into a client.

So which parts of the sales cycle actually lead to a sale?

Instincts may point towards a charismatic sales executive. Analytics may suggest a lucrative leads source. But Process Mining, uniquely, pinpoints which actions — and in which nurturing stages — lead to higher sales.

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You can apply Process Mining to a sales cycle to reveal two key elements about the process:

(1) as-is reverse engineered sales cycle, and

(2) influence of actions on sales.

So here we go!

1. Reverse Engineer Successful Deals

“Reverse engineer successful deals” triggers an image of a room full of marketing, sales and client service representatives staring at a messy wall of sticky notes and arrows. Each member chiming in, trying to contribute their perspective of the sales cycle.

Even with egos set aside and best efforts put forward, a manual approach to defining the as-is sales cycle has many pitfalls.

Process Mining, however, maps a prospect’s route towards purchase with precision.

Rather than team members recollecting how they individually contribute to the sales cycle, Process Mining software relies on verifiable data pulled from multiple IT systems. The result is a comprehensive as-is sales cycle that can be reverse engineered to show the most common route(s) towards a closed deal.

Not only can Process Mining deliver a detailed, data-based visualization of a reverse-engineered sales cycle, but it can also answer these important questions:

• Which specific actions lead to higher sales?
• Which stages of client nurturing are more susceptible to a sales pitch or dedicated outreach?
• Which sales techniques (and at which point in the cycle) are most effective?
• Which sales techniques are turning customers away?
• Where are opportunities for automation or additional customer nurturing?

2. Analyze the Influence of Actions

Now that Process Mining has replaced dozens of sticky notes and foggy memories with data points and precision, you are able to analyze (and test) the influence of specific actions on closed deals.

Take, for example, a bank which wants to increase the acceptance rate of loans offered and understand the influence of calling (or not calling) prospects.

The bank has various options for checking their internal sales process success and effectiveness by:

1. Measuring the influence of calling or not calling customers to complete documentation on the final outcome of the loan acceptance
2. Analyzing if customers ask for more than one offer and loan acceptance rates for loans with a single offer versus multiple offers
3. Comparing the difference in acceptance success rates when an offer is presented in a single conversation versus over multiple conversations

By using Process Mining to absorb and bring order to thousands of minuscule data points, bank managers are able to understand the impact of various outreach techniques. Process Mining reveals trends in process success, as well as process shortcomings.

For other banks or organizations, the data may reveal customer outreach to have a negative impact on final sales.

The silver bullet is not call all customers, at all stages.

Rather, it’s to understand how calling customers impacts sales and in which nurturing phases such contact helps or hinders the final outcome.

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Eager to understand the strengths (and weaknesses) of your business’ sales cycle? Minit Process Mining can reveal the truth behind sales success and failures. Reach out to our team to see how we can help you improve sales performance and gain actionable process intelligence.