Sales Process Gaps: How To Easily Identify Them

Sales is one of those topics in business that people either love or hate. My goal is to change the way business owners think about sales to help them sell in an ethical and effective way. One of the best ways to get more sales, increase your conversion rates, and to feel more confident selling is to audit your current sales process in your business. 

In this blog post, I am going to ask you a series of questions based on each category in a sales process to see if you have a gap in that area.

By the end of this post, you will be able to identify the gaps in your sales process. Over on the Podcast, I’ve talked a lot about having a sales process and understanding that sales is not a one-step thing. So I wanted to bring this conversation to the blog so you can start to see what areas you might need help with when it comes to sales. 

Finding the Gaps in Your Sales Process

How it Works:

I’m going to ask you a series of questions for each category and I want you to take notes and answer each question either on a piece of paper or in your notes app on your phone. At the end of each category, write down if it is a gap in your current sales process. Then at the end we will see how many of them are affecting your sales.  

Let’s get straight to it. 

The Key Areas in Your Sales Process

#1 Your Beliefs and Mindset About Sales

Whether you hate sales, love it or feel neutral, your beliefs and mindset about sales is a big part of your sales process. If you think that selling is sleazy, pushy or bad, odds are you aren’t selling as much as you need to be. I did an entire podcast episode on The Money Rebel Podcast about How Your Beliefs About Sales are Holding You Back, you can listen to that here. 

To see if your beliefs and mindset about sales are a potential gap, reflect and answer the questions below:

What are your beliefs about sales? 

How do you feel about sales? 

Do you have any negative feelings about selling? 

And how are your beliefs about sales affecting your ability to actually sell?

Do you feel like your mindset and beliefs are holding you back from actually selling or showing up?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, or if you have negative feelings about sales that are stopping you from selling, your beliefs about sales might be a gap in your sales process. In your notes or piece of paper, write down if this is one of your gaps. 

#2 Market Research

This part of your sales process is so important and could be a potential gap that is hurting your sales. Knowing how to do market research is a key skill every business owner needs to have. Doing market research can not only help you get more leads but also help you get better at converting those leads into paying customers. There are so many different ways that market research impacts your business let alone sales. 

Reflect and answer the questions below:

Do you know how to do market research and use the findings in your business? 

Are you doing market research consistently in your business? 

Are you using market research to create data-driven strategies and make informed decisions in your business?

If you aren’t doing market research at all or you don’t know how to actually use the market research findings in your business or how to apply them, then market research is a gap in your sales process. 

#3 Pricing

Most people think that pricing only affects the amount of money they receive for their service or offer. However, your pricing plays such a big role not only in sales but your business as a whole. When you have intentional and strategic pricing that you feel confident in it really is your business’s secret weapon to success. 

Your pricing influences customer trust, marketing, positioning and customer acquisition which all directly impact your sales. Want a free 30 minute workshop that teaches you the 6 different ways your pricing impacts your business? Of course you do, here’s the link to watch it right now.

Here are some questions for you to answer to see if your pricing is a potential gap in your sales process. 

• Do you know how to actually price your services and offers? 

• Do you know what goes into pricing something? 

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being totally confident and 1 being not confident at all, how confident do you feel pricing your services and offers?

• Do you find yourself confused or maybe asking your friend or your coach or another person for input on your pricing? 

• Do you seek outside influence to price every service or offer you create?

If you answered no to the first two questions and yes to the last two, this is a big indicator that pricing is a gap in your sales process. Shameless plug, if you need help with pricing your services, my Nail Your Pricing Workshop & Template will make it so you never have to question what to charge ever again.

#4. Service and Offer Development 

In business it’s so important to meet your clients where they are at and be able to identify gaps that you can fill with your services and offers. Marketing and sales become so much easier when you create a service or offer that there is demand for. This ties in with market research because knowing how to do market research to validate your service or offer ideas is crucial. 

• Do you understand how to do product development in your business based on the customer journey? 

• Do you feel confident identifying the problems your target audience has and creating solutions for them? 

• Are you meeting your ideal clients where they are at and serving them with innovative offers and solutions? 

If you don’t know how to create services or offers that solve your target audience’s problems, this might be a potential gap in your sales process. 

Breaking Down Offer Development:

For most service-based businesses, the problem you solve for your clients usually seems pretty obvious. For example, if you own a cleaning company it’s natural to think the obvious solution is a cleaning service.

But knowing how to do market research when creating your service menu and offers by finding out what exactly your target audience and ideal client wants from the service, is what will make selling easier and more effective. 

#2 and #4 on this list really go hand in hand. If you don’t feel confident in doing market research, it’s going to impact your ability to do service and offer development. 

When I started my cleaning company it was by accident. I was calling around looking for a professional cleaning company to do my dishes. I was really sick and just needed my kitchen cleaned.

Every place I called offered the same type of standard service. I even offered to pay more and they refused. They only did standard surface cleaning. That’s when I had a lightbulb moment.

I knew if I wanted this chances are other people did too. The exact thought I had in my head was “I know how to clean and if they won’t offer this I will and I’ll do it better”. That’s how my first company was born. 

Real-World Example

The market research I did after that more than validated my idea. There was a huge gap in the market for a professional company that offered a customized cleaning service. I was the only one in our area that was offering this tailored service to each and every client’s unique needs. 

So it’s one thing to have a great business idea or an idea for a service or offer. It’s another thing to actually validate that idea and prove there is a significant demand for it. 

If you didn’t do this when you started your business it’s not too late. To stay competitive you can always be looking for gaps to fill in your industry. Also, by seeing how you can serve your clients differently and better than your competitors. 

The service and offer development part of sales is so important and really can make or break a business. If you think this area is a potential gap for you, this is exactly what I help my clients do and an example of what we can tackle in my one-time strategy sessions. Click here for more information on strategy sessions. 

#5 Messaging and Marketing

Messaging is what you want to say about your services and offers. Essentially the “message” about your brand, services, etc. that you want to communicate to your clients. It influences your copy, marketing and sales. 

Messaging = what you say; Copywriting = how you say it

• Do you feel confident in how you communicate your message and what you do to potential clients or in your marketing?

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being totally confident and 1 being not confident at all. How confident do you feel when talking about how you actually help people? 

• Do you know what makes your services and your offers unique from competitors? 

• Are you confident talking about your “it factor” and knowing how to use your differentiator in your marketing? Do you know how to use it when selling?

If you rated yourself at a 5 or lower when it comes to not knowing how to actually talk about how you help people or you answered no to any of these other questions then messaging and marketing could be a gap in your sales process. 

#6. Lead generation

When you think of sales and the role it plays in a business, it’s helpful to imagine it like a bicycle wheel. Each spoke supports the wheel and serves a purpose. On a bike, that purpose is to give the wheel support to move the bicycle forward in the direction you want to go.

In business, sales works the same way. Your sales wheel is made up of different spokes all supporting your business. To move it forward in the direction you want to go. 

In order to get sales, you need people to sell to. That’s where lead generation comes in. A healthy business is one that has a strategy to keep leads flowing in consistently and having a “lead pipeline”.

When you have leads coming in, you have people to sell to. So reflect on the questions below to see if lead generation is a potential gap in your sales process. 

• Are you consistently bringing in new potential clients into your business? 

• Are people reaching out for services or inquiring about your offers? 

• Do you feel like you regularly have people to sell to you? 

• Do you know how to get leads for your business?

If you don’t have people to consistently sell to or know how to bring leads into your business, then lead generation could be a gap in your sales process. 

#7 Pre-qualifying 

This area in your sales process is all about pre-qualifying your leads also known as lead qualification. 

I’ll keep this one short and sweet because I’ll be doing an entire blog post dedicated to how to do lead qualification in your business. After a lead enters your sales pipeline, then it’s up to you to determine if they are a qualified lead. That means being able to define what makes someone qualified to buy your offer or to be an ideal client for your service. 

• Do you know how to pre-qualify leads or determine what makes someone a quality match for your services and offers? 

• Do you have a pre-qualification process to determine the quality of your leads? If not, then this could be a potential gap in your sales process as well. 

Here’s a common scenario I hear all the time from business owners. You find yourself getting on sales calls with potential clients only for them to say they can’t afford to work with you. If this happens a majority of the time, you likely have a gap in this area in your sales process. 

#8 Sales Skill Level  

Every business owner is a sales person and there is nothing wrong with that. When most people hear the word “sales” they tend to think of a pushy salesperson. But you have the opportunity to decide what sales means to you and how you decide to do sales in your business.

At Money Rebel, I believe in ethical and effective sales and that is what I teach my clients. What might feel good to me in my sales process might be different than what you or another business owner might do. That’s okay.

However, believing you don’t need to learn how to sell or know the foundational pieces of sales because you’re a business owner not a salesperson, is hurting your success. Every business owner needs to know how to be their own best salesperson. 

• Do you know how to walk someone through the sales steps needed to take someone from a potential client to a paying client?

• Do you feel like you have a good understanding of the buyer’s journey? 

• How would you rate your overall skill level of sales? 

Sales is so much more than the tips and tricks most people learn online. They don’t replace having a good skill level and understanding of how sales works.

If you feel like you don’t understand how sales truly works or the foundational pieces of sales and you find yourself just relying on using certain tips and tricks and gimmicks, then a lack of sales skills could be a gap in your sales process.

#9 Sales Process

Every business needs a sales process to help them know exactly what they need to do to make money consistently. It doesn’t have to be as complicated as it sounds. Most business owners have their own sales process that they already do. They’ve just never taken the time to document it and get it out of their head. 

A sales process is the exact steps you take to take someone from potential to paying client. And being able to do it over and over again. Here’s some questions to reflect on and see if this is a gap in your sales. 

• Do you know exactly what steps you need to do as a business to make money? 

• Do you have a sales plan and an intentional sales funnel? 

If you don’t have a strategic process that shows you from start to finish the steps that are required for you to make sales. Then not having a sales process could be a gap for you.

Identifying the Gaps in Your Sales Process

Congrats. We’ve made it to the end of the list. So now it’s time to look at what you wrote down for each section. So go through all 9 sections, how many of these areas do you have a gap in? 

Was it only one? A few? Or was it all 9? By identifying the potential gaps you have, it allows you to figure out what you need help with. So please don’t shame or judge yourself.

If you realized you do have a gap in all of these areas, that is totally okay. Now you know that moving forward, some of these are areas you can work to improve. 

Sometimes the hardest part is being able to figure out what you even need help with. All of these questions you answered in this article are part of my signature method for successful sales. I believe that all of these things affect your sales and the money you make in your business. 

Next Steps: Improving Your Sales Process

As I mentioned earlier, I want you to think of sales like wheels on a bike. The bike is your business and the wheels represent sales. So each spoke on the bike wheel is one of these steps. 

Pricing, market research, offer development, sales skills, messaging, marketing, lead generation, and lead qualification – all of these are spokes on the bike wheel. And they support the wheel so that the wheel can do the job it’s meant to do and power the bike. 

When you start to fill in some of these gaps that you identified today, you will start to see a huge shift in your sales results and the money your business is making. 

How I Can Help: Figuring Out Your Sales Process Steps

Every question I asked you today is what I cover inside of my 1:1 coaching and consulting services. I help businesses identify and fix these gaps in their sales process so they can ethically and effectively get more sales and make more money in their business. 

My superpower is helping women build sustainable businesses doing what they love. Because sales isn’t just about making money for the sake of making money. I know what more money means to you. It’s about what money does for your life and freedom. You want to earn enough to enjoy your life and your business while still making a difference. Sales is how you make an impact and the money you want. 

If you have gaps in any of these areas, I’d love to help you fix them. Click here to enquire about working together to improve your sales. 

Today’s blog post is inspired by a podcast episode I recorded on The Money Rebel Podcast. If you want to listen to the episode, click here to listen on Apple Podcasts. Click here for Spotify.