Where to Sales Ship?

Dear Sales Process,

How are you? It seems like we didn't spent enough time together last year. We really should catch up and actually connect this month. I know that this will take us to a whole new level in our relationship. Maybe even go steady?

Sincerely Yours,

Jim.

Now that the ship of SALES PROCESS is showing its shape, it is nice to look ahead an see where we're gonna sail her. Her ribs are showing out at the drydock and it looks like she'll be seaworthy soon and already i can smell the salt tang of the sea as we sail her towards our goal.

That being said, we need a port of call for our fair ship. We need some really small steps to test her sails. Something not too far from port. maybe like the Abbotsford Auto Mall, or something similar. I think that I can easily identify all the businesses in the auto mall, contact them and do a report on how the process works in only a few days. It will be easy to get the numbers and places one day and even be able to call them up and find out who the people who make the decisions are.

I figure that I can start tomorrow on this little test project and have some data ready for next week to look at and discuss. The data I am expecting will come in the form of where the process fails, where more paths need to be entered and what more I have to do to make it fool proof. Once the data is collected I can work on another test until everything seems to work smoothly.

How will I collect the data? I will have to get a pad of paper and write down everything about the conversation/emails that I send, all their responses and every bit of info I get from them. This will have to be logged into some kind of form after the conversation has happened. Once logged, the data will be physically run through the process map to see where it landed. Then we can see where new branches of the map need to be created or existing branches be edited.

What I expect from this test is to get a sense that i am doing things right or if I'm off base. Either way I will be ahead because this is how I believe we should do it.