Some people seem like naturals when it comes to sales. Their smooth talking and deep product knowledge entices customers and makes them feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Source

A high performing sales person is a huge asset to a company, and they’re often paid very well as a reward!

• Maybe you want to start a new business and need to jump into the sales role to get your fledgling startup off the ground?
• Maybe you want to build a sales team to crush sales goals while you focus on your specialty?
• Or maybe you just want to get into sales as a career and need to know how to get up to speed fast?

Well, in this Process Street article we’ll cover solutions to each of these conundrums. We’ll look at:

1. How Salesforce hit their sales goals
2. 10 top tips the sales experts have for a beginner
3. How Close.io CEO Steli Efti builds outbound sales teams
4. What steps you need to take to build sales processes (with a load of premade templates to help you get started!)

“A goal properly set is halfway reached.” – Legendary sales guru, Zig Ziglar.

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The average business’ software spend has been on the rise for years now, with small and medium businesses spending a higher percentage of revenue on software than enterprises.

The average midsized company spends $13,100 per employee on IT. With some smart alternatives (and not relying on the same vendors as always), companies can cut this cost massively. In fact, in a 2017 post about the minimum viable software stack for a 10 person startup, I calculated an option that cost just $260/user/year.

That post touched on just some of the free tools small businesses need, but here I aim to cover the topic much more widely, and look at:

• Office suites
• Workflow tools
• Internal email tools
• Project management tools
• Marketing automation tools
• Team communication tools
• Accounting software
• Payroll tools
• Cloud storage
• CRMs
• Database management tools
• Software development tools

Let’s go!
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We talk a lot about processes here at Process Street and we try to give insight into not only how to make current processes better but also into how processes have evolved over time and why.

We’ve looked at case studies, poor processes, optimized processes, and technical guides to business process management.

But we’re no stranger to going back in time to explore the development of processes and where they came from. In this article, we’re going to follow up on the theme established in our post on surgical processes and look at processes and organizational systems in history.

This is the story of ancient Egypt.

The Great Pyramid is considered one of the wonders of the world. But how did it come to be?

We’ll look at a number of the classic discussions surrounding the construction of the pyramids, but focus on how a society which existed nearly 5000 years ago was able to construct some of the greatest and most iconic monuments known to humankind.

We’ll explore:

• What was the Great Pyramid and how was it built?
• Who built the Great Pyramid and what was labor like throughout the period of construction?
• How were things organized in ancient Egypt?; Or, how to count from one to ten.
• What do we know about trade in ancient Egypt?
• Who were the scribes and why were they important?

Ancient Egypt is one of the first civilized societies for which we have an understanding of their perceptions of organization and management.

Spoiler alert: they used checklists!

Let’s dive in!

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What do you do if you don’t have the time or know-how to document and improve your processes?

You hire a business process consultant of course!

While we’ve talked endlessly in the past about why processes are important and how to manage your own, hiring a business process consultant lets you reap all the benefits without having to spend an age assessing your organization and talking to every last employee involved.

So, if you want to organize your processes and bring efficiency to your business but don’t have time to do it yourself, read on!

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To understand the value of a style guide, you should first try working without one.

You’d get the wrong blue on your logo, jarring copy, and code that can only be maintained by a lone developer.

Writers, editors, programmers, engineers, social media managers, and support agents all need an indication of how their company wants to work, so they can ensure consistency.

The number one goal of a style guide is consistency.

Inconsistency weakens your brand image, makes your company look unprofessional, and hurts conversion rate and revenue. Once you’ve settled on your brand voice and style, the style guide is the document that enforces those values.

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Processes can be used to optimize the things you do every day, and we spend most of our time telling you that!

But where do these processes come from? Really.

Maybe you just documented your steps one day and built from there? In which case, the process evolved naturally from the actions you took intuitively. When I add big words into that description I can make it sound like a good thing. But it could be put another way.

You never took the time to think about the foundations of your process.

At the very base of all processes are a series of said and unsaid principles. In good processes and bad processes. If we want the best processes we can make, we need to understand and critically evaluate the principles which knowingly or unknowingly guide our every decision.

Ray Dalio’s text, Principles, answers the question “how does a hedge fund work?” and gives us an insight into how he built the world’s largest one, Bridgewater Associates.

Bridgewater manages $160 billion worth of assets for 350 different clients. These clients range from large corporate bodies like McDonald’s to pension and wealth funds, and even to the assets of central banks. The whole company has been built around cultivating a radical company culture, and it is this radical company culture which makes Bridgewater Associates so successful and worth investigating!

In this Process Street article, we’re going to present to you a number of the ideas contained within the book and we’re going to pull out three specific company processes Dalio has developed on the back of these principles:

• Ray Dalio’s Meeting Process
• Ray Dalio’s Hiring Process
• Ray Dalio’s Process Improvement Method

But be warned: it’s likely a radical break from your office!

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We’ve all heard about the importance of focusing on one task at a time.

Take that idea, apply it to manufacturing, and you have the concept of one piece flow.

The concept is simple in that you have to limit yourself to working on one item at a time (you only ever have one WIP item). By doing this you can save time and money, as work is performed faster and any space you use is highly optimized.

In fact, it’s the very same concept that Toyota used to reduce the time taken to pack boxes in to help families hit by Hurricane Sandy by 94%.  In total, the aid workers were able to feed 400 more families in less than half the time.

However, there are a few vital things that you need to be careful of when applying one piece (or “continuous”) flow. It’s not a miracle cure, and while it can be used outside of an assembly line, there are a few practical elements which can’t be ignored.

So, today I’ll be diving into:

• What one piece flow is
• The advantages and disadvantages
• How to implement it
• Using one piece flow in any area of your business
• The problems of theory vs practical effects

Let’s get started.

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No organization wants to keep an incompetent, untrained employee on its payroll.

That’s an obvious fact. However, the benefits of training are much greater than simply avoiding incompetence; trained employees are more productive, loyal, engaged, and profitable.

Those are nice sounding words, but what about the facts and figures?

Take a look:

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Merry Christmas and a happy new year from all of us at Process Street!

2017 might have been a mixed bag for most of the planet, but we had a lot of fun writing content for you, our blog readers.

We published 151 blog posts between us this year, with a little help from fantastic guest writers like Pascal van Opzeeland from Userlike, and Sam Suthar from Tagove.

Here are our top picks as well as the posts you, the readers, liked the most.

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So, you want to know how to beat procrastination? Well, here’s the simple answer.

You can’t.

At least, not completely.

No matter how hard you try, it’s impossible to completely eliminate procrastination. There will always be tasks you put off, and there will always be projects that get shelved in favor of others.

You can, however, learn how to use procrastination to your advantage and make what many see as a chronic issue into one of your greatest strengths.

First, however, you need to know your enemy. That’s why today I’ll be covering:

• What causes procrastination (and when that isn’t a problem)
• The benefits of procrastination you can take advantage of
• The drawbacks that can come back to bite you
• How to use it to your advantage

It’s time to stop stalling and get stuck in.

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