The Action Learning Cycle: A Strategy to Increase Sales

Major Points of the Article

• A sales process represents the success of the business

• The Action Learning Cycle can be used to measure, develop, and improve the sales process

• Over many cycles of the Action Learning Cycle, substantial business growth can be achieved with higher productivity

In today's competitive marketplace, continuous improvement is the key to success. For any company looking to increase sales and improve profits in their industry, continuous improvement strategies are essential. One of the most effective continuous improvement strategies for a business is the action learning cycle. This blog post will discuss what action learning cycles are, how they work, and why you should implement them into your organization as soon as possible!

The amount of sales in any business represents the success of that business because they are directly related to how well that business is doing. Be it measured by the revenue per year, the number of new memberships on the platform, or even the number of units sold in the quarter, the success is related to the sales performance. This means that the sales processes and sales officers need continuous improvement in order for a business or individual to succeed, develop, and grow year on year.

This continuous improvement in sales can be achieved by utilizing the action learning cycle.

The Action Learning Cycle is a management strategy that utilizes an ongoing process of continuous and cyclical problem-solving in order to improve performance, generate new business opportunities or make better decisions over time. The core idea behind this concept is rooted deeply within organizations seeking to improve and grow their organisation.

The Action Learning Cycle is a four-step cycle:

1. Act: Take Action

Within this step, we know that we are going to evaluate a particular process, software system, conversation speech, etc... but first, we need some data on how well it is currently performing. In order to do this, we need to have an indicator that we can use to determine if it is improving or not. In relation to sales, we might consider lead conversion percentage over a structured time frame and what we want to reach (e.g. 35% conversion).

2. Reflect

This is where we reflect on what happened? Did we get the result we were aiming for? Did we get the 35% conversion rate goal? Were we even close...

3. Generalise

Upon reflection, we either discovered we were close to the goal or far from it and now knowing this result we need to generalise what occurred over the measured time period. During this time what went well? What could be improved? Perhaps we discovered that people had trouble finding a way to contact us, or the customer was confused about how the solution would help their business.

4. Plan

From the list of potential improvements we discovered in the "Generalise" step, we need to decide which one (maybe two) we want to test in the next cycle and determine if it does in fact improve the sales process. In fact, we need to plan how, where, and when the new improvement will be integrated into the system. For example, we discovered in "Generalise" that people were confused about the solution. We, therefore, want to improve clarity in the description of the solution and we would do this by changing how we would describe it. We, in fact, create a set phrase that the entire team uses to create uniformity in our sales process and increase our measurability in the Action Learning Cycle.

This begins on the 1st of next month, and also is the restart of the Action Learning Cycle where we 1. Act with the updated process, 2. Reflect on the updated process, 3. Generalise, did it work? why not?, 4. Plan to improve again.

Repeating the Action Learning Cycle again and again over time creates step-wise improvements and after many cycles, accumulates into substantial improvements and growth for the business.

Within Paradelta Strategy, we provide a tailored corporate and/or business growth strategy to grow your business, in addition to our continuous improvement management services. Over the years, we have helped businesses across Australia to grow and expand, nationally or internationally. To get assistance with your business, simply email us at hello@paradeltastrategy.com.au or schedule a no-obligation discovery call here.