If you are visiting SalesWays from the Apple App Store or the Salesforce App Exchange or The HUB web site, you will already know that ASPEC is the name of a new generation of sales productivity tool designed to harness the immense power of technology in the twenty-first century. But more than just a product name, ASPEC represents the meaning of the patented, core methodology that powers the product.

At the heart of ASPEC is a simple, elegant model of the generic sales process translated to be understood in computer software. ASPEC is an Automated Sales Process Engine for the Computer. Let’s take a look at that in detail.

Automated

The challenges of managing many ongoing sales opportunities are greatly eased with ASPEC. Because ASPEC uses an innovative model of the sales transaction, many of the characteristics common across all sales opportunities can be reviewed, analyzed, recalculated, and tracked automatically.

ASPEC always works behind the scenes to monitor the critical phases of the sales cycle and the time left to sell. Not just one, but all current sales opportunities are monitored. They are prioritized automatically in a workflow ranging from “handle this one first” to “leave it alone.”

Sales Process

Selling depends on process. Some salespeople are not conscious of it — it happens without thinking. But most will use an articulated formal process developed through experience for their markets and products. ASPEC recognizes that selling is a reaction to a customer’s efforts to buy. The buying process drives an underlying sequence of steps that forms a universal selling process.

ASPEC’s process is derived from the natural ebb and flow between the customer and salesperson as the sales cycle evolves in time. More detailed stage-based processes can easily be layered on top of ASPEC, permitting a detailed market specific tactical approach, if required.

Engine

The computer engine that powers ASPEC is fueled by just three succinct user-entered parameters that are used to create an “intrinsic value” of the sales opportunity at any point in time. Intrinsic value is a measure of your level of success at this particular moment in time in the sales cycle. The parameters are entered when the sales opportunity is first discovered, and then updated after critical interactions with the customer, at which point ASPEC evaluates the intrinsic value and stores any change if necessary.

Computer

The tide of technological development impacting business today directly results from the effortless access to low cost and stunningly effective computing power. The new sectors of mobile and cloud computing, along with social networking, have the power to invigorate selling at all levels.

ASPEC uses a computer model of the generic selling process, designed from the ground up to be understood by the computer and applied to each opportunity as it is created and revised. Established mainstream sales methodology predates the personal computer and its use by salespeople. ASPEC changes that—ASPEC represents the fusion of sales and technology, and represents a quantum leap in potential for increased sales productivity.

This is a brief introduction to ASPEC. You’ll find lots of information on The HUB on how ASPEC works in practice, and how it makes selling more effective and more fun. I’ll look at specific examples in future post.