A sales process is a predefined and predetermined organization of steps that are taken to turn a potential lead into a regular customer. The sales process covers the entire sales journey from the initial talk to the final closed deal. The potential customers, sales funnel, sales reps, sales pitch, buyer personas, effective sales process, sales pipeline, identification of the ideal customer, qualified leads, repeatable steps, sales stages, conversion rates, different sales methodologies, sales process steps, prospective buyer, buyer journey and buying process, etc. are included.
A sales process is an outline or a map that guides your sales team on turning leads into customers effectively. The marketing team’s efforts can fail without a proper map or guideline. The inexperienced salesperson can also get the maximum benefit from the predefined sales process.
This article covers the following:
- Why is the Sales Process important?
- What are the 7 important steps of the Sales Process?
- Which factors contribute to running a smooth sales process?
- Conclusion
Why is the Sales Process important?
With a map, your employees can stay focused, leading to loss. A proper plan in hand can lead to customers and success. The less experienced employees can speed up their learning process by having a proper map in front of them. More money can be generated with a proper sales process.
What are the 7 important steps of the Sales Process?
Prospect
It is one of the crucial parts of the sales process. It is the first stage of a sales process where you have to find potential clients. It may involve online searches on different websites or any conferences. You can also prospect by asking your colleagues or clients to refer you to other people who might be interested in your products.
Prepare
After pointing out the potential clients, you now have to initiate contact with those clients. In this stage, you decide whether the chosen clients are good-fit leads. You can also filter out the individuals at this stage. Moreover, at this stage, you have to tailor your service to your client’s needs.
Approach
You must figure out how to approach your potential clients in this step. For this stage, you have to do lots of research about the client to know their needs and tailor your services or products as per that. Understanding your client’s needs at this stage is essential to offer them the best possible solution. This stage can be further divided into:
- Question Approach: you can ask a question to your potential client to catch their attention.
- Premium Approach: you can present a gift to your potential client.
- Product Approach: you can send free samples to the client to try and review your service.
Present
This is a really crucial stage where you have to showcase your service. It is important to mold your service as per your client’s needs. You can create a Powerpoint presentation with all the basics a client needs. It is suggested not to use the same presentation for all clients. You must tailor the presentations to the needs of your clients.
Handle objections
It is very common to have objectives from the client’s side. Therefore, your sales team should be prepared to deal with all the objections posed by the clients. It is important to listen to the objections and then act accordingly carefully. The sales team should be ready to answer all queries effectively.
Closing
This step should end with a mutual agreement between both seller and the prospect. The salesperson gets the commission on the price he negotiated with the client.
Follow up
Even after closing the deal, your job still needs to be completed. Follow-up is really important when you need to stay in contact with your customers. It is important to retain customers and maintain good relationships with them.
Which factors contribute to running a smooth sales process?
Identification of Customer’s Problem
You have a service or a product at your hand. You have someone having a problem that can be solved with your product. Now is the time for you to dig deeper into the issue faced by the client to identify the problem clearly.
Developing a solution
After finding out the problem, now is the time to tailor your service or product as per the problem of your client. You should be able to explain in detail the solution you have in your bag for your client.
Be persistent
You need to stay persistent in business. Many customers need to buy at first glance. You must keep a check and follow up to convince them and remind them about their previous thoughts about trying your product or service.
CONCLUSION
A reasonable and workable sales process should be revised, edited, and regularly adapted to ensure that your business achieves its milestones well in time. The sales process needs to be changed as per the changing needs, team members, new skills, and business demands.
Related Articles:
