The Sales Process – Defined…..

A strong sales process is critical to the success of your business regardless of what you sell or how you sell it. You need to attract customers into a funnel and move them through a process that excites them about buying your product or services.

So, let’s take a look at the selling process:

1.Prospecting – finding new clients. A big mistake many organizations make is that they don’t spend enough time attracting new customers into the pipeline. They focus heavily on current client retention and growth, but often overlook the importance of prospecting. Generating interest in your product or services via marketing or cold calling techniques.

2.First Meeting – or first contact. This is where you make your initial impression. This could be via phone or in person, but this is the first connection with a new person who is new to you and your brand.

3.Determining the Need – This is where you listen to the prospects wants and pain to determine the need for your product and/or service. You narrow the scope by asking good questions to pinpoint exactly what the customer needs. Remember you may not each be coming from the same perspective. You could each define a term differently or a process that means something different to the other party, so ask good questions to make sure you have a meeting of the minds.

4.Qualify the Opportunity – This is the stage where you see if there is alignment in product need, pricing, and expectations for price. In my industry, we often say, a client is looking for a Target shine on the floor for a Dollar Store budget so right away, we know we are not in alignment and will have to determine if we need to ask more questions or abandon the opportunity.

5.Present Solution– This is where you present your solution. Your big moment to convince your prospect to use your services. This could be in person giving a live presentation, over the phone or in a meeting. This is the most important step in the process. Do not make your solution “canned” but make it personal to their requirements and need.

6.Manage Objections – This is the stage where you begin to negotiate. Your prospect will put up objections or reasons not to move forward and you must navigate a solution and possible outcome to their objection.

7.Closing – This is where you move the deal to a close. It could be in your favor – where you will want to celebrate the win. Or it could not go in your favor and this is where you try to obtain feedback so you don’t repeat the same mistake with another prospect.

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