Stages of Sales Process

10 Key excerpts on "Stages of Sales Process"

• 

  eBook - ePub

  Customer Relationship Management (CRM) for Medium and Small Enterprises

  How to Find the Right Solution for Effectively Connecting with Your Customers

  • Antonio Specchia(Author)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Productivity Press

    (Publisher)

  They just tend to take for granted what the salespeople should be doing. Most probably they know how they work and what they are expected to do, especially sales directors, but if you ask them to write it down, they might trip. It is mainly a lack of formalisation, not a lack of know-how. Thus enquiring of them in a proper way enables us to unveil the sequence of actions that shape the interaction process with prospects, the journey each prospect generally takes from the stage of unawareness to the purchasing act, or just up to the point when the prospect decides to quit.

  To structure it under a simple approach, we can divide the process into stages; at each stage, certain actions are expected and they should provide an output.

  Stages are in sequence as ideally the journey will have a starting point -the entrance into the process-, then some steps to be performed before reaching an end where prospects will exit the process for better or for worse. Obviously, in a figurative journey people can jump stages getting different shortcuts, or take longer to get accustomed to the process. Designing the sales process means defining those stages in a way that depicts what is expected to be done in each of them and what outcome is expected.

  Sales Process Stages

  In many cases, the use of sales stages is merely a static naming convention, including, for instance, “Contact Made,” “Proposal Sent,” or “Negotiation.” We argue that naming each stage in a more dynamic way exerts an effect on people who have to act accordingly. The idea is not to create a repository for deals and opportunities once “contact has been made,” but to constantly remind to salespeople what is expected to be done. This technique applies a strong driver to what is to be done well beyond the simple silos of stages to be filled of contacts data, but more as a dynamic workflow that salespeople run by each single action. Actions that are well described in each stage naming.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  The Street-Savvy Sales Leader

  A Guide to Building Teams that Consistently Win New Business

  • Mark Welch(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Figure 1 Publishing

    (Publisher)

  5

  There is also, depending on your organization, the potential to have more than one sales process. You may have one for new customer acquisition versus account management and share of wallet (SOW ) growth. You may have modified sales processes for different markets or industries you sell into and even a different process for different applications or solutions you sell.

  Stages of the Sales Process

  There is a lot of room to customize the sales process to fit how Sales is organized, the industry you’re in and your target market. The better aligned the sales process is to the buying process, the more relevant the sales discussions and reviews will be and the more accurate the forecast outcome should be. The goal of each stage is to take a potential opportunity to the next stage until the business is closed. Figure 5.1 illustrates a generic and widely used example of the sales process.

  Figure 5.1: The Sales Process

  Linda Richardson, in her book Changing the Sales Conversation , describes the essence of the sales process very well: “An effective sales process is very specific, defining:

  • the major stages in the sales cycle;
  • objectives to accomplish in each stage;
  • selling activities to carry out in each stage based on best practices;
  • verifiable outcomes to spell out actions that clients must take to signal their readiness to move to the next stage;
  • sales tools to support your sales efforts at each stage; and
  • dialogue models to help you deliver your message clearly.
    ”6

  It is advantageous to work with Marketing on this process to facilitate a consistent and robust funnel that the business can use to react in real time to developments and opportunities in the market. The actual details of the process will vary by target market—for example, small business, mid-market, enterprise and government markets—as well as the channel.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  No longer available |Learn more

  Principles of Sales Management

  • (Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Orange Apple

    (Publisher)

  Seven Stages The full Selling Process consists of: • 1- preapproach • 2 -approach • 3 -need identification • 4 -presentation • 5 -handling objections • 6 -closing the sale • 7 -post-sale follow-up. ____________________ WORLD TECHNOLOGIES ____________________ Qualified Prospect An qualified prospect is an organization which has expressed the need for the products or services of the seller. There is much debate in the sales profession as to what constitutes an actual qualified prospect. Most sales professionals apply their own unique set of variables in order to determine whether a prospect is actually qualified. In general terms, sales professionals need to know a set of discrete data in order to determine whether or not the prospect will become qualified. These variables may include: business needs, authorization to transact business (financial or operational), money or budget and an economic buyer or in other words, who would stand to benefit the most (or lose the most) if the good or service were to be acquired (or not acquired). Another subject in the buying process is usually referred to as either an influencer or a saboteur, someone who, although not the financial or operational authority, exercises a significant level of internal control or leverage in the buying process. Proposal A business proposal is a written offer from a seller to a prospective buyer. Business proposals are often a key step in the complex sales process—i.e., whenever a buyer considers more than price in a purchase. Overview There are three distinct categories of business proposals: • formally solicited • informally solicited • unsolicited. Solicited proposals are written in response to published requirements, contained in a Request for Proposal (RFP), Request for Quotation (RFQ), or an Invitation For Bid (IFB).

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Sales Force Management

  • Joseph F. Hair, Jr., Rolph Anderson, Rajiv Mehta, Barry Babin(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  Stage 3 is approaching the prospect, and it can include various strategies ranging from a referral from a mutual acquaintance to a customer benefit approach. Stage 4 is making the Sales presentation and demonstration. There are various sales presentation options but the consultative problem solving is most widely used by business-to- business salespeople. Stage 5 is negotiating sales resistance or objections. There are numerous techniques to handle objections and the savvy salesperson will anticipate and prepare in advance for them. Stage 6 is confirming and closing the sale which is the ultimate moment that the salesperson has worked so hard Notes 119 Key Terms Wheel of selling Prospecting Preapproach Approach SMART objectives Adaptive selling Canned (or programmed) selling Objection Valid objections Invalid objections Close Trial close Follow-up to reach. There are many types of closes ranging from directly “asking for the order” to the “puppy dog” close where the prospect is allowed to try the prod- uct out for a period before making a purchase decision. Stage 7 is following up and serving the account after the purchase. This stage is critical in ensuring customer satisfaction and retention. 4. Use various searching methods for finding new prospects. Random-lead searching methods for prospects include door-to-door canvassing, a territory blitz, cold calls, general e-mails, advertising through print and broadcast media, and websites. Selective-lead searching methods include direct sources (i.e. pre-targeted organizations or people) and indirect sources where organiza- tions or people must identify themselves by responding.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Selling Your Value Proposition

  How to Transform Your Business into a Selling Organization

  • Cindy Barnes, Helen Blake, Tamara Howard(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Kogan Page

    (Publisher)

  05

  The sales process

  Many readers of this book will be familiar with the sales process, the sales cycle and the different types of selling. If you are one of these readers, we would suggest you skip this chapter and move on to read about sales storytelling in Chapter 6 , a summary of our Laws of Value Proposition Selling in Chapter 7 , or ‘Creating the selling organization’ in Chapter 8 .

  If, on the other hand, you are relatively new to the nuances of selling, you may find this chapter useful. In order to properly exploit your sales proposition it is important to understand each stage of the sales cycle from both the salesperson’s and the customer’s perspective.

  Stages of the sales process

  A quick review of the standard sales process shows what is happening at each stage:

  • to progress the sale;
  • to show what is going on in the mind of the customer;
  • and to illustrate the different activities of the two sales types mentioned so far.

  The circular diagram in Figure 5.1 illustrates the process for any type of sales opportunity and for all types of sales approaches. In large organizations many of these processes may be occurring simultaneously as different sales opportunities arise and customer needs are met. For new customers, the first sales engagement may start as early as the ‘suspect’ stage.

  Figure 5.1     The eight steps of the sales process

  The eight steps of the sales process

  SOURCE   Verve Consulting, 2016

  Many organizations use these terms loosely without consideration for what each means in terms of what is going on in a prospective customer’s mind and what a salesperson should be doing. This process is appropriate for any

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  How to Sell

  Succeeding in a Noble Profession: The Complete Guide to Prospecting, Selling and Negotiating to Win

  • Charles Fellingham, Andre O'Brien(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Morgan James Publishing

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER 3

  The Sales Process

  W hy do we need a process? We believe that salespeople like a process and have a desire to know the step they are in during the evolution of the sale. Following our sales process will keep you organized, will help you think before you speak, and drive you towards the commitment phase with structured confidence.

  W. Edwards Deming, the father of modern quality, once explained why products fail13 . It is caused by variation in the product’s manufacturing, materials, use or maintenance processes. A whole quality movement was built around that very thought and still survives today. This movement demands great effort to reduce or eliminate variation in each step of manufacturing. For every successful product or service, there is a refined, uniform process followed and executed with consistent precision. This also could be true for salespeople who want to match their valued solutions to business needs.

  We have constructed a sales process to help you understand the simple steps to advance your sales conversations and opportunities. The process flows from one step to the next and each element builds on the next. These steps show the natural progression used to build most business relationships. They are:

  1. Build a Bond – connect, build trust, promote cooperation.

  2. Explore the Gap – Be curious, be a consultant, explore needs.

  3. Build a Bridge – Reveal buying motive.

  4. Bridge the Gap – summarize needs, present your solution.

  5. Walk the Bridge – handle objections, motivate the sale.

  6. Close the Gap – get their commitment.

  In this chapter we will expand on each element of the sales process.

  STEP 1: BUILD A BOND

  This step is essential to any sales process. We do not sell in a vacuum. We need information to effectively sell and thus we need the prospect's cooperation to obtain the details we will use to construct a solution. We must consult before we construct our solution. And we must connect before we consult.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  No longer available |Learn more

  Medical Sales Professional

  Selling into the Global Healthcare Markets

  • Roy Layfield PhD(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Austin Macauley Publishers

    (Publisher)

  The Basic Sales Process

  Selling is a technique that none of us are born with. Some people, however, are naturally adept at this whilst the rest of us have to consciously learn, and apply, the necessary skills. Regardless of where you sit in this equation, the basic sales process remains the same. Those who apply it without thinking, do exactly the same thing as those who think about every single step. Over time, it’s easy for even the most inexperienced salesperson to become the very best, simply by applying these steps in the right order, and being strategic about their approach.

  Briefly, it begins with the building of rapport, followed by establishing the customer’s need – a process that often involves creating that need until they can see it for themselves. This step uses lots of probing or questioning (without turning the call into an interrogation), and is followed immediately by the actual selling step of meeting their needs with your product or service. At this point, the customer may have some legitimate concerns or raise objections, and as you successfully address each of these, you can move toward the final and most important step of all, i.e. closing the call and asking for the sale. In its simplest form, that is how you sell any product to any customer , and it works perfectly.

  Of course, that’s a very simplistic overview of just what’s involved, and to use these techniques effectively then you need to know far more about utilising each step to its best potential. In this chapter, I’ll break each of them down for you, i.e.

  1. Building rapport
  2. Establishing the need
  3. Meeting the need
  4. Handling objections
  5. Closing the sale

  The detailing process itself is quite a soft sell

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Entrepreneurial Marketing

  How to Develop Customer Demand

  • Edwin J. Nijssen(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  10 We focused on human and financial resource slack. Financial resource slack refers to resources in excess of what is needed for a firm to meet its current commitments and support current sales levels, while human resource slack pertains to the number of employees in excess of those needed for operational demands. The results confirmed the importance of VBS as a guiding mechanism that significantly alters the effects of both types of resource slack and their variability over time. However, while VBS proved useful in helping a young firm use slack resources to grow more effectively, we also detected a dark side; it can stand in the way of risk-taking. This suggests that VBS is a more appropriate solution for young firms that have identified the appropriate target market and thus discovered their initial customers. Value-based selling can help them create the right minimal viable product for the target market. It helps focus and ensure creating a new product for a problem that matters and makes a difference.

  9.4   Developing the sales roadmap

  Based on these solution selling efforts with lead customers a sales roadmap to win prospects from the identified target market should be developed. This roadmap details the sales approach to move prospective customers through the sales funnel. Generally, four steps are involved: prospecting, interacting, persuading, and maintaining the relationship. These are shown in Figure 9.2 together with several key activities.

  Figure  9.2   The selling process as a funnel

  Prospecting refers to the need for sales to develop a list of potential customers from the target segment. The list can be developed based on secondary data or, for instance, purchased from an address broker. The list can be reviewed to identify the most promising prospects for maximum effect. The next stage involves making initial contact. Because this is easier with a contact person on the other side (in the customer organisation), networking is important. Through one’s own network, the name of a contact person can often be identified and an introduction made. The main objective is getting a first appointment. During the visit, the salesperson needs to listen carefully to obtain as much information from the prospect and his or her situation as possible. Another objective is informing the prospect about the start-up, its innovation, and services. However, the focus should be on the solution the start-up offers through its technology and application – not on the product or its features. A demonstration may help explain what the product can do and can take away potential scepticism. Some knowledge customer education may be required to help the customer understand and appreciate the innovation.

  As mentioned earlier, information collection is a very important sales task. By asking the right questions and listening carefully, information about reasons for and barriers to adoption can be discovered. Much can also be learned about who are involved in the buying decision and what they think is important. The data collection thus should involve finding out more about the decision-making unit

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  The New Rules of Sales and Service

  How to Use Agile Selling, Real-Time Customer Engagement, Big Data, Content, and Storytelling to Grow Your Business

  • David Meerman Scott(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  The most successful organizations understand buyer personas and how marketers and salespeople work together to serve their information needs. In the preceding chapter we looked in detail at how to develop buyer persona profiles and how to integrate what the marketing team is doing to reach an entire marketplace. The marketing team creates information of value—blog posts, e-books, white papers, videos, infographics, and the like—for each stage of the buying process. Now we shift to how salespeople reach one buyer at a time.

  As buyers consider a purchase, they always go through a thought process prior to making a decision. In the case of something simple or low-cost, the process is likely to be very straightforward and may take only seconds. But for a major consumer item such as buying a new car or where to hold a wedding reception, the decision may take weeks or months. My daughter's choice of which college to attend took years. For many business-to-business (B2B) sales, the buying cycle may involve many steps and engage multiple buyer personas. For example, it might encompass a buyer from the legal department, several buyers from information technology (IT), and the buyer from the group who will actually use the product. Some B2B sales may take years to complete.

  Effective organizations take website visitors' buying cycles into account when delivering content and organizing it on the site. People in the early stages of the sales cycle need basic information about their problems and the ways that your organization solves them. Those further along in the process want to compare products and services, and they need detailed information on the benefits of your offerings. And when buyers are ready to whip out their credit cards or request to speak to a salesperson, they need easy mechanisms linked directly from the content that enable them to immediately and easily purchase, donate, subscribe, or whatever.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Entrepreneurial Marketing

  A Blueprint for Customer Engagement

  • Beth Goldstein(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  In the next chapter, we’ll do a deep dive into sales skills that you personally need to develop to be successful. We will also dis- cuss the various sales stages that many individuals go through to be successful, such as phone call preparation, in person appointments, and follow-up and servicing accounts. SALES AND MARKETING DATA FLOW When sales and marketing teams don’t communicate or understand each other’s unique perspectives, the business suffers and is put in a position where success is harder to achieve. This applies to small companies as well as larger, established organizations in a range of industries. There are numerous companies that have spiraled downward and failed. We are sure that you can name a few. Perhaps CHAPTER EIGHT CREATING SALES PROCESSES AND SYSTEMS CHAPTER 8 • CREATING SALES PROCESSES AND SYSTEMS 185 Blockbuster, Toys “R” Us, or Sears comes to mind. They are among many that might come to mind. If you study these companies, you will see that they were clearly not tuned into the changes taking place in their market space as customer needs evolved. They were enormously successful at one point in their business but failed to maintain a clear understanding of customers’ needs. Let’s take the sales challenge to the small business level. Sales people often com- plain that the marketing people simply don’t “get it” and often ask “Why don’t they spend some time in the field with us so they can see what it’s really like to work with customers and then produce material that helps us sell?” Likewise, the marketing team can oftentimes be heard grumbling about how the salespeople are never satisfied with the material and messaging that they produce and ask “Why can’t they just go out there and sell? They have all the tools they need!” Who’s right in this situation? Possibly both, but we would obviously need more information to really be able to answer that question.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book