How to Boost Your Growth With the 5-Step Sale Process

How to Boost Your Growth With the 5-Step Sale Process

Sales can be a very complicated job as there are a lot of s11tages involved. To understand these stages and to make it easy, you must follow a process. Even though not everyone is fond of a monotonous routine, following the same will help you in the process. It is like finding an oasis in the desert. Before getting to the step-wise process, let us understand a sales process.

What is a sales process?

The sales process is a set of defined steps that will help you turn your lead into a customer. It will help your sales team to improve their performance, get accuracy and close a deal faster.

Also, an effective inbound and outbound sales strategy plan is necessary for the sales people to fuel the sales process.

Let us get to the step-wise process now.

Step 1. Hunting and generating leads

Here is where it all begins. In this step, your salesperson will look for prospects and generate leads. You can start with creating a list of potential leads, as it helps your sales team target them more effectively. Try getting their contact information through various sources like LinkedIn, cold call, inbound marketing, trade show, or any other platform. Evaluate whether the customer needs your product and can afford it and research about them. It will help you to approach them confidently.

Step 2. Connecting and approaching

You have all the necessary information about your lead to proceed further. As the old saying goes, "First impression is the last impression", you need to make a good first impression on your lead. Introduce yourself and your company, but keep it short and simple. Try making it a call that is more of a help and advice rather than a sales call. The goal is to make them aware of the existence of your product.

You need to make sure you are asking the right person. You can ask the following sales qualifying questions to get surety:

Can they afford your product? Are you speaking with the decision-maker? Why do they need your products? Is your product fulfilling their needs? Do you need your product now or in the future?

If they pass these qualifying questions, you can approach your leads in 3 ways:

Premium approach: Who does not like to receive a gift? Presenting will make your lead feel homely.

Question approach: You can ask leading questions to make them interested in listening to you.

The product approach: You can provide free trials or samples to your different sales leads and ask them to review.

In this step, you make first contact with your lead, make sure everything goes well. It can be face-to-face face or over a phone call.

Step 3. Presentation

In this step, you explain to your potential customer how your product will be beneficial for them. You have to be very convincing and confident. Here is where you try to prove your product is the appropriate solution for their problems or needs. Try to keep it short but include all the necessary information. You can also ask questions in between to make it more interesting. Doing so will help you get their attention, and they will hear more attentively. You need to explain your product according to your prospects' needs.

Step 4. Handling objections and closing the deal

Commonly, your prospect will have some queries, and it is your responsibility to solve them with correct reasoning and that he is satisfied. You need to listen to their concerns and address them. Leaving them unheard will drop your chances of converting your lead to a customer. Handling objections successfully will make you a good salesperson and surely convert your lead to your customer.

After addressing their concerns, you can close the deal. Here's how:

Hit the right spot: Make sure the decision-makers are convinced and ready to buy your product.

Give them choices where both the options close the deal: You can ask them questions with choices where both the choices will lead to closing the deal. For example: Will you make a part payment or complete payment? Will you pay in cash or cheque? Temptations work best: If they delay deciding, you can simply give them a limited period offer.
Creating an urgency: You can generate urgency by mentioning you have only a few spots left or prices will increase next month.

Step 5. Regular follow up

Keep a regular check on how your product is working and if your customer is satisfied. Make sure they are happy with their purchase and if not, help them in the best possible way. It will help you retain your current customer. You can always upsell and also ask for referrals. Maintaining a good relationship with your customer with a proper sales engagement process is your key to success. Focusing on your sales engagement activities will help you with long term business.

An organized sales process along with a good sales engagement framework will help you to close deals faster and more efficiently. It will help you remove all the hurdles between your sales representative and the final signature.