SALES PROCESS
What is a sales process?
A sales process is the set of sales steps that help a sales representative in closing and converting a deal. It acts as a detailed guide for the sales personnel. Sales process is a structured framework for generating more sales with relative ease in less time. It helps in increasing your overall sales efficiency and improving profit margins.
In Pritish Kumar’s article, you will read about Sales Process.
Benefits of building sales process steps for closing more deals
An effective sales process aids in building a healthy relationship between the company and the customers. It speeds up the sales cycle and helps in improving profit margins.
Here are the benefits of building a sales process:
Stay on course
Following a clear path makes your sales hassle-free and keeps you on track. A well-defined sales process serves as a GPS. It guides you throughout the sales journey starting from the initial contact to the final signing of the contract.
More accurate understanding
Get a better understanding of your sales and prospects. A formalized process ensures that the efforts are put in the right direction. You can quickly identify risks and take actions in real-time. It helps you in eliminating the activities that yield no results.
Faster on-boarding and training
Coaching new sales representative gets easier when you have a standardized sales process. You can show them what needs to be done in different situations. They can easily learn the basic steps and get started quickly.
Deeper understanding of prospects
A defined sales process is much more effective for your business, as it outlines the ideal customer profile and buyer persona. Knowing what your prospect wants helps you to have a deeper understanding of the leads and provide personalized solutions.
Getting more qualified leads
Sales process allows you to filter out the leads and focus on high-intent leads so you can close deals faster. A CRM with lead scoring feature helps you to score the leads based on their preferences and their engagement with the company. Hence, you can capture more qualified leads and shorten the sales cycle as well.
Forecasting numbers
Sales is all about accuracy, and a visual sales pipeline assists in providing a clear picture about your sales, helping in forecasting the revenue. A well-maintained sales process is highly beneficial as it helps you keep your sales funnel full, resulting in revenue growth and nurtured leads.
7 steps sale process
The 7-step sales process
Sales process management is the journey of creating a lasting relationship with your customers. This journey is broken into several simple steps popularly known as the “7-step sales process”.
- Prospecting – The hunt for new customers
- Qualification – The discovery
- Appointment setting – Way to reach and get in front of your prospects
- Presentation – Displaying the unique value of your product
- Objection handling – Facing and handling the no’s
- Closing – The final verdict
- Delivering value– Stay connected with your customers.
Same sales process with different methodology of different companies
Sales process management is the journey of creating a lasting relationship with your customers. This journey is broken into several simple steps popularly known as the “7-step sales process”. Each step requires the utmost attention to convert a potential prospect into a paying customer. Though each company follows a different sales methodology, the crux is almost the same.
Lead to opportunity conversion
You’ve got leads, now what? You also need to keep track of how many leads are engaging with your company. Setting up sales sequences for follow-ups saves the time of your salespeople and increases the effectiveness. You can do testing and find out which outreach approach is helping your campaign and work on optimizing it.
Prospect to paying conversion
Converting prospects into customers doesn’t have to be so difficult. Recognize their challenges by tracking their behavior and preferences, and provide a personalized solution that can help them. Offer them product demoes, free trials, etc. so they can try out the product or service.
Length of your sales cycle
A successful sales process will always have a short sales cycle. You need to be aware of which stage of your sales pipeline is taking long and figure out a way to resolve the issue. Healthy sales cycle is short and effective, ensuring customer satisfaction and higher retention.
Analyze your past sales
There is a lot to learn from your past sales. Therefore, turn back and analyze. Study your past deals and understand the steps that lead to a successful conversion. See how the deal progressed from one step to other.
Process adoption
Salespersons are the one working with prospects and adapting to the sales process. So, ensure you take their feed on the sales process, whether they’re facing any issues with it and simplify the entire process for them.
Sales process cycle
Wrapping up
All the sales process steps are crucial so, ensure you give every step equal importance. Take control over your sales process and manage it efficiently to expand your profit margins. You can leverage the benefits of a smart CRM tool to manage your sales process effectively.
Reference
