A Good Sales Process
A sales process should not be about how you want to sell your products and services. It should be an understanding of how your customers want to buy. What steps do your customers go through to reach a decision point to make a purchase?
A good sales process creates and builds value in your products and services. It demonstrates to your customers how and why they should do business with you. How much value do you add when a prospective customer approaches you?
If your sales process is just: “qualification”, “first call”, “second call”, “first meeting”, “send quote”, “follow-up” and “close”, have you considered how this could be enhanced to build additional value?
Start Planning Yours
1 On the left hand side of paper, write what you think your current sales process is. Start from your first initial customer engagement through to purchasing decision. If you don’t know what this is, just step back and consider the steps that your newest customer went through before they purchased. For a small business, for low-to-mid-value sales, this might not be a long list. For higher-value sales, it’s likely to be considerably longer.
2 Now, put yourself completely in the frame of mind of your customer. For them to feel blown away by your service, what would they expect to happen during the purchasing process? Write down the interactions that they’d expect from you on the right hand side of the sheet of paper. This might be a longer list than in step 1.
3 Consider the differences between the two lists. How much more inclined would a customer be to repeat purchase or to recommend you if you followed the steps on the right hand side of the sheet? What actions could you take today to start modelling your sales process more around the the customer’s ideal purchasing process?
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