Pushing To Business Success

A sales process is a series of customer-focused steps that your sales team can use to substantially build your customer base, generate repeat business and increase revenue. Each step consists of several key activities and has a predictable, measurable outcome.
If you wonder whether your small business really needs a formal sales process, see if you answer "yes" to any of the following questions:

• Have your customers become more demanding than they used to be?
• Is it increasingly challenging for your business to attract and retain customers?
• Does your sales force sometimes react sluggishly when opportunities arise?
• Do your salespeople have trouble projecting a consistent, professional image?
• Is your customer data out of date and dispersed in multiple locations across the company?

Having a well-defined sales process can help your sales force identify and qualify leads, find more opportunities for repeat business, negotiate and close more sales, and establish a follow-up process after the sale to ensure customer satisfaction.

A formal sales process also helps you understand each customer's business obstacles, match their needs to your products and services, and deliver proof that your products can meet those needs. With a strong sales process, you can more accurately assess the revenue potential for a given customer. For example, you can view consolidated information for all customers in your sales pipeline, consistently position the unique value that your company delivers versus the competition and create stronger relationships with customers and business partners.

Five steps define the sales process methodology: prospecting for customers, qualifying them, developing a proposal, facilitating a decision and assuring repeat business. Each step consists of several key activities with predictable, measurable outcomes.

The steps help sales professionals succeed by:
• Focusing on critical business issues facing customers
• Developing potential value for customers to gain
• Creating a strong desire in the customer to buy products and services supplied by your company

Step 1: Prospecting
At this first stage of the sales process, the salesperson is generating qualified leads, finding new opportunities among the existing customer base and differentiating his or her company from the competition. Depending on the type of business, prospecting can take many forms, including networking, attending seminars and trade shows, sending marketing materials and making cold calls.

The goal of this step is to identify a qualified decision-maker, or an ally in the organization who can help you reach the decision-maker.

Step 2: Qualifying
At this stage of the process you and the customer are sizing each other up. You are assessing the revenue potential and costs associated with a customer opportunity to decide if it's worth pursuing, while the customer is assessing whether your company can meet his or her business needs. In this stage, your sales professionals must be adept at discovering the customer's true needs, in detail. Then they must clearly articulate how your company's products or services can uniquely meet their needs.

The goal of this step is to convince the decision-maker to move ahead with an in-depth evaluation of your solution.

Step 3: Proposal
At this stage of the process, the customer usually narrows the number of companies under consideration. Small businesses must be prepared to respond rapidly to potential leads.

When you reach this step, the promises end and you must demonstrate to the decision-maker that your company can deliver. You can create a mutually agreed upon product/service evaluation plan that emphasizes key steps to prove your capabilities and ensure a win for both the customer and the salesperson.

The evaluation plan is an important tool that many salespeople overlook. After a customer agrees to the evaluation plan, the salesperson is in control of the sales process. This is because the customer can only afford to go through the steps of an evaluation plan with a single selling organization because of the time, cost and resources necessary to perform each step.

The goal of this step is to demonstrate the value your business can provide the customer, through successful completion of the evaluation plan. The customer then requests a proposal from the salesperson.

Step 4: Decision
By now, you are so near to closing this deal that you're almost prepared to celebrate. Unfortunately, plans and details can change. For example, one of your salespeople may have conceded too much in the final negotiations, making the deal unprofitable. Or conversely, the salesperson may have walked away from a good sale when a low-cost giveaway might have closed it. Such is the delicate and unstable nature of this step in the sales process.

The goal of this step is to facilitate deals that are beneficial to both your company and the customer.

Step 5: Repeat business
This step is critical to a sales process. After a contract is signed or a sales commission is paid out, the product or service must be delivered and implemented as promised. A sales professional who is truly focused on building a long-term, profitable business relationship will take ownership and follow up with the customer to make sure that everything proceeds smoothly. Satisfied customers are more likely to place new orders, and might be willing to act as referrals for new clients.