5 Key building blocks of a sales process

Aug 8, 2018

We’ve been inside many organisations as consultants and the key to driving revenue in a systematic way is having a well-defined sales process that’s methodical and standardised.

Additionally, we’ve also noticed that each organisation has a specific sales process that’s unique to them and how they serve the customers. What’s important is 1) that you have this systemised way of managing sales and revenue growth and 2) it works for your organisation. All that said, they are 5 crucial stages that any sales process must pass through in order to be successful, here are the basics that need to be addressed:

  1. Lead Generation
    What are your lead generation techniques? Do you have a set number of calls to make a week? How?
  2. Qualification
    How do you go about assessing whether your prospect is right for your business? Determine whether they have the budget, resources and willingness to commit to your product. Use systemised ranking system to help you weigh up opportunities and decide where you should focus your efforts.
  3. Demonstrate Value
    Develop your customer needs, not wants or desires. A need will be provoked by a customer problem. Match your products as a solution to those problems. Remember to do your research before you enter the meeting, you don’t want to waste a busy Executive's time boring them with questions you should know about their business already by doing your research. Demonstrate clearly how your product or service can help solve their problem – focus on those needs!
  4. Manage Prospects
    By this we mean, manage the objections your prospect may have. It’s best to plan these in advance so you can go into a meeting prepared. What are likely to be the main objections to buying your product or service? How can you counter these? Or know when to let go and move on, it may just not be the right time.
  5. Make raving fans of your customers
    The sales cycle doesn’t stop after closing and contract, you need to deliver exceptional value to your customers and once in the account upsell and find new solutions for them. Finding new ways to meet your customer needs will make you indispensible to them. Track your customer interaction through your CRM and manage the customer relationship even beyond the execution of your service or product delivery. Be of value to them on an on-going basis.