A complete beginners guide to the sales process

This is a quick introduction to the Sales Cycle. It is an overview to what the sales process involves, the different elements which accompany it. While many will know this process I think it is worth revisiting the fundamentals looking at the overall structure and it develops throughout a conversation with client.

The sales process I believe is broken down into 4 transitions:

Transition 1 – Introduction

The first is the introduction which is where you introduce yourself and your company, offer a reason for the call and start to build rapport. The second transition is when you start ask questions about the clients business and start to understand their needs, the third transition is where you start to link a solution of your product or service to the clients needs and the fourth is the objection handling and close.

Looking at this in more detail, if we break down the first transition this happen in different across the various industries involved in sales. This can be an outbound phone call, an inbound phone, an email or even a LinkedIn message. Either way the premise is the same:

Who are you?

Where are you calling from?

Why are you calling?

What’s the reason for your call?

How can you help me?

These may seem like simple questions, and they are, unfortunately not all sales people follow this basic structure. In an outbound call, you literally have a limited window to get that clients attention or it is game over. They want the answer to those questions quickly or your call is irrelevant.

The most important point here is the reason for your call or email. This outlines the the conversation and is when the clients makes the decision to speak with you or not. Make is interesting, short and to the point, also known as a hook or potentially an elevator pitch. This should pique the interest in your client as well as show them that you have done your research on them.

Transition 2 – Need/Want Development

The next transition to ask the customer questions about their business in order to discover their wants or needs around their business. This could be a pain point that they losing money on a particular service or product, or it could be a greed point that they are looking to upgrade or make a more efficient product or service.

This is where real sales technique comes into play. In an ideal world you will know your product/service well enough to know the benefits and to question the client in order to link to one of those benefits to help show the client that your product will be of use to them. We will go through sales questions in other blogs, the main thing we learn from this is that you need to know the benefits of your products/services.

As well as this, if you show a genuine interest and ask the right questions around the clients business, the easier it will be for the customer to buy from you. It is not simply about you forcing your sales pitch down the clients throat and making them take it, it is about speaking with the customer asking what it is that their business requires and what it would do for them.

Transition 3 – Solution

The third transition is to link your benefits to the customers wants or needs and how it would benefit them. As I have previously stated knowing your benefits is important, and knowing what makes you different to your competitors is even more important. This is partly down to market knowledge and the ability to use your selling to relate to your customers needs or wants.

Transition 4 – Objection handle and Close

The fourth transition is the part most people think they are good at, want to be good at or simply trying to be good at, the objection handling and close, or close and objection handling. You will hit objections throughout your sales pitches, an objection is simply a reservation and you will learn to overcome them with experience. Again this is a whole topic and we will visit objection handling techniques and typical responses in future blogs.

Closing is just as simple as asking for the business, in an ideal world the client will say yes. Normally a client will have an objection to why they cannot go ahead with it, and you must learn at this point to answer their objections confidently and then go back and ask for the business again. This could then be another objection, but the point is to ask for the business every time you respond to an objection.

Alot of sales people I have seen over the years, give up after a simple objection or two, and this causes them to work harder in order to meet their sales objectives, whereas if they just answered the customers objectives and asked for the business another time their sales stats would increase.