The Sales Process: A Comprehensive Guide for Sales Professionals
TOPIC 8: THE BUYING PROCESS & BUYER BEHAVIOR
Today’s customers are characterized by being aggressive and empowered by the internet. 3 key tools to assert their preferences: instant access to comprehensive information online, a wide array of choices across various industries, and the ability to compare prices in real-time.
A customer strategy is a carefully conceived plan that results in understanding the customer’s perceptions and maximizing customer satisfaction and responsiveness.
Consumer vs Business Buyers: C (purchases for indiv consumption, decisions usually made by individuals, indiv purchasers may take quick decisions, consumer goods and services for indiv use); organizational (purchases made for some purpose other than personal consumptions, decisions frequently made by several people, purchases based on primarily rational criteria, products classified based on how organizational customers use them).
Types of Business Buying Situations: New-Task Buy, Straight Rebuy, and Modified Rebuy.
Steps in the buying process: needs awareness, evaluation of solutions, resolution of problems, purchase, & implementation.
Steps in Consultative sales process: needs discovery, prod selection, need satisfaction, & service.
Steps in the 6-step presentation process: approach, needs discovery, presentation, negotiation, close, & service.
Three types of buyers and areas to create value: Transactional Process Buyer (focus on purchase stage); Consultative Process Buyer (focus on needs awareness and helping evaluate solutions); Strategic Alliance Process Buyer (focus on careful study of proposed partners).
Buyer Resolution Theory: The 5 W’s: Buyer Resolution Theory breaks down the buying process into five key questions: Why Should I Buy? Salespeople often struggle to make customers aware of genuine needs; many potential customers remain unpersuaded about the benefits of a product. What Should I Buy? Convincing the prospect that the offered product can satisfy their identified need is essential; buyers typically have multiple competing products to choose from. Where Should I Buy? Consumers are increasingly concerned about the source of the product; the availability of various sources adds complexity to the decision-making process. What Is a Fair Price? Modern consumers seek a balance between price and value; they are adept at identifying competitive prices and assessing a product’s value. When Should I Buy? Timing is crucial for closing a sale; some customers may delay purchases due to financial considerations or hesitation.
The Buyer-Behavior Model: Basic needs group influences → formulation of customer perceptions and buying motives → emotional and/or rational buying motives; products and/or patronage buying motives → needs → buying decisions.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: self-actualizations, esteem, social, security, psychological.
Buying Motives: Every buying decision has a motive behind it and many are influenced by more than one buying motive: Emotional versus Rational Buying; Patronage versus Product Buying.
Understand the Customer’s Buying Strategy: Understanding the customer’s buying strategy requires conducting thorough needs discovery or assessment; ask appropriate questions, listen to the customer’s responses, and make careful observations.
Buying Processes Differ by Culture examples: In Japan, decisions are made by group process; In China, a senior negotiator leads; In Germany, even for routine decisions, top level leads; In Latin America, relationship building occurs before negotiation.
TOPIC 9: Developing and qualifying prospects and accounts
Salesperson’s main purpose? Not to make sales, but to create customers.
Position Description Account Development Representative: engage with accounts, focusing on key and influential contacts; responsible for qualifying opportunities and arranging initial sales meetings for the field sales team.
- Primary Responsibilities: Drive sales opportunities; proactively identify revenue-generating customers; perform pre-call planning; maintain and manage the SFDC database; collaborate with various departments.
Required Skills/Experience: Degree required; minimum 2 years B2B enterprise account development experience; strong communication skills; ability to establish rapport with customers quickly; experience meeting/exceeding prospecting goals and account development metrics; proficiency in Microsoft Office and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems.
Reasons for Customer Attrition – inevitable loss of customers over a period of time: one-time need or an extended time between purchases; movement outside of territory; customer business failure or merger; loyal buyer or purchasing agent changed positions; sales are lost to the competition.
Prospecting and Account Development Requires Planning – improve the quality of the prospecting effort: increase the number of people or accounts who board the Ferris wheel: improve the quality of the prospects who board the Ferris wheel; shorten the sales cycle by quickly determining which of the new prospects are qualified prospects—qualified as to need, authority to buy, ability to pay, and authority to purchase the product.
Sources of Prospects and Accounts: Referrals, friends and family, trade publications, website, etc.
Referrals: prospect that has been recommended by a current customer or by someone who is familiar with the product.
Prospecting with Social Media: Social media provides an excellent opportunity for finding prospects and reaching out to them (LinkedIn, Twitter).
Qualifying Prospects and Accounts: Qualifying is the process of identifying prospects who appear to have a need for your product and should be contacted. Every salesperson needs to establish qualifying criteria and this process involves finding answers to several basic questions.
Sales Intelligence: necessary when the sale is complex and requires a long closing cycle; goes beyond sales data to include insights about a prospects’… marketplace, firm, competitors.
Managing the Account Base: Account analysis enables salespeople to estimate the sales potential for each prospect.
The portfolio model in sales management assesses prospects based on two main factors: forecasted sales opportunity and competitive position. Prospects are categorized into different cells based on these factors. Those in the”strategic account” cell, with high forecasted sales and a strong position for closing the sale, receive the most sales effort. Conversely, prospects in the”drag account” cell, with low forecasted sales and weak competitive position, receive minimal attention or none at all.
TOPIC 10: Approaching the customer with adaptive selling
Presentation Strategy: a well-conceived plan that includes three prescriptions: establishing objectives for the sales presentation, developing the presale presentation plan, and renewing one’s commitment to providing outstanding customer service.
Planning the Pre approach: Review objectives, model and presentation plan, and prepare approach worksheet. Preparing for the presentation involves planning for the activities that occur before meeting the prospect and for the first few minutes of actual contact with the prospect
Establishing Presentation Objectives: During the first sales call on a new prospect: establish rapport, obtain permission to ask need identification questions, and obtain information to establish the customer’s file; During stage 2 of the buying process: involve customers in product demonstration, provide value justification, and compare and contrast different solutions.
Team Presentation Strategies: Team selling a major development. Require: A more detailed precall plan, Clear understanding of role, Clear presentation objectives.
Planning the Approach: Review relationship strategy, product strategy, customer strategy, and presentation strategy.
Six-Step Presentation Plan: Approach (key obj; build rapport, capture person’s full attention, transition to the next stage of the sales process); need discovery; presentation; negotiation; close; servicing the sale.
Making Sales Appointments by Phone: prepare your pitch, introduce yourself and your company politely, highlight the benefits of meeting, estimate the appointment’s duration, and confirm details in a brief message.
Social Contact: goal is to build rapport. Areas of conversation: make comments on here-and-now observations, offer [genuine] compliments, search for mutual acquaintances or interests.
Guidelines for Good Social Contact: Prepare for the social contact (research topics of interest to prospect, review prospect database, read relevant industry reports); Initiate social contact (ask open-ended questions, apply nonverbal communication skills such as good eye contact and a smile); Respond to the customer’s conversations (acknowledge the message verbally and nonverbally, listen actively and use gestures to indicate ongoing interest); Keep the social contact focused on the customer (keep the conversation topics relevant to the customer).
Sales Call Reluctance: includes the thoughts, feelings, and behavioral patterns that conspire to limit what a salesperson is able to accomplish. Causes: Fear of taking risks, Fear of group presentations, Lack of self-confidence, Fear of rejection.
Dealing with Sales Call Reluctance: Be optimistic about the outcome, practice your approach before making the initial contact, recognize that it is normal to feel anxious, and develop a deeper commitment to your goals.
TOPIC 11: Determining customer needs with a consultative questioning strategy: The Six-Step Presentation Plan: Focus on Step 2 -Need Discovery
Consultative Sales Process and Value: increased customer satisfaction, more sales closed, fewer order cancellations and returns, increased repeat business and referrals.
How Much Time Does Discovery Need? Need discovery time varies based on: sophistication of product, selling price, customer’s knowledge, product applications, time available.
SPIN Selling: Situation, problem, implication and need-payoff questions. Questions help clarify the exact dimensions of the problem, help the customer evaluate a range of solutions, and assist the customer in evaluating the potential outcome of the solution that is implemented.
Types of Questions Used with Consultative Selling: survey (reveal customer problems), probing (reveal customer pain), confirmation (reveal mutual understanding), need satisfaction (reveal pleasure).
Survey Questions: General survey questions: What are your overall impressions of our customer service?; Specific survey questions: What specific features of our product do you find most valuable, and why?
Active Listening: crucial for comprehensively understanding customers. It involves attentive listening and acknowledging every response. This process entails reflecting back to the prospect what was understood, not just in terms of content but also the underlying emotions conveyed.
Practices to Learn Active Listening: Active-listening skills can be learned by any salesperson willing to make the commitment. Practices: focus your full attention, paraphrase the customer’s meaning, take note.
TOPIC 12: Creating Value with the Consultative Presentation: The Six-Step Presentation Plan: Focus on Step 3-Presentation
Valuable Presentations: Canned Presentations: Memorized or scripted presentation built around a standard set of steps and presented as a repetitive speech given to all customers interested in a particular item; Consultative Presentations: Customized, personalized presentation built around specific needs of each customer.
Effective Presentations: Actions: adapt the presentation to meet the unique needs of the customer; cover one idea at a time using appropriate levels of detail; use proof devices to demonstrate buyer benefits; appeal to as many senses as possible; balance telling, showing, and interest; develop creative presentations; consider the use of humor; check sales tools.
Quantify the Solution: The process of determining whether or not a sales proposal adds value. May use a simple cost-benefit analysis, and may use estimates of return on investment, calculated as net profits as a percentage of the original investment. ROI = Net Profits (or Savings) / Investment * 100
Technical versus Persuasive Communication: Tech (impersonal, objective, intellectual response, emphasizes features, information-driven); pers (personal, subjective, emotional response, emphasizes benefits, influence-driven).
Enhancing Success of the Persuasive: target emotional links, persuasive vocabulary, sell benefits, minimize negative impact of change, use power of association with stories.
Guidelines for a Group Presentation: Identify the titles and roles of those who will attend, check out the meeting room in advance, be sure the presentation is characterized by clarity and simplicity, and anticipate the diversity of questions.
Fundamentals for Video or Media Enhanced Presentations: Do not rely too heavily on bells and whistles in the presentation, be sure the prospect knows the presentation’s purpose, be prepared to stop the presentation to clarify a point or allow the prospect to ask questions, at the close, review key points and allow the prospect an opportunity to ask questions.
TOPIC 13: NEGOTIATING BUYER CONCERNS: The Six-Step Presentation Plan: Focus on Step 4 – Negotiation
Negotiation: is working to reach an agreement that is mutually satisfactory to both buyer and seller.
Planning for Formal Negotiations: Gather information before, decide team versus individual negotiations, understand the value of what you are offering, determine your goals and financial objectives, prepare an agenda, review adaptive selling styles, and prepare a negotiations worksheet.
BATNA (Best Alternative to Negotiated Agreement): What alternatives will be acceptable to you if your negotiation does not succeed? What alternatives will be acceptable to your customer if his or her negotiation does not succeed?
ZOPA (Zone of Possible Agreement): What is the space between the seller’s walk-away point and the buyer’s highest willingness to pay?
Conducting the Negotiation Session – rules: understand the problem, create alternative solutions that can add value, do not make concessions too quickly, know when to walk away.
Negotiating across Cultures: It is important to understand a
nd accommodate the customer’s culture when negotiating in the international area. Selling in certain cultures often requires more time in bonding and building a rapport. Several meetings may be needed to lay the groundwork for the actual sale.
Understanding Types of Buyer Concerns: Concerns related to the need for the product, about the product or services, related to source, related to time, and related to price.
Methods of Negotiating Buyer Concerns: Direct denial involves refuting the opinion or belief of a prospect, indirect denial means to bend a little and acknowledge that prospect is partially correct, questions, superior benefit, demonstration.
Feel-Felt-Found: Empathizing with a client’s concerns. Example using the “feel-felt-found” strategy: The customer expresses concern about the complexity of new software and the salesperson says: I understand how you feel…; Many of my customers have felt this same way…; Until they started using this software and found it quite easy to master.
Overcoming Price Objections: Do clarify price concerns with questions, do add value with a cluster of satisfactions, do not make price the focal point of the sales presentation, do not apologize for the price, do point out the relationship between price and quality, do explain and demonstrate the difference between price and cost.
Working with Buyers Trained in Formal Negotiation: Tactics professional buyers learn to use in dealing with salespeople: Budget limitation tactic, take it or leave it tactic, let us split the difference tactic, If…then tactic, sell low now, make profits later tactic.
TOPIC 14: Adapting the Close and Confirming the Partnership: The Six-Step Presentation Plan: Focus on Step 5 – Close
Review the Value Proposition from the Customer’s Perspective: Closing the sale is usually easier if you look at the value proposition from the prospect’s point of view.
Buyer’s Remorse: Buying often causes emotional stress, which is sometimes referred to as “buyer’s remorse.” Typical buying anxieties explaining why some customers are reluctant to commit to your proposal include: loss of options, fear of making a mistake, and social or peer pressure
Closing the Sale: “. . . you don’t close sales; you build commitment to a course of action that brings value to the customer and profit to the seller.”
Guidelines for Closing the Sale: Focus on dominant buying motives, achieve incremental commitments throughout the sales process, especially situations involving long selling cycles, negotiate the tough points before attempting the close, avoid surprises at the close, display a high-degree of self-confidence at the close, ask for the order more than once.
Recognize Closing Clues (buying signals): is an indication, either verbal or nonverbal, that the prospect is preparing to make a buying decision. Verbal clues (questions, recognitions, requirements); Nonverbal clues (body movement, facial expression, tone of voice).
Methods for Closing the Sale: trial close, direct appeal close, multiple options close, balance sheet close
Trial Close: is a closing attempt made at an opportune time during the sales presentation to encourage the customer to reveal readiness or unwillingness to buy. Also known as the minor point close. May be appropriate when you are reasonably sure that the prospect is about to make a decision but is being held back by natural caution. Often is presented in the form of a confirmation question.
Direct Appeal Close: involves simply asking for the order in a straightforward manner; it is the most direct closing approach, and many buyers find it attractive. However, the direct appeal should not come too early.
Assumptive Close (take-it-for-granted close): asks for a minor decision, assuming that the customer has already decided to buy. This closing approach comes near the end of the planned presentation. This closing method provides a subtle way to ask for a decision when you are quite certain the customer has already decided to buy.
Steps for Using the Multiple Option Close: Configure more than one product solution; cease presenting product options when the prospect has been given ample selection; remove products (or features) prospects are not genuinely interested in and concentrate on options of interest.
Adapting to the Customer’s Communication Style: A prospect’s communication style must be taken into consideration when deciding how to adapt the close. The four styles include: supportive, emotive, reflective, directive.
When the Buyer Says YES: Congratulations! You have closed the sale. Now reassure the customer, which is the confirmation step in closing the sale and prevents buyer’s remorse. Thank the customer for the order.
When the Buyer Says NO: Make sure the deal is really dead, review the chain of events, and interview the client.
TOPIC 15: SERVICING THE SALE AND BUILDING THE PARTNERSHIP: The Six-Step Presentation Plan: Focus on Step 6 – Servicing the Sale
Achieving Successive Sales: A successful partnering effort results in successive sales and referrals. Repeat sales come after one demonstrates the ability to add value in different ways. Taking the customer’s point of view and acting in the customer’s interest, often described as “customer advocacy,” is a major factor underlying repeat business.
Responding to Increased Post-Sale Customer Expectations: The importance of servicing the sale relates to the fact that people buy expectations, not products.
How do you respond to a customer who has increased expectations? Be certain your customer strategy is on target, focus on follow-through and follow-up activities, and reexamine your product strategy.
Causes of Customer Attrition: Poor service (50–70 percent), Product dissatisfaction (12–15 percent), Price considerations (10–15 percent).
B2B Service Behaviors: impt service behaviors: diligence, information communication, inducements, empathy, sportsmanship.
Customer Service Methods that Strengthen the Partnership: The completed Consultative Sales Presentation Guide illustrates the ways in which high-performance salespeople use value-added strategies to service the sale and build repeat business and referrals. Customer service provides many opportunities to strengthen the partnership.
Key Customer Moments: The Moment of Truth: if Expectations = Experience → Customer satisfied; The Moment of Misery: if Expectations > Experience → Customer dissatisfied; The Moment of Magic: if Expectations
Post-Sales Services that Ensure Successive Sales: Make credit arrangements, schedule deliveries, be present during delivery, monitor installation, offer training on using and caring for product, provide price change information.
Customer Follow-Up Adds Value: main obj: express appreciation for the purchase., and determine if the customer is satisfied with the purchase (this strengthens the relationship and builds a partnership that results in additional sales, poor service and lack of follow-up after the sale are the primary reasons customers stop buying).
Follow-Up Methods: Personal visit, telephone call, e-mail message, letter or card, call report.
Forms of Expansion Selling: Full-line selling (suggestion selling) → sell related products; Cross-selling → sell non-related products; Upselling → sell better quality products.
Making Recommendations for Full-Line Selling: Plan for full-line selling during the pre-approach step, make recommendations after you have first satisfied the customer’s primary need, make your suggestions thoughtful and positive, when appropriate, demonstrate the suggested item or use sales tools to build interest.
Addressing Unhappy Customers: Give customers every chance to disclose their feelings, keep in mind that it does not matter whether the complaint is real or perceived, do not alibi, politely share with the customer your point of view regarding the problem’s cause, decide what action must be taken to remedy the problem.