In today’s online business environment, sales training plays a crucial role in both growing your customer base and helping your company to stay ahead of the curve. A well-designed sales process can help you achieve both of these goals by streamlining the sales process, improving overall client satisfaction, and increasing your company’s profitability. The “order right into the basket” sales process, first identified by Charles D. Morrison in his book The Business of Salesmanship (originally titled Salesmanship for the 21st Century), has evolved to become one of the most widely used sales strategies in today’s modern economy. Salespeople use this process to draw new customers and close old ones as well as to direct existing customers to specific offerings.
The five-step sales process outlines four major actions a salesperson should take from the time they meet a prospective client until they close the deal. These actions are all designed to move potential clients from being merely interested to being ready to buy to actually making a purchasing decision. These steps are also designed to move a potential client from simply interested to being willing to do business with a salesperson. Most people believe these steps to be long and boring. In reality, they are quite easy to perform and require only a short amount of time each day to perform. However, making them a part of your daily routine not only will enhance your ability to close more sales but will also have a positive effect on the skills and professionalism of your entire sales team.
First Step: Your sales process begins the moment you get to your initial contact with a prospective client. This initial step establishes your relationship and explains what you hope to accomplish in terms of sales and the price that you are willing to provide. All salespeople, including the great ones, begin this process by posing questions that are designed to test the waters and reveal possible objections or potential needs that a potential client may have. Asking relevant questions is a valuable part of building trust with customers and creating a solid rapport that will translate into greater understanding.
Second Step: Once you’ve gathered initial information, it’s time to move on to your sales process. This is typically where many salespeople falter or run into roadblocks. While there may not always be a clear answer to the question at hand, you can use lucidchart to organize the steps of your sales process. If you create a simple to understand chart (you can download an example of one here), you can quickly and effectively keep track of where you’re currently at. You can also use these charts as checklists to ensure that you’re completing each stage of your sales process. For instance, you can make sure that you’re taking each step in the correct order.
Third Step: After you’ve verified that you’ve completed each step of your sales process correctly, it’s time to make your final presentation. If done correctly, this will leave a good impression and your prospect will be eager to purchase from you. One way to ensure that you are leaving a good impression is to clearly highlight any steps that are unclear or that need to be reviewed.
By following these steps, you will increase the efficiency of your sales cycle. It is also a great way to ensure that your salespeople are truly effective. In fact, studies have shown that the best salespeople are those that are well organized and follow the steps that they have set out to do. Using salespeople to help you with this process can prove to be very beneficial. Consider using salespeople to streamline the flow of your sales process today.