Systemizing Sales is one of the most important tasks any business owners can do. Building a structured approach around the selling process provides the owner with the tools needed to track success and improve on the performance of his or her sales team. The following article provides valuable tips on how to build a sales process that will result in more sales and fewer missed opportunities.
You may think that your sales process is unique and customized to each and every one of your prospects. Truth be told, in years of coaching small business owners I learned that even the most unique business can systemize a large part of the sales process. The benefits of taking this step are great:
- You can easily track and improve your success.
- You know at what point in the process prospects decide to leave you and you can improve it.
- The system makes it easier for sales people to start selling right away.
Here are 5 points to keep in mind when developing your sales system:
1. BUILD A STEP BY STEP APPROACH TO SALES
Build a sales process that is clearly defined in steps that are easy to follow for all your employees. Each step is connected to the necessary tools, scripts and documents needed to complete it. Developing a flow process like this will make it easy for your staff to learn the sales process, and enable you to see the current status of each prospect.
2. REACH OUT TO YOUR PROSPECTS MANY TIMES
Research has shown that people do business with people they trust. One way to build trust is to reach out to your prospects repeatedly. Jay Conrad Levinson writes in his "Guerilla Marketing" series of books that you need to reach or "touch" a prospect 9 times before he or she makes a buying decision. In addition you need to try to reach the prospect three times to get a successful "touch". This means that you should reach out to your prospects 3x9 or 27 times before they will make a buying decision. Keep this in mind when you develop your sales process.
3. SELL ON BENEFITS NOT FEATURES
People buy what satisfies their needs. Your sales arguments need to spell out how your prospects can benefit from your product or service. Most sales people think of the features their product or service offers when talking to prospects, when they really should think about what these features mean to their potential clients. This can be a tricky process and will require some thinking. Write down all the features of your product or service and think about what the actual benefit of each feature to your client is. Now you have the real reason why people buy your product or service.
4. MAKE A PERSONAL CONNECTION
People like to do business with people they trust, and they trust people who are like them. In sales you need to communicate with people in a way that is comfortable to them. Adjust your language to the language of your prospect; adjust the speed of your speech to the speed of your prospect's speech; communicate with them the way they want to be communicated with. The science behind this is called NLP or Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Entire books have been written on this subject, but there are some simple tools you can implement in your sales process, to make your sales force more effective.
5. KNOW YOUR NUMBERS
Once you have developed your step-by-step sales process, it is important you track you prospects as they are being led through it. Where are your leads coming from? At what point of the sales process do most prospects lose interest? What percent of prospects become clients? This tracking is what will enable you to constantly improve your sales process and increase your conversion rates.
