In this article you're gon na learn what a sales process is and how you can improve yours in your business today, regardless of your industry and ultimately increase your sales figures as quickly as possible.
I only digital marketing agency here in the UK, I also own an online education business now both of those are very sales heavy industries. I'Ve worked in corporate sales for around three years before I started these companies and I've closed way over five million dollars in revenue.
For the various companies that I have worked with, so it's fair to say that I've got my fair share of sales based experience, but I want you to know.
I was an introvert before I started sales. I was absolutely terrified of selling anything to anyone before I jumped in my first sales job. I remember shivering and quivering when I had to make my first sales call. I ran away to the corner of the office. I was useless, and so, if that's you right now, you're scared of sales, don't worry about it.
It's an intimidating thing having to sell someone for the first time, it's one of those things that gets easier with time and it gets easier once you understand the processes behind what you were doing.
So what I'm gon na be doing over the next couple of months is releasing a series of sales training artilce on my web blog in the bid to simplify an industry which, quite frankly, the majority of people, make out to be really complex when it isn't. So. The first thing we're going to be starting off with is the sales process. This is the fundamental behind sales.
You need to understand the process of taking someone from a lead to a customer to a promoter, and the first thing we're going to go through today is the buyers journey and there are five steps of a buyers journey.
What I'm gon na try and do is throw up some text on the screen here, number one we have awareness, then we have consideration, we have intent, we have purchase and we have promotion and let's break these all down a little bit more.
So, starting off with awareness, our potential clients or our potential customers become aware of our product or brand or our service. Maybe they've seen we're on YouTube. Maybe they've seen one of our adverts or they've seen with speaking on stage they've become aware of who we are and what we do, what our product is.
We then have consideration number two, so consideration is when they are starting to think about whether this product or service adds value to their life. Maybe they start reading the advert or they consume your YouTube content, or they watch you on stage at an event they're aware of you and they're, considering whether you are valuable enough for them to make a purchase and trust you, okay, you're, building trust with them.
At this point, we then have intent. So number three is intent and they've done something here. They'Ve triggered something they've clicked on your ad or they've visited your product page, whatever even added or filled in your contact us form and made an inquiry directly into your business.
They have intent to buy. Number four is the actual purchase to buy okay, so they have bought your product or your service. They are now a customer and the problem is for many companies, as many companies think that the buyers journey finishes here. They'Ve acquired a customer and that's cool. They don't need to worry about it again, but the really successful companies, the truly successful salespeople, understand that.
Actually, this is where you're just getting started. The real fun and the real money comes at number five, when you are getting promoters when you exceed and you excel, and you over deliver on your service on your product to that customer and they love your company or your brand.
So much that they are going to shout about you from the rooftops, because once you turn a customer into a promoter, they become your sales team. You turn a customer into a promoter and they will tell all of their friends. They will tell all of their family.
Think about a restaurant if you visit a restaurant and it becomes your new favorite restaurant because you've had such a positive experience. You'Re gon na tell absolutely everybody around you, they're gon na go to that restaurant and then it has this knock on snowball effect, because you tell your friend they go to the restaurant, they tell their parents, they go to the restaurant, they tell someone else and all Of a sudden, this business is growing exponentially.
So whenever you're planning your sales process, you need to look at number five and you need to consider how you can wow your customers and convert them into a promoter. So that is the buyers journey. That'S an average buyers journey for any potential, customer or client of yours.
Let'S move on to the actual sales process. The first step in any sales process is prospecting or lead generation. Okay, this is finding potential customers for our business and the first thing that you want to do, regardless of whether you're in a job or whether you own your own business, is you need to write down a buyer's persona? You need to write down and really learn about who your potential customers are. Where do they live?
How old are they what gender are they? What are their hobbies? What they like to do on the weekend, go this deep and go the extra mile to find out who they are the more you understand your customers, the easier it is going to be for you to find potential customers and for you to close them.
So get a buyers, persona written up, okay, just a little document, scribble down all your ideas and if you've got existing data and existing business, which is already making money. This is a great chance for you to refine and improve your existing process.
Look at what sales you're getting look at the data and reference data points that are common between each person that is buying your product or your service. The second thing you want to do is work out where you are gon na find these people.
Okay, once you've got a persona you're going to get an idea of what kind of platforms they hang out on, what forums they use, what search engines they use and you can start finding them. Are they on LinkedIn, for example, can you find their email if they're on LinkedIn, you can find their email pretty easy? Are they a business or are they a consumer?
Are you B2B, or are you B2C if you're B2B, you can find other businesses pretty easy, using Google or Facebook or Yell, for example, and so you really need to work out where you can find your potential customers? Where are you going to do your prospecting and how are they going to find you as well, because it's not just about you finding new cold leads for your business, but it's also you want to get inbound.
Okay, you don't just want to be out-bounding forever. You don't want to be reaching out to new cold leads all the time. Okay, you ultimately to get to a place where people are coming to you, so you need to find out where you can trip them up.
Okay, where are they hanging out? Where are they like? Where are they? Where can you advertise for you to get yourselves in front of them and get them on that awareness stage, so they know who you are, and you can start getting them to shift over on to consideration.
So you need to understand how to prospect, and one of the most important things when you are prospecting is ensuring that you are organized put together a sales database or use a bit of software called Pipedrive.
I'Ve used Pipedrive for many years. I used to use Salesforce. I find Pipedrive to be a easier to use CRM system you need to and how to manage your pipeline. And, yes, it will just get extremely messy if you don't have an effective CRM system. So I'd recommend you checking out Pipedrive I'll, put a link in the description, so that is stage one prospecting and lead generation.
Actually, before we move on a couple of useful tips for you on the prospecting on the lead generation, side of things is number one: building an authority in Facebook groups. This is a really great place to begin Facebook groups, forums Quora. All of these places, even Reddit, they're great places for you to build authority in your industry and start providing value if you lead with value you're gon na get inbound leads coming through to your business.
Another thing: if you do use LinkedIn to generate business, the business needs in your company. I have a video going through how to generate leads and how to outreach on LinkedIn there'll be links somewhere around here.
So you can watch that moving on. We have stage two which is building relationships and qualifying these leads, so we need to establish that the leads we are generating are actually suitable for our product or our service, so the correct kind of customers that we want.
Okay - and there are two ways of doing this - whether it's inbound leads or whether it's cold leads. Okay, we'll start off with inbound warm leads and how we can convert them from awareness to consideration or even intent to actually buy. And the first thing I would recommend you doing is leading forward with value.
I don't care what industry you are in. I would recommend you starting some kind of a personal brand and I'm not saying you have to start a YouTube channel or get on video if you're not comfortable. Doing that. That'S fine follow the hints that I gave you with regards to Facebook and Quora forums. Just start building an authority and becoming a thought leader within your industry and lead forward with value answer.
People'S questions build trust once you build somebody's trust and you get their trust. They'Re gon na buy product or services from you, they're going to be much easier to convert into a customer. You could even do this through a webinar okay, you could create a free webinar or a free web training or a master class.
Whatever you want to call it, and you can show your potential customers what it is like to be. A customer of yours show testimonials, show previous results, showcase your product or your service and then upsell them at the end of that free training to your product or your service, and you can convert them.
You take them through that whole buyers journey and then the last thing you need to do is make them a promoter. So that is the warm stuff, always lead forward with values and really think about. How can you provide value to your leads that you are generating now? The second thing, that's obviously cold its outreach. The only way for us to convert cold leads, who are just aware of us, or they aren't aware of us.
Yet they don't know who we are. Is to outreach them and that's how we're gon na be able to qualify them. Okay. First of all, we want to make sure we've got the correct detail, so we've got their phone number, we've got their email address, we've got their social media, however, it is we're. Actually trying to contact them because we can either cold call, we can email, we can send direct messages or we can network face to face now.
Email was one of those things that I would not recommend you using as a number one strategy. Okay, this is like one of those strategies which just stays there in the in the backend. Okay email was something everybody's used to being pitched by email these days, and so it's something you always want to have in your sales process in your outreach strategy.
But it's not something that you want to focus on in this day and age. You would be better off investing your time into cold, calling or DMing or face-to-face okay, but cold, calling or DMing is gon na, be the most effective cuz you're going to be able to get that out.
A lot quicker. A lot of people say that cold calling is dead in this day and age, and the other always makes me laugh because they're people that say that just simply do not know how to cold call. I'M sorry if you've said that before and believe me, I was useless when I first started genuinely.
I was absolutely useless at cold, calling when I first started, but the secret and what I've learned over years and years of cold calling. Is that it's not about your script or exactly what you say it's just about how passionate and how personal you are when you speak to someone nobody likes to feel like you're, at a thousandth person, they've called up over the course of that week.
They want to feel like you're, the only person they've called, so you need to be personal and passionate, and you need to start your hundredth call with the same energy as your first call, and you need to ensure that that person feels like you're only reaching out To them do not sound like a robot, of course you can follow a script but really focus your conscious effort on to not sounding robotic and not sounding like a salesperson just being another person over the phone trying to provide value to somebody else.
Okay, so that's how we build relationships, how we can qualify that these are the correct people for us, of course, when you're, actually in your meeting, you can ask them questions about their revenue. If you need to have somebody who's over a certain income threshold or if it's a certain product which is high ticket, of course, you can ask those kind of questions when you actually have a meeting or a sales call with that person.
If you have a product or service which is over $ 1000, I would recommend that you having a two-part meeting strategy. Okay, you can have your initial outreach and just use it as an opportunity to get a sales meeting with that person.
You can then close them on that sales call if it's under $ 1,000. Generally speaking, you don't need that extra level of push okay, you don't need that extra level of attention to get somebody over the line. You don't really need to qualify that they can afford. Your product or your service, and so you can really try and sell them on that first initial contact. But if it is over that, I would recommend you having a two-step process.
Outreaching. First, securing some kind of a meeting, whether that's over a phone or a video call whatever that may be, and then trying to convert them on to your product or your service, or your software or whatever. That may be so that is stage 2 building relationships and qualifying number three is closing.
The deal is getting the sale getting the money getting the customer and my best recommendation. If you are closing someone over the phone over video or a physical meeting for that matter is qualifying that they are ready for you to close them.
Ask them if they want you to close them, so you can ask them. Are you ready to take the next steps? Are you ready for me to talk to you about the product? Are you ready for me to tell you the price one thing I've used before many times is. I know where you're at I know where you need to go.
Are you ready to make or take the next steps, or do you think that I have the skills to help you solve your problems said that many times are you ready to take the next steps? Yes, you want to get a yes before they say yes to your price, because once somebody is in the knack of saying yes, you get them to say yes as many times as you possibly can throughout your meeting when somebody is in the knack of saying yes, They'Re going to be much more likely psychologically to say yes, when you present them with your price now one of the key things you want to do when you give them your price, regardless of what it is you're selling, is you want to deliver your price?
So our price is X and then not say anything when you say your price do not justify yourself stay silent. I don't care if it takes 30 seconds for that person to get back to ok the minute you speak after you've mentioned your price. You start justifying yourself and you drop so much trust or any trust that you have built on that sales call, because you start justifying yourself.
You start saying: well, my price is $ 1,000, but it's because I I'm gon na work really hard for you. I mean we're gon na get you really good return on investment, it's like. Why is this guy justifying himself now? Why do you? Why is he questioning himself and it's psychologically it's not the creating a good image for your potential prospect, and so, when you present your price stay silent and let them ask you questions, you can always overcome objections.
The last thing you want to do is panic start justifying yourself and you give them potential objections, but objections that you don't have the ability to overcome. Now. On that note, with objections, a lot of people in sales get stuck and afraid or stumble over their words on a sales meeting, because they don't know they're uncertain what is actually going to happen in the meeting. What that potential prospect can say to them how they can reject them and how they are going to overcome that now. This is something that comes with time.
You will get better at handling rejections on the more sales calls that you do. You'Ll learn what people were saying to you and you'll. Remember the things that you said previously, but my best recommendation is what my sales mentor taught me when I was in my first sales job when he said to me: Jordan, if you're afraid of failure, what you need to do is write down all of the possible Outcomes that could happen on your sales call.
What are all the negative things that this person could say to you? What are all the potential objections and write an answer next to all of them, even if you haven't had them whatever your minds, thinking could happen, write it down and write an answer next to it.
Now doing that, and just having that sheet of paper with you having your notebook with you, you're gon na be so much more prepared and you're gon na be able to deliver your price and your close much more confidently. So I really recommend you doing that so that it's stage three, that is closing the prospect.
We then have 4, which is delivering our product or our service, and I cannot stress enough how this is, without a doubt, the most important part of this entire sales process. Ok, delivering your product or your service. Exceptionally, you need to under promise in whatever you're doing whatever you're doing in life.
Ok, this is just a good motto to follow in your life under promise and over deliver. We'Ve all heard it, but it assumes Apple. For an example, this is a company who are they're worth hundreds and hundreds of billions and then isn't just for random reasons: okay, that isn't because they're part of the Illuminati or because they're in bed with the Rockefellers okay. This is because they have fundamentally cracked the code of customer service. They know what they are doing.
I ordered the new iPhone last year. It said that it was going to arrive in six weeks. It arrived in three weeks and I had this exceptional experience with them, and the funny thing is: is I used to work for Apple before I started my businesses before I started corporate sales. I worked in an Apple store and they deliberately under-promise to customers, so they can over deliver and provide an exceptional client experience every single time. So I want you to think what godless of your industry?
How can you under promise people and what areas can you over-promised on? You don't want to under promise to the point where you're not making your product or your service attractive, but you do need somewhere where you can over deliver. The worst thing you could do is over-promised and under-delivered destroy your brand image, destroy your customer experience and then you completely get rid of being able to turn somebody from a customer to a promoter, and this is crucial in the build up of your business.
This is, this is crucial in you getting reoccurring sales in you getting lifetime value from your customers, from people buying from you again and again and again, so you can remarket them and sell them new products or service, as well as them telling everybody and shouting about You from the rooftops genuinely refining your product and making sure your delivery is exceptional, is, without a doubt one of the most valuable things that you can do within your business. When you get delivery on point, when you get customer service on point, when you get happy customers, your business will grow infinitely and you'll get to the point where you won't need to do.
Outbound sales anymore, do Apple, do outbound, cold, calling and outbound emailing to cold leads. Of course they don't. Yes, they run ads. Yes, they do TV, ok, but they do not do outbound cold, callling, email and things that I don't have to do that. They'Ve built such a legacy and such a reputation through their customers, their iPhones do less things than Samsung's do, but people still buy them.
The majority of people still have iPhones over Android and that's purely because of their user experience and because of their brand and so create a good user experience and your brand, your company will grow infinitely and that doesn't matter whether you own a software product wether, you Own, a electric skateboard company, or whether you own a social media marketing agency, you perfect your delivery in our agency. We guarantee people's success. We are that confident in our delivery. Our customers are our promoters. We get more referrals than we get cold clients signed up.
We don't have to do as much outbound stuff anymore, because we get customers who are referring us to other customers through referral schemes and things like that and that's another thing: you can do as a business build up referral schemes, so that is it. That is the full sales process, the full four-step sales process.
We have prospecting lead generation, we have relationship building and qualifying leads, we have closing the deal and we have delivering our product or our service. So I want you to look at all four areas of that. In your business, regardless of what industry you are in and look at, where your loopholes are at the moment, look at where your shortcomings are write, this down on a bit of paper, get an understanding of where your sales processes at the moment, so many companies wing This so many companies think okay, we'll just cold call it and we'll do this, and we do that and they get lost in it, make sure you're organized make sure you use a CRM system of some sort and just ensure you have this process on lockdown.
You have it documented, so you can improve it over the years. Whenever you get rejections, whenever you get complaints, you can refine your process over time that is invaluable to your company, so guys I hope you have seen and had a lot of value from this video.
I hope this is made a potentially complex thing, a lot more simple for you, as I said, we're going to be producing a lot more sales based content in the future on this YouTube channel, so make sure you're not only subscribe, but you have your notification bell On so you get notified every time we bring out new sales based content.
If you like this sales-based content, comment down below sales process, that's going to help with the algorithm and help ranking this video as well sales process or something along their lines. Just include them words in your comment and what I'm going to do is on there pull two companies or two people out of a hat.
I don't care what stage you're at in your journey and in the next seven days, I'll pull you out of a hat and I'll jump on a coaching call with you or go through your current sales process, we'll work out the shortcomings and exactly how we can Improve that in your business, so you can ultimately increase your sales figures guys.
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