Step 1: Identifying potential Customers
At this first stage of the sales process, the seller informs about the new opportunities, identifies new opportunities among the existing customer base, and differentiates their company from the competition.
Depending on the type of business (for example, it can be a cashback mobile application), searching for potential buyers can take many forms, including networking, attending seminars and trade shows, sending promotional material, and making simple phone calls.
This step aims to identify the decision-maker or an ally in the company who can help you touch the decision-maker.
Step 2: Evaluation
At this stage of the process, both you and your client form an opinion about each other. You calculate the potential revenue and expenses associated with a customer’s case to decide whether it’s worth continuing, while the customer assesses whether your company can meet their business needs.
Your professional salespeople should be familiar with the detailed identification of the customer’s actual needs at this stage.
They must then clearly analyze how your company’s products or services can uniquely meet their needs.
This step aims to convince the decision-maker to proceed with a thorough evaluation of the solution you are offering.
Step 3: Proposal
At this stage of the process, the customer usually limits the number of companies he considers. Small and medium-sized enterprises must be prepared to respond quickly to possible new opportunities. When you get to this step, the promises are over, and you have to prove to the decision-maker that your company can deliver what it promised.
You can create a mutually agreed product/service evaluation plan that emphasizes the basic steps necessary to prove your potential and ensure a smooth outcome for both the customer and the seller. An evaluation plan is an essential tool that vendors often overlook. After a customer agrees to the evaluation plan, the seller takes control of the sales process. This is because the customer can only follow the steps in an individual company’s evaluation plan, given the time, cost, and resources necessary to perform each action.
This step aims to demonstrate the value that your business can offer the customer through the successful completion of the evaluation plan. The customer then asks the seller for a financial offer.
Step 4: Decision
Right now, you’re so close to closing the deal that you’re ready to start celebrating. Unfortunately, plans and details may change.
For example, one of your sellers may have backtracked too much during the last negotiations, making the deal unprofitable.
Or, instead, another seller may have abandoned a sale with good prospects when he realized that it closed at a meager price. This is the fragile and unstable nature of this step of the selling process.
This step aims to facilitate any agreements that are favorable to both the company and the customer.
Step 5: Recurring purchases
This step is critical to the sales process. After signing a contract or repaying the commission for a sale, the product or service must be delivered and executed as agreed. A professional salesman interested in creating a long-term, efficient business relationship takes ownership and monitors the customer to make sure everything goes smoothly.
Satisfied customers are most likely to place new orders and may want to act as intermediaries for new customers.
