The Sales Cycle – Eight Sales Steps for Success

A sales cycle or process creates a systematic approach for your sales and marketing team.

The Sales cycle also helps you gauge your progress, and enables you to pinpoint problem areas. Your sales and marketing system should be simple and easy to duplicate throughout the organization. I recommend that people and companies use a Customer Relationship Management program (CRM) to track activities and serve customers.  These eight steps are a brief explanation of the sales process.

 Eight Sales Steps for Success:

1.  Do Your Homework. Do a little research on your prospect beforehand. LinkedIn is a great place to start. Read up on a client’s business, industry, news, trends, victories, and challenges.
2.  Pre-Appointment: If necessary, give your prospect homework in order to determine their level of interest. You may ask them to watch a video or review a website and schedule a call.
3.  Schedule Appointment: Set appointments, and confirmations, and send out a reminder. Don’t depend on just email, get a verbal commitment. Be punctual!
4.  Appointment Conversation: Ask questions and listen. Spend 85% of the time in discovery mode. Listen to prospects.  What do they want?
5.  Appointment Presentation: After you understand what your customer wants, present it to them. Breathe! Leave time for interaction and questions not just a barrage of info.
6.  Appointment Follow-Up: 98% of the time, the sales cycle requires several impressions. (Key point here is always to schedule a meeting from a meeting)
7.  Never CLOSE a customer: Sure write–up the order but recognize that the initial sale is only the beginning not the end of the sales cycle! Think in terms of ongoing customer relationships with the objective of recurring sales and referrals.
8.  Ask for Referrals: Always ask for feedback and provide incentives for referrals.

The sales cycle is a courtship process; you can expect to make an average of 7 to 10 impressions or even more.  Impressions are the building blocks one upon another. Most salespeople want to go for the juggler and close, but the sales presentation and closing techniques are the tips of the iceberg. Do your homework, and become knowledgeable about your product or service. Ask a lot of questions, and focus on how to create value and serve your customer.

Impressions are brief, including text messages, emails, follow-up calls, and a note through snail mail.  Direct them to testimonies and recommendations from satisfied clients. A well-paced, methodical drip campaign, with small helpful bits of information, delivered at the right time works extremely well. Be thoughtful, and careful not to overdo it; your drip campaign could result in Chinese water torture!