Personal selling - Steps in the personal selling process - Sales tips - Sales funnel -Sales pipeline report
Sales and Personal Selling
Personal selling - Personal presentation by the firm’s sales force for the
purpose of making sales and building customer relationships. Personal selling is
paid personal communication that attempts to inform customers and persuade
them to purchase products or services.
Undoubtedly by now you've figured out that marketing enables individuals and
organizations to sell products and services to other people to help them satisfy their needs
and wants. At some point in the selling process, personal selling usually becomes
involved.
It is the personal selling process that allows marketers the greatest freedom to adjust a
message to satisfy customers' information needs. Personal selling allows the marketer or
seller to communicate directly with the prospect or customer and listen to his or her
concerns, answer specific questions, provide additional information, inform, persuade,
and possibly even recommend other products or services.
The personal selling process consists of the following steps:
1) Prospecting
Prospecting refers to identifying and developing a list of potential clients. Sales
people can seek the names of prospects from a variety of sources including trade
shows, commercially-available databases or mail lists, company sales records and
in-house databases, website registrations, public records, referrals, directories and
a wide variety of other sources. Prospecting activities should be structured so that
they identify only potential clients who fit the profile and are able, willing and
authorized to buy the product or service.
This activity is greatly enhanced today using websites with specially-coded pages
optimized with key words so that prospects may easily find you when they search
the web for certain key words related to your offering. Once prospecting is
underway, it then is up to the sales professional to qualify those prospects to
further identify likely customers and screen out poor leads. Modern websites can
go along way in not only identifying potential prospects but also starting this
qualification process.
2) Pre-approach
Before engaging in the actual personal selling process, sales professionals first
analyze all the information they have available to them about a prospect to
understand as much about the prospect as possible. During the Pre-approach
phase of the personal selling process, sales professionals try to understand the
prospect's current needs, current use of brands and feelings about all available
brands, as well as identify key decision makers, review account histories (if any),
assess product needs, plan/create a sales presentation to address the identified and
likely concerns of the prospect, and set call objectives. The sales professional also
develops a preliminary overall strategy for the sales process during this phase,
keeping in mind that the strategy may have to be refined as he or she learns more
about the prospect.
3) Approach
The approach is the actual contact the sales professional has with the prospect.
This is the point of the selling process where the sales professional meets and
greets the prospect, provides an introduction, establishes rapport that sets the
foundation of the relationship, and asks open-ended questions to learn more about
the prospect and his or her needs.
4) Making the Presentation
During the presentation portion of the selling process, the sales professional tells
that product "story" in a way that speaks directly to the identified needs and wants
of the prospect. A highly customized presentation is the key component of this
step. At this point in the process, prospects are often allowed to hold and/or
inspect the product and the sales professional may also actually demonstrate the
product. Audio visual presentations and/or slide presentations may be
incorporated at this stage and this is usually when sales brochures or booklets are
presented to the prospect. Sales professionals should strive to let the prospect do
most of the talking during the presentation and address the needs of the prospect
as fully as possible by showing that he or she truly understands and cares about
the needs of the prospect.
5) Overcoming Objections
Professional sales people seek out prospects' objections in order to try to address
and overcome them. When prospects offer objections, it often signals that they
need and want to hear more in order to make a fully-informed decision. If
objections are not uncovered and identified, then sales professionals cannot
effectively manage them. Uncovering objections, asking clarifying questions, and
overcoming objections is a critical part of training for professional sellers and is a
skill area that must be continually developed because there will always be
objections. Trust me when I tell you that as soon as a sales professional finds a
way to successfully handle "all" his or her prospects' objections, some prospect
will find a new, unanticipated objection-- if for no other reason than to test the
mettle of the sales person.
6) Closing the Sale
Although technically "closing" a sale happens when products or services are
delivered to the customer's satisfaction and payment is received, for the purposes
of our discussion I will define closing as asking for the order and adequately
addressing any final objections or obstacles. There are many closing techniques as
well as many ways to ask trial closing questions. A trail question might take the
form of, "Now that I've addressed your concerns, what other questions do you
have that might impact your decision to purchase?" Closing does not always mean
that the sales professional literally asks for the order, it could be asking the
prospect how many they would like, what color they would prefer, when they
would like to take delivery, etc. Too many sales professions are either weak or too
aggressive when it comes to closing. If you are closing a sale, be sure to ask for
the order. If the prospect gives an answer other than "yes", it may be a good
opportunity to identify new objections and continue selling.
7) Follow-up
Follow-up is an often overlooked but important part of the selling process. After
an order is received, it is in the best interest of everyone involved for the sales
person to follow-up with the prospect to make sure the product was received in
the proper condition, at the right time, installed properly, proper training
delivered, and that the entire process was acceptable to the customer. This is a
critical step in creating customer satisfaction and building long-term relationships
with customers. If the customer experienced any problems whatsoever, the sales
professional can intervene and become a customer advocate to ensure 100%
satisfaction. Diligent follow-up can also lead to uncovering new needs, additional
purchases, and also referrals and testimonials which can be used as sales tools.
Sales Management:
Managing the sales process is typically the job of the Sales Manager. Good sales
managers usually exhibit the characteristics of: organization, a good personal sales
record, enthusiasm, ambition, product knowledge, trustworthiness, mentoring skills, and
somebody who is respected by others.
While an in-depth discussion of sales management is beyond the scope of this crashcourse, I'll mention one tool often used by sales managers to manage the sales process.
This is called the Sales Funnel or Sales Pipeline Report.
The Sales Funnel (or Sales Pipeline)
A sales funnel report presents a "snapshot" of your sales function at any given point in
time. For conceptual purposes, the sales process is often compared to a funnel where new
leads coming into the system (i.e. prospects) are initially placed into the top of the funnel
(the widest part) and then worked through the system by informing, persuading,
overcoming objections, providing information, demonstrating, providing free samples,
etc., etc. until at the narrow part of the funnel, an order is placed and a sales is closed
when payment from the customer is received.
The funnel framework works fairly well because for all new leads that are generated by
marketing, there is a closing rate that represents the sales that ultimately result. The
number of resulting sales is usually significantly less than the number of total leads
generated hence it is useful to think that as leads work their way further down the funnel
there will be less and less of them until they come out the narrow end of the funnel as
sales.
One important thing to note is that organizations define each phase in the sales process
(or, part of the funnel) differently. Each step working through the funnel should have
clearly defined criteria that go along with it so at each part of the funnel, there is specific
knowledge about all the leads at that stage. In other words, leads become more and more
qualified as they work their way through the funnel and at each step, you will know
exactly what that specific level of qualification is. Another important thing to keep in
mind is that the funnel is a great way to track and forecast sales, as well as, gauge
marketing activities.
By running a Sales Funnel Report, the sales manager can visually see how many leads are
at each step, if there are any "bottlenecks", or if there are an insufficient number of leads
at any stage. Armed with that knowledge, then the sales manager may instruct his or her
sales force where they should focus more attention to keep sales at the desired level. He
or she can then also work closely with the marketing manager to ensure they are
generating enough leads to hit sales goals, whether the leads are of high enough quality,
or what further needs to be done to hit sales goals.
In short, the funnel can clearly point out what adjustments need to be made within the
sales function to hit sales goals. That might mean that marketing activities need to be
adjusted, that addition sales training is needed, or that sales personnel need to focus their
efforts and activities on certain parts of the sales pipeline to keep the entire process on
balance and running smoothly. The sales funnel also helps sales and marketing work
closely together to meet organizational sales objectives. It is a wonderful management
tool.
Sales tips:
I'm often asked my opinion on what I think makes a sales person successful. You see, I've
increased sales within existing territories by 1500% within the period of two years. I've
had extensive experience with both inside and outside sales, set sales records, won many
sales awards, established and developed sales and Customer Relationship Management
(CRM) databases in order to streamline and formalize the sales process and I have also
successfully demonstrated my ability to manage a sales force. I guess you could say I'm
familiar with all aspects of the sales process. My track record of sales success establishes
some credibility for the sales advice I'm about to give you.
I think success in sales depends upon some basics. I can humbly share a few pointers that
I think have allowed me to enjoy success in sales:
1) Be sincere with people. Too many sales people act in a manner that seems
artificial or they only feign interest in their prospects' problems and concerns.
People are smart and see right through such insincerity. If you are not sincere and
honest with everyone you meet then you should not be in sales.
2) It is vitally important to constantly hone your sales and communications skills.
Continuous growth and training in formal professional selling techniques is also
very important. Take training classes, listen to audio cassette professional
development tapes, read all the professional development material you can get
your hands on, and start a program of self-study and development in sales today if
you haven't already.
3) First listen to your customer, understand his or her wants and needs, and only
then try to determine whether or not you can deliver the product or services to
meet those wants and needs. If you approach a prospect with a solution before
understanding the problem you are likely to be wrong about the solution.
4) The best sales people ask a lot of questions and genuinely listen to the answers
before speaking again.
5) Your prospects and customers are all different so you should treat them
differently.
6) The best sales people listen much more than they talk.
7) Find out what your prospects want and then give it to them.
8) If you cannot give your prospects what they want, tell them so and help them
find what they are looking for elsewhere.
9) If you think that you cannot make it in sales as a profession, then you probably
should not even try.