10X your sales: THE 8 NECESSARY STAGES OF A WINNING SALES PROCESS

The necessary stages of winning a sales process

How do you respond to someone who shows interest in your product or service?

Everything you do from that moment the person shows interest till he buys or runs away to get it from somewhere else is what is called the sales process.

If you have been attending to your leads anyhow you feel, this simply means that you don’t have a sales process. Do you know this is most likely why you are not meeting your sales target? Your words and how you say them are a very powerful tool for sales.

A Sales Process is important for your business to have a PREDICTABLE amount of sales ALWAYS.

It’s a process that’s GUARANTEED to always make you money EVERY SINGLE TIME you use it. That’s why it’s predictable.

Take note of the words in capital, they’re the essence of having a sales process

Stages of a sales process

To have this guarantee, a sales process must have these 8 compulsory stages,

Calmly follow through these stages; you must not skip anyone of it:

• Prospecting:  This is where you define your target customers. You are going to focus your energy on identifying those who are most likely to buy from.

How do you go about this?

It is by simply segmenting your leads. You shouldn’t be using the same sales process and language for everyone who message you.

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For instance, if your service is about sales of cars. You sell all kinds of cars including cheap and luxury ones.

Also, your customers comprise of youths and old.

You want to make sure that the way you relate with young leads is different from the way you relate with the old ones.  

Also, how you respond to those buying cars worth 50million should be different from someone buying a 900k car.

It is your duty to set up ways to identify and segment your leads so that you can treat them the best way they should be treated.

• Connection: after you’ve identified your target, it’s now time to find and establish a relationship with them. This is where you make your first impression and you definitely don’t want to blow this up.

When connecting, don’t show desperation of how you wish to sell. Don’t hurry your leads to buy. Let your sales process do the talking. This is the reason why sales are very important. It keeps you on track.

Give priority to listening to your leads; give them instant free value and show them that you care more than selling. 

• Qualifying: after connecting with your lead, it’s now time to learn if they can pay for your product/service. Some of your leads can’t get your product or service. So, if you horridly want to sell, you will just end up pouring water in a basket.

E.g: let’s say you sell bags of at least 30k, and you’ve targeted women as your sole customers and advertised your business to connect with them.

Then a lady comes to your DM and says she want to buy a bag, the first question you might want to ask her is “which kind of bag does she want and what’s her budget?”. If she mentions a brand you don’t sell and a budget that’s below what you sell, then you know she’s definitely not your customer and you just have to let her go.

This is just an example. You shouldn’t just let her go that way. You want to make sure she understands the value and prestige of your product. You can even tell her ‘how to’ and ‘where to get the ones that suit her budget but don’t do this until you are sure she can’t afford and is not ready to buy yours.

• Displaying Value: this is where you showcase your product and services. It is very simple. This is where you flex your selling skills. Please don’t sell a product. Sell what the leads will gain from using the product. They are two different things.

• Tackling Objections: this is the point where you answer their questions about your product and service. You need to be very honest here. Don’t promise and eventually fail them. You might have problem later.

• Closing the Sale: This is the sweetest part of everything and the most delicate part. You have to be very strategic about this so that all your efforts won’t go down the drain.

What you and the lead have been doing since has been talks. This is where your lead should show commitment and you are going make him commit.

There are several ways to go about this. You can give a timeline for your offer; or give an exclusive bonus that will expire in a specified time.

• On-boarding: after they’ve paid, this is the part where you inform them of how they are going to get their order. This is basically the information part.
• Follow Up: this is the stage many people often overlook. You feel like after you’ve done business with them, then that’s all.

No! That is not all

Follow up on them; check up on them; they might still be needing something else you’re selling. And this time, you won’t have to go through every stage. It will some easy.

Follow-up also applies to those leads who are yet to commit. Follow-up makes them eventually buy. Don’t just leave them to go. Some of them are still very much interested to buy.

Writer: Sodiq Olaegbe