Below you will find an overview of the sales cycle. For a successful sale every one of these steps must happen and they must happen in this order. If you take any of these steps out of order you may still make a sale but it will not be as successful as it could have been. In the next several post I will go more in depth on each of these sales steps.
1. Greeting
2. Fact Finding
3. Selection
4. Trial Close
5. Negotiation
6. Close/ Write up
7. Follow up
Greeting - This is arguably the most important part of the sales cycle. You must be confident and friendly. You need to be engaging but also allow the customer enough space to not feel overwhelmed.
Fact Finding - This is where you engage in conversation with the customer and asking specific pre-qualification questions so you can find out which product or serivce is going to work best for them.
Selection - This is the step where you suggest one or more products that you feel would best fit the customers wants and needs.
Trial Close - This step is very important and often skipped over. In the selection step you determined which product is right for them. In the trial close you suggest the next model up to see if they want the "Cadillac" instead of the "Ford." The trial close allows you to see what the customer is comfortable purchasing. Are they happy with what was decided during the selection step or would they prefer a nicer model?
Negotiation - Now that you know with certainty what the customer wants you begin the process of negotation. This is where you talk price, payments etc... Negotiation sets the stage for the rest of your sales process and if done too quickly or incorrectly it could derail your sale even though you are 75% there.
Close/ Write up - This can be two steps in some cases but often is one fluid step. The customer knows what they want and there is agreement on the price and payments. Now you simply put the deal on paper. If you have done the rest of the sales cylce correctly this step should be easy. By now the customer wants your product or service and you know the product is right, the price is right and timing and delivery is correct as well.
Follow up - The difference between a good salesperson and a great salesperson is follow up. Follow up is how you get repeat customers and referrals. Go over and above in your follow up and your customers will be telling everyone about their excellent experience will you.
During the next several post I will go in depth on each of these steps but here are just a few pieces of information. First, as stated before, it is very important that you do not use these steps out of order or skip steps. If you skip steps or only complete a few of these steps you will not be nearly as susccessful.
That is all for today but check back in for an in depth look at each of these steps in the coming days.
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