9 sales processes that every B2B company needs.

Sales are the foundation of any organization. Without it, the entire structure will fall. But sales, in general, are pretty challenging. Even the top salespeople feed that sales can be complex when pushing the potential leads into closed sales.

Be it any industry; you will need skills and expertise to prove to your customers that the best medicine for their wounds is the solution you are providing.

Easier said than done, right?

Well, not this time. Though the sales process is a complex and time taking approach, it can be repetitive and straightforward if you follow the proper guidelines.

This article will talk about 7 critical sales processes that can be a game-changer for you. Upon implementing these processes, you can easily keep your sales on autopilot and efficiently manage the sales cycle.

Let's dive into 7 seven sales processes.

Call Management

The early discussions and conversations between the buyer and the sales reps start with the planning stage. Here the sales reps ask open-ended questions to the buyer to understand their objective and intention.

This is then followed by the execution stage, where the sales reps rely on their research and preparation to guide the customer.

If things go as planned, the debrief will mostly bring a senior team member into the game, where they will share the feedback and check how things went by.

If there are any questions and room for improvement, a senior team member can jump in and make things clear before the process moves down.

Qualification Process

Every sales team should have a proper approach to the qualification process because this is the stage where you have to confirm if the customer is the right fit for you or not. If the customer surpasses this step, the other process becomes easy.

So how do you qualify the customer?

There should be a complete checklist of pointers that the sales reps should keep in mind before the move ahead. Sales reps can ask questions that make it clear if the person is the right fit for your product or not.

Check out the below questions that sales reps can ask to qualify the customer.

How did you hear about us?

What Problem Are You Trying to Solve

Why Are You Solving This Problem Now?

What Have You Tried in the Past?

Did X strategy work for you?

What are the things that interested you for our Brand?

What Are Your Top Priorities in a Solution?

Once you start the initial conversations with the prospects, they will feel more confident and open up about their problems which will help you qualify the leads.

Preparation

The technique is important to selling, and a big part of this phase is about marketing and everything that it should do before you even consider getting in front of a customer.

Now after the lead is qualified, you have many answers to the questions you asked in the earlier sales process. This will help you get to know the customer better and prepare to present your product.

Records can use records of the previous sales calls and recordings here to train your sales squad and expose the entire sales team to the finest strategies that the top performers are using to leverage the people intelligence

Approach

In this phase, you demonstrate how your solutions solve the needs of your potential customer. Once you have researched and prepared, it's time to face the prospect. It can either be a face-to-face meeting or over the phone. Be it anyway; there are three basic approaches that you can use.

classy Approach: Gifting your clients with during the initial discussion

Question approach: question the prospect to make them interested

The product approach: Giving the prospect a sample or a free trial to review and evaluate your service

Please keep the conversation open-ended, and his details will give you more understanding about them.

Presentation

If you have followed the above stage correctly and your conversation with the customer was engaging, you might book a meeting. The stage will be determined by how well you have nailed down the above steps and how well you perform your demo.

Your sales pitch will do the magic here, so make sure it is personalized. Once you keep beginning your presentation, check if the prospect looks interested and convinced. If not, take a pause and ask questions.

One of the best ways to involve the customers in your presentation is to give real-time examples and engage with them. You can use the 60 seconds rule where you talk for 60 seconds and then ask questions.

Handling Objections

It is natural for the customers to have questions once you finish the sales presentation.

This is one of the most underrated stages that good salespeople may skip, but the best ones will use it.

You can be prepared and use some of the following ideas:

Understand the customer's comments by acknowledging their views and then responding with solutions.

Check out the opinions to find different ways to address them.

Talk about the customer's Objection. You can create a more negligible impact if you say it aloud.

That will make you ready for the customer's response, and you can quickly answer them.

Consider this example:

The Objection: 'I am so sorry that I don't have time today.'

The Response: 'No worries. I can book you another meeting later in the evening.'

Closing

This is one of the most critical and challenging parts of sales. This is the decision-making stage where you have to ask if the potential customer is willing to purchase.

If you played your game well in the previous stages, the customer would be convinced that your solution will meet their needs, and you can quickly close these sales and confirming sale terms, and finish the transaction.

Ask for the below questions to complete the closing of the sale.

Will you pay the whole fee upfront or in installments?

Would you like me to wrap that for you?'

Always try to offer a bit more to get the prospect to close. You can begin with deals like a free month of service or an offer. Make sure to create urgency by mentioning time which is the essence. Let's say, 'The price will shoot up after this month' or 'We only have six spots left.

Follow up

Here is your chance to upsell or sell more. Besides additional sales, a good relationship and trust gained from follow-up calls you made will encourage consumers to purchase from you again.

And if you've done an excellent job with follow-up calls—they may refer some new business your way. Even when the sale is made, your task is not completed. The follow-up stage will keep you in touch with the customers you had closed, not only for the potential recurring businesses but also for the referrals.

And the price of retaining the customer us cheaper than acquiring the new ones. Remember that maintaining the relationships is the key.

References

These references can be the low-hanging fruits that competitors do not consider as it's awkward and may look desperate. But these words are not in the dictionary if you are in sales.

There are very high chances that the customer may refer you to some of their other connections. Now, these references are very highly qualified leads, and they have a high conversion ratio.

Talk to your customers, ask them if they have someone from their connection, and they will be happy to share details.

Dale Carnegie, the famous author, 91% of customers say they are happy to share referrals, but only 11% of salespeople ask for one. You can send personalized referral emails to your customer to increase your sale.

Conclusion

Never look upon a sales process as set in stone and only updated infrequently. On the other side, the sales process should be customer-driven and influence their buying process and habits.

Such customer alignment will pay huge revenue over time and keep you ahead of many of your competitors.

Since these are evolving and changing with greater frequency than ever, you should constantly validate your sales process and tweak it as necessary.

Author Bio

Saurabh is a content marketer at Automate.io and is passionate about SaaS. Hehelps B2B companies achieve organic growth and find new customer channles through data-driven content marketing.