Chances are, your team has a sales process that every rep learns during onboarding training. Sales managers are expected to manage it; sales reps are required to follow every step of it.
But the need for the sales reps to follow the sales process must be supported with a strategy that helps them fully grasp what they’re supposed to be following. A sales process can only be followed to a T if the sales reps really comprehend everything. While onboarding training helps sales reps secure an initial knowledge of the process, sales managers need to have measures in place that help make sure that each step, each task of the sales process is successfully adhered to.
What makes a sales process successful? A sales process is successful if:
- it helps converts prospects into actual customers;
- it is clear and strategic;
- it is sustainable, and can be repeated consistently by team members and have the same positive results each time;
- is dynamic enough to be flexible too, should the occasion call for it; and
- it can be successfully implemented by all sales reps.
The last item is crucial. And successful implementation requires all sales reps to understand each step and know how they can properly engage prospects through the whole process and convert them into actual customers. So how do you help your sales reps master what they’re supposed to do for each stage of the sales process? For one, you need to break it down to them. If you haven’t had the chance to explain your sale process in detail to your team, then this post is for you.
In this article, we break down each of the eight steps in a usual B2B sales process. You can use this as a guide for one of your training sessions. Do note though that your sales process can be shorter or longer than eight steps. (There is no formula or template for a sales process; yours will depend on your business model and goals. But we have to say that a sales process should be simple. Keep the steps to about four to eight. Anything less would seem incomplete, and anything more just seems too intricate or elaborate and counterproductive.)
Understanding Each Step of the Sales Process
1. Prospecting
What It Is: At this stage, sales reps are actively seeking new leads to add to the pipeline. These could be leads that have expressed interest, or they may be cold contacts that fit your target market. There are many ways to generate more leads, but do note that, especially for big sales organizations, the task of prospecting not only falls on the sales reps’ shoulders. Marketing is also tasked to prospect through lead generation campaigns. Lead generation campaigns may include digital and social media advertising, blog posts, lead magnets (like e-books, white papers, etc.), and so on.
What You Need at This Stage:
- Your buyer persona(s). A buyer persona answers the question: Who is your target customer? It is a fictional representation of your ideal customer’s profile. It is not the same as your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Buyer Persona is more detailed, outlining everything from demographics to needs, interests, buying behaviors, goals, motivations, aspirations, values, and even frustrations. You can even assign a name and a photo to your buyer persona.
What You Need to Do at This Stage:
Some of the activities and tasks that can help you prospect more successfully include:
- Harvesting, engaging, marketing.
- Attending industry events for networking
- Gathering referrals from current clients and network
- Creating lead generation campaigns with marketing or sales enablement team
- Prospecting on social media. Send invitations to connect on LinkedIn or on the most viable platform for your business.
- Going through existing database for the lost leads. You can still bring them back from the dead!
- Researching on the potential prospects. Anything you gather now can be used for the next steps of the process. In fact, research is part of every stage of the sales process. You need to know a lot about the individuals and companies you are targeting.
2. Qualifying Leads
What It Is: At this stage, you will get in touch with the prospect for the first time. The reason for getting in touch is to help qualify the leads—decide if they are a good fit for what you offer. Again, it’s also possible that, in other organizations, another team (e.g. Marketing) does the qualifying or lead scoring—or that both Sales and Marketing do it. In setups that have strongly aligned Sales and Marketing teams, Marketing qualifies a lead and then hands off the Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) to Sales for further qualifying until they are considered Sales Qualified Leads (SQL). For this instance, a proper hand-off process is paramount.
The next question would be: How do you qualify? There are many qualifying frameworks that organizations follow. Here are four popular ones:
BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timing)
Budget: What budget does the prospect have? Can it afford your pricing?
Authority: Does the prospect have authority to make the decision on the purchase?
Need: What does the prospect need? Does your product fulfill that need?
Timing: When do they need your product? When are they prepared to make the purchase?
CHAMP (CHallenges, Authority, Money, Prioritization)
CHallenges: What business challenges, pain points, or issues does the prospect have?
Authority: Does the prospect have authority to make the decision on the purchase?
Money: What budget does the prospect have? Can it afford your pricing?
Prioritization: Is the need urgent? Is making the purchase a priority for them?
MEDDIC (Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, Champion)
Metrics: What does prospect wish to gain from the transaction and how would they quantify this (via metrics or key performance indicators)?
Economic Buyer: Who will decide on the purchase? Who can authorize the spending?
Decision Criteria: What criteria will prospect follow to arrive at a purchasing decision?
Decision Process: What process will be followed to arrive at a purchasing decision?
Identify Pain: What business challenges, pain points, or issues does the prospect have?
Champion: Who is the key figure in prospect’s organization that will champion your product? And why would he/she push for your product?
GPCT (Goals, Plans, Challenges, Timelines)
Goals: What are the prospect’s business goals (short- and long-term) and hows does your product fit into these?
Plans: What are the prospect’s plans for achieving these goals?
Challenges: What business challenges, pain points, or issues does the prospect have that can derail the achievement of their goals?
Timeliness: What is their timeline for their goals and their plans?
Notice anything? Yes, all four are quite similar. And to be quite honest, you can have your very own framework for your business. (How does BANTCH sound like to you?) So whatever framework you feel is best for your sales model should work.
How do you begin qualifying? You will need an outreach strategy or sales cadence. A sales cadence is a timeline or sequence of sales activities, involving different touch points, that sales professionals follow to engage and, hopefully, convert a lead. If you're lucky, you can get an appointment with a prospect on the first try. Otherwise, you have to be a lot more patient. It's not unheard of in the industry to have a prospect completely ignore you even after several attempts. A sample cadence can look like this (this sequence spans a period of two weeks):
Business Day 1: Send a cold email.
Business Day 3: Call prospect in the afternoon. Leave voicemail if unavailable or unresponsive.
Business Day 5: Send a second email. Call prospect in the afternoon; leave a voicemail if unavailable or unresponsive.
Business Day 8: Send a third email. Share content from your brand’s social media (e.g. a LinkedIn article) relevant to prospect’s business.
Business Day 10: Call prospect in the morning; leave a voicemail if no response. Send an email sharing content from your brand’s social media (e.g. a Facebook post) relevant to prospect’s business.
Business Day 12: Engage prospect on LinkedIn. Send an invitation to connect.
Business Day 14: Call prospect in the morning; leave voicemail if no response. Call again in the afternoon.
What You Need at This Stage:
- A lead scoring system. You should have a functional lead scoring system that will help you rate or rank leads against a scale that represents the perceived value each lead represents. The values or scores, from a scale of 0 to 100, are based on a lead scoring model determined by the organization or business.
- An outreach strategy or sales cadence. You must have a thoughtful, scalable, and systematic framework for engaging these leads.
- An initial contact strategy. Whether it’s an email or call to a cold contact, or an email to a prospect that contacted you and expressed interest, you must have a script or template that can help you build your initial contact strategy. This is just one of the many sales enablement tools that sales reps need.
What You Need to Do at This Stage:
Some of the activities and tasks that can help you qualify leads more efficiently include:
- Qualifying each lead based on BANT, CHAMP, MEDDIC, GPCT, or similar. It’s quite crucial to identify company size and key decision makers (or prospect’s decision-making authority) very early on so you don’t waste time pursuing a low-quality lead.
- Gathering more intel on the qualified leads. Anything online, specifically social media, is a big help.
- Securing an appointment for an initial meeting with highly qualified leads. After qualifying a lead, you must be able to engage with that prospect as soon as possible! You must be prepared to counter common cold contact objections though and be persistent in securing that first meeting! If your company is doing strictly inside sales, a first meeting may mean a conference call where you can really discuss your product at length. Whatever a "first meeting or presentation" means for your business, it needs to be scheduled ASAP!
This article continues in our next post.
Photos from Pexels
