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Five steps define the sales process methodology. Each step is made up of several key activities with predictable, measurable outcomes. The steps help small business sales professionals succeed by:
- Focusing on a total understanding of critical business issues faced by customers.
- Developing potential value to be gained by customers.
- Creating a strong desire in the customer to buy products and services supplied by your company.
Step 1: Prospecting. At this first stage of the sales process, the salesperson is generating qualified leads, finding new opportunities among the existing customer base, and differentiating his or her company versus the competition. Depending on the type of business, prospecting can take many forms including networking, seminars, marketing, trade shows, and cold calls. The purpose of this step is to identify a qualified decision maker, or an ally in the organization who can help you reach the decision maker.
Step 2: Qualifying. In this stage you and the customer are sizing each other up. You are assessing the revenue potential and costs associated with a customer opportunity to decide if it’s worth pursuing further, while the customer is assessing whether your company can meet their needs. In this stage of the process, your sales professionals need to be adept at probing to unearth the customer’s true needs, in detail. Then they need a way to clearly articulate a “buying vision” to the customer – capabilities that illustrate how your company’s products or services can uniquely meet their needs. The goal of this step is to convince the decision maker to move ahead with an in-depth evaluation of your solution.
Microsoft Outlook with Prophet gives you increased insight into your business, whether you are a sales professional or a small business owner. A sales professional can quickly assess a customer opportunity by attaching pricing information to the opportunity and assigning a probability of closing the sale. The business owner can take a broader perspective and run one of the sixty customizable reports in Prophet Reports to view the entire sales pipeline sorted by customer, product, or stage.
Step 3: Proposal. When you reach this stage the promises end and you have to demonstrate to the decision maker that your company can really deliver the goods. You can create a mutually agreed upon Product/Service Evaluation Plan that highlights key steps to prove your capabilities and ensure a win for both the customer and the salesperson. The Evaluation Plan is an important, formal lever that many salespeople overlook: once a customer agrees to the Evaluation Plan, the salesperson is in control of the sales process. In other words, the customer can only afford to go through the steps of an Evaluation Plan with one selling organization because of the time, cost, and resources to perform each step. The goal of the Proposal stage is that the value has been demonstrated – via successful completion of the Evaluation Plan – and the customer requests that the salesperson submit a proposal.
At this stage of the process the consideration set of companies narrows in the eyes of the customer, and responding rapidly – and professionally – is essential for the sales professional. Most small business owners wince at the thought of how many potential sales slip away when a commitment falls through the cracks or an e-mail goes unanswered. Microsoft Outlook with Prophet consolidates all of your customer interactions – e-mails, tasks, appointments, notes, and even documents – in one place so you will always have a comprehensive, up-to-date picture of what is going on with that customer.
Step 4: Decision. By now, you are so close to pushing this deal across the goal line that you can almost taste it. But how often has your sales force fumbled the ball in the red zone? Perhaps one of your salespeople gave too much away in the final negotiations, making the deal unprofitable. Or conversely, perhaps he or she walked away from a good sale when a low cost giveaway might have sealed the deal. Such is the delicate and tantalizing nature of the Decision step of the sales process.
The desired outcome, naturally, is a successfully negotiated deal – perhaps formalized in a signed contract – that symbolizes a win-win arrangement for your company and the customer.
Step 5: Repeat Business. A signed contract is really just the first chapter of the story. The Repeat Business step acknowledges that it is indeed a sales process – not a moment in time when a contract is signed or a sales commission is paid out. First of all, the product or service must be delivered and implemented as promised. A sales professional focused on a long-term profitable relationship will take ownership and follow up with the customer to make sure that everything is going smoothly. And at the right time, he or she will begin the Prospecting step again, probing the customer to see if there is an ongoing need that can be serviced with a simple reorder or, if needs have changed, the opportunity to upsell or cross-sell a new product or service. Obviously the goal of this step of the sales process is repeat business – not to mention a satisfied customer willing to be a referral for you.
Staying connected with your customers is easier with Microsoft Outlook and Prophet. You can:
- Use your current Outlook contact list to connect various individuals and companies to a single opportunity through the Sales Opportunity Manager.
- Use Outlook and Prophet to set tasks and reminders for specific Opportunities.
- Use the Prophet Contact Manager to find all emails, attachments, tasks and appointments for specific people or companies.
- Use Sales Opportunity Manager to quickly view all active or inactive sales opportunities, what stage they are in and what the next steps are.
- Use Prophet Reporter to summarize the data in various ways to give you the view and formats you need.
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