Introduction
Selling is usually a process that involves a systematic approach to selling a product or a service. It is for that reason that most business owners would like to focus their energy on a daily business operation and serving clients demands. A sales process include risk management between seller and the buyer, sales relations with its customers and reporting on revenue generation on a scalable range. It is necessary for a business to have a sales process as it enable it to stamp out the existing competitive business crowd and pare a unique and profitable gap for the business.
Sales process (Edward, 2010) is a simple path of stages that commence from where it is introduced to where the deal is sealed also known as the closing of the deal It can be noted that all sales are actually completed in stages and those stages must be cautiously approached so that one can make that final sale.
- Sales Introduction/Sales Lead
In this stage (Stanley, 2000), the customer is informed as briefly as possible. The customer is informed about the business, what it has to offer and the price. In this stage also is where the business owner takes an initiative to approach the buyer to know his demands. This involves advertising and direct communication which targets the customers’ different demands.
Once the approach is done and the targeted customers are identified, sales visions and key operation goals are documented. Those documented visions and keys will enable business to know what the customers’ demands are. The business will be able to know what to produce and which services to offer in compliance to the high demand experienced.
Then the business makes its first contact. This may be done through phone calls, letters, and e-mails or even through a face to face meeting. This off course must be scheduled and confirmed by both the selling and buying parties.
- The Sales Presentation Stage
This is whereby the business gets to meet with its prospects. A prospect the person who has the need for the service or the product that the business has to offer, in other words a prospect can be also called a consumer. In the first meeting, a number of issues have to be addressed. It is in this stage that the business owner find out in specific what the prospect’s needs are and the prospect also gets to find out how the business provide those needs to them.
This stage is also done on a one to one level basis where the final word is resulted. This final word includes the need –to-buy confirmations. Once these confirmations are made, buying issues and decision criteria are identified and prioritized.
The prioritization of the buying issues and the decision criteria follows the existence of competition. The business has to take into account the competitive strengths and weaknesses. After all the prospect’s issues and questions are resolved, a final proposal is submitted. This proposal has to be reviewed through the prospect’s legal department through the business legal contracts and guidelines (Grandy, 2001).
- Closing the Sale
The staff should put into consideration that customers currently no longer fall for trick close of deals and old fashioned sale techniques. When closing a deal, one will need to highlight the major objections which were earlier addressed at the start of the sales meeting. The staff should also be put into consideration time. One should make best use of one’s’ valuable selling time.
In the closing of the sales process, contracts are exchanges and accepted. Implementations are initiated and an invoice is then immediately sent to the customer. Customer satisfaction should be confirmed first before payments should be made which must be done correctly. Remember that the more the customer is satisfied with the product or the service, the more sales are closed and hence the more sales reward there is to it.
Conclusion
With the business industry changing rapidly changing (Edward, 2010), it is has been found out that many business companies have developed their own sales processes. Therefore it is indeed very important for our business company to have and follow a sale process. If our company can implement a solid sale process then it is for sure that a dramatic impact of accuracy forecasting and predictability in the revenue or sales outcome is guaranteed.
