To succeed in sales, you not only need to have a solid understanding of your target market and the product or service you’re selling, but you must also stick to a sales process that can be measured and repeated.
The sales cycle involves many different elements, including making and maintaining contact with potential customers, developing good relationships, putting together targeted sales pitches and closing the deal.
Whether it’s door-to-door sales or selling a concept to a company, every type of salesperson should follow the seven stages of the sales process in order to make as many sales as possible.
What are the seven stages of the sales process?
The seven stages of the sales process are as follows: Prospecting, making contact, qualifying and presenting, overcoming objections, nurturing, closing and requesting referrals.
Following these steps increases the chances of making a sale, which is why every successful sales company will have a sales process similar to this one.
The seven stages of the sales process are explained below.
1. Prospecting
Finding companies who might be interested in buying a product or service is the first step in the sales cycle.
Identifying potential customers is called “lead generation” or “prospecting”, and it can be done in numerous ways.
Some of these include networking within your industry,
During this stage, the sales rep should keep in mind what it is about their product or service that appeals to their target market. This will help them to identify who they should be targeting. Some businesses also find that creating a customer profile makes it easier to target potential leads.
2. Making contact
After a sales rep has identified their prospects, the next step is to make contact.
Prospects can be contacted in various ways, from emails and phone calls to social media to sending out traditional sales letters. How they’re contacted will depend on the potential client.
It’s unlikely that a deal will be closed at this stage, and the higher the price point, the less likely it is that a sale will be made. So this step is just about making initial contact, with the full sales pitch given once a more formal meeting has been set up.
3. Qualifying and pitching
If a prospective customer expresses an interest in the business’s product or service, the sales rep needs to qualify it by doing additional research (usually online) to determine that the product or service will be beneficial. As well as aiming to understand the prospect’s budget, goals and challenges, it’s vital for the sales rep to establish that they’re speaking to the right person. Otherwise, pitching will be a waste of time.
Once this has been established, they can move on to the sales pitch.
The best way to turn potential clients into actual clients is to use the research that was gathered during prospecting and qualifying to personalise the pitch to suit the needs of a particular prospect.
The product or service needs to be presented in a way that’s relevant to the potential customer’s challenges and budget and can be done in the form of a presentation or a demonstration of what it is they’re selling.
Body language, mannerisms and personal appearance can all influence a sale, so sales reps should remember that they’re also selling themselves.
4. Overcoming objections
It’s normal for prospects to have objections or doubts, even if they’ve been enthusiastic up until this point.
If this is the case, the sales rep must manage and overcome these objections. The most important thing to do during this stage is to keep the line of communication open and discover where the hesitations are coming from.
The sales pitch can then be reframed to recognise and overcome the objections.
It’s a good idea to keep track of common objections across all prospects so that they can be incorporated into the initial pitches for future potential customers. Some of the most common worries are to do with cost, risk and contract terms.
5. Nurturing
Even if a potential customer seems like a sure thing, it’s important for sales reps to nurture their leads. This involves establishing a reputation as being helpful, reliable and responsive by following up to answer any lingering questions and provide further education about the product or service.
Even if they don’t have any objections, most prospects will need some kind of nurturing in order to build up an entirely trusting relationship.
And, if the potential customer isn’t ready to sign up there and then, nurturing them with regular contact can help secure a sale in the future.
6. Closing
Everything hangs on this stage of the sales process: Sealing the deal.
Different reps adopt different approaches when closing a sale, depending on how the previous stages have played out and what the prospect’s attitude is like. For example, it’s important to be gentle and reassure a tentative prospect, while an enthusiastic prospect will require a shorter, more direct approach. Some common ways of securing a sale include offering incentives and discounts and having a free trial.
However, closing the deal can take weeks or months – it doesn’t always happen during the first meeting. It’s important for reps to understand that the sales process remains in motion until a sale is made or the prospect declines the offer. Unless either of these two things happens, the salesperson and the prospect will return to the nurturing stage.
7. Requesting referrals
Closing the deal shouldn’t be the end of the sales process, and many companies include the requesting referrals step in their sales cycles.
Sales reps can use existing customers to generate new leads, giving them a head-start in the prospecting stage.
Ideally, this step should be taken immediately after closing a sale because that’s when the new customer is likely to be the most excited about their purchase and therefore more willing to recommend the product or service to others.