Why it Matters: As a salesperson, time is your most precious resource. How and where you invest your time largely determines your performance and your paycheck. The last thing you want to do is dedicate time, energy and resources into a prospect and opportunity that doesn’t close. Unfortunately, we’ve all been there before. And it hurts.
In today’s marketplace buyers are savvy. According to CEB’s “The Challenger Customer”, buyers are 57% of the way through a typical purchase process prior to connecting with a salesperson. Translation: your buyers are gathering information about you and your competition and making decisions before they even talk with you.
This makes it even more important to take and maintain control of your sales process once you’ve connected with a prospect.
Zoom Out: It is critical that your organization has a repeatable sales process. If you don’t, invest real time, energy and resources to design your sales process with your ideal customer in mind and define “what good looks like” at each incremental stage. This will allow you to speak to your process at a high-level and move your prospect from stage-to-stage with clarity and control.
Zoom In: As a salesperson, it is your responsibility to build rapport and trust, assess alignment and fit, identify and understand the pains and problem, incorporate additional key stakeholders, present the winning solution and overcome objections. Sounds easy right? It can be if we take and maintain control of the process.
Between the Lines: Know exactly what you need to accomplish at each stage. As you are wrapping up that stage, share the alignment and fit of your prospect (why they are an ideal prospect for you), say “The next step of our process is…”, articulate the high-level purpose and goal, provide stakeholder guidance (who should be included at that stage) and secure the Closed Loop (day & time in calendar).
This approach will keep you in the driver’s seat, increase the velocity of your sales cycle, and improve your winning percentage.
Go Deeper:
Carver Peterson helps growth-minded leaders and organizations achieve predictable and sustainable revenue growth through a refined strategy, defined process and aligned structure.
We are systematic and process-driven.
We value unique strengths.
We communicate openly and directly.
