Key questions to help you ascertain whether you should stop using an old inward-out sales process and develop a new outward-in sales process.
The purpose of a sales process is to win more deals in less time. The reality facing sales forces is that decision-makers are making purchases differently today. Traditional sales processes based on needs development and solution positioning will cause the majority of your reps to miss the number. We know that the buyer has changed. Because of that, and because the buyer continues to change, we developed seven questions that must be asked as we begin to develop and deploy a sales process to win more deals in less time.
Why is this important? An inward-out sales process has as its core foundation sales activities and exit criteria that the sales rep performs. The inward process is focused on what ‘we’ do as sales reps. An outward-in sales process is all centred on what the buyer does and the buyer activities.
Using an outward-in sales process makes it more probable that reps will align with the buying process, and because of that, win more deals faster.
1 What does a buyer want in the late stages of their decision process?
This is critical to understand the customer’s buying process. Mapping the customer’s buying process through market research results in the most effective sales processes. Understanding late-stage buying helps us influence early-stage buying, and if we know what the customer wants, we can potentially get in early to the deal and influence those requirements.
2 How will we know when a buyer exits one stage and enters the next stage?
Exit criteria is used to know when a buyer goes from stage to stage. An exit criteria is a buyer behaviour that the buyer exhibits that’s either observed or documented by the buyer for the sales team. Once this is completed, the buyer has moved onto their next buying stage, and therefore, we can then move onto our next sales stage.
This story is from the February - April 2017 edition of thinksales.
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This story is from the February - April 2017 edition of thinksales.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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