What is Prospecting?Prospecting is the first step in the sales process, which consists of identifying potential customers, aka prospects. The goal of prospecting is to develop a database of likely customers and then systematically communicate with them in the hopes of converting them from potential customer to current customer. Show
Historical ReferenceThe original use of the term “prospector” refers to the efforts of individuals to find gold by visually scanning creek beds and rock formations. When flecks of gold were spotted, the prospectors would spend time sifting through dirt to find the valuable nuggets and flecks that were left behind when dirt was washed away. That’s what modern day sales prospectors do – sift through large lists of potential customers to try and uncover those who are interested and ready to buy. Steps in the Sales ProcessUnless someone has previously done business with you, it’s a guess as to whether they might be interested in your products or services. They are potential customers at that point, falling into one of two categories: suspects or prospects. The difference between the two groups is: Suspects - Individuals or companies you believe may have a need for your products or services but who may not be aware of your business or its offerings. You suspect they could become customers, but you’re not sure. To find out, you need to increase their awareness of and familiarity with your business. Once they are aware, it’s time to determine if they might buy in the future. Prospects - Prospects are suspects you have made contact with and who have confirmed that they might be interested in buying from you at some point. For example, the owner of a 10-year-old car with 200,000 miles could be a hot prospect for your auto dealership, as long as they are aware of it. Or the husband of a woman whose 40th birthday is fast approaching could be a prospect for your jewelry store, as long as he knows where it is and is invited to come shop – perhaps with some incentives offered. A customer is a prospect who has spent money with you. Prospecting TacticsTo make contact with sales suspects – buyers who may or may not be potential customers for your business – there are a number of popular tools and tactics you can use, including:
The primary goal of these marketing efforts is to qualify a recipient as a prospect, or someone who may have a need for your business’ products or services, or not. Knowing that someone does not anticipate having a need for your offerings – and is not a prospect - helps you refine your prospect database so you can focus your marketing dollars on those people most likely to turn into customers. Start an online store for freeIt’s never been easier to own and operate a beautiful, fully-featured online store.  Following a sales process also allows sales managers to divert their focus from micro-managing their team to more high-value tasks such as planning and strategising, assigning work to the right reps, managing the team’s performance, etc. The terms sales process and sales methodology are often used interchangeably. However, the two are different aspects of the sales function. A sales methodology is a codified ideology or philosophy that guides salespeople through various stages in the sales process. It reflects the company’s values, mission, culture, and vision. The sales process, on the other hand, is a series of repeatable steps that is followed to lead prospects towards becoming customers. Put simply, a sales process provides salespeople guidance on which steps they should take to close a sale, whereas a sales methodology gives them guidance on how these steps should be taken. A sales process can be depicted in pictorial form as well – called a sales process flowchart – to show the progression of the sales process steps. The sales process flowchart should list all steps in chronological order and could also highlight key activities to be undertaken within each step. A sales process flowchart will help salespeople clearly visualise the sales process and better plan their outreach. Note: The sales process flowchart illustrated above is a template; sales managers can modify it to suit the specific needs of their sales goals and operations. A typical sales process progresses from prospecting to collecting feedback and nurturing the customer-supplier relationship. Here’s how each step can go: 1. Prospecting Prospecting involves finding new sales leads. As the first step in the sales process, prospecting is incredibly important, as it determines how the rest of the steps will follow. Prospecting properly can ensure wins and prevent sales reps from investing in prospects that may drop off somewhere along the sales process. To identify the right prospects, create buyer personas and ideal customer profiles based on people who have already bought from you in the past, and articulate why they did. Understand the challenges prospects face, and how you can position your offerings as a solution for their most pressing pain points. Salespeople can use various online and offline tools for prospecting. Online tools include emailing, and social selling through platforms like LinkedIn. Offline tools include cold calling, conferences or webinars, trade expos, and industry events. Savvy sales reps also try to generate referral leads through current customers. 2. Qualifying The next step in the sales process should be connecting with prospects and figuring out whether your offerings are a good fit for them or not. Also, determine if it would be fruitful to take them through the rest of the sales process. A sales rep can connect with a lead over a discovery call or email to find out:
You can use a sales qualification method to ensure that the prospects you are pursuing are likely to buy from you. 3. Research At this stage, the sales rep must learn more about the prospect. Such research allows them to put themselves in the prospect’s shoes and understand their problems and needs better. This, in turn, allows reps to tailor their sales pitches – positioning their offerings as the solution. The research a sales rep conducts must be deep and multifaceted. 4. Pitching Once the salesperson is confident that they know enough to truly understand the prospect’s needs, they can run a formal demonstration of the offerings for the prospect. Each demonstration or pitch must be tailored to satisfy the prospect’s particular use case. For certain types of offerings, such as technological solutions, a salesperson might also consider collaborating with an engineer who can answer any technical questions on the pitch. Pitching is a time-consuming step, which is why the step of qualifying leads is so important. Salespeople’s precious time shouldn’t be spent on pitching to prospects that are unlikely to convert to actual sales. 5. Objection handling It is natural for prospects to have questions and concerns about your offerings. This is an important step in the sales process that can make or break a deal. If your reps can successfully answer all the questions and allay prospects’ fears, it’s easier to close the deal without any hiccups. Reps should anticipate and prepare for common objections such as:
In fact, salespeople should use the lead qualification and research stages to identify all possible objections the prospect could raise and prepare responses to them. Handling objections gives salespeople the opportunity to solidify the prospect’s understanding of how your offerings are the best solution. 6. Closing This is the stage every sales rep hopes to cross. Closing a sale depends on various processes that need to be completed for a sale to be considered closed – submitting a quote, final negotiations, signing the contract and other important documents, etc. If the close does not go as planned, sales reps should put the prospect on a nurturing program to re-engage them in the future. 7. Nurturing and continuing to sell The sales process does not end with closing a sale. Once the prospect turns into a customer, they can be passed on to an account manager or customer success representative to initiate the onboarding process. A salesperson should continue to communicate with the customer about things like post-sales assistance that they may need. Nurturing a relationship with the customer will give the salesperson opportunities to cross-sell and upsell, as well as get qualified referrals through the customer. If you are building a formal sales process for the first time, ensure that it is flexible and aligns with your customers’ buying journey. To map your sales process, go through the steps followed by your sales team. Try to understand how each of these steps affect the stakeholders – business, sales team, customers – to find what works, what doesn’t work, and how these steps help you achieve your business goals. Here are five simple steps to start mapping a sales process: 1. Work backwards from your goal To find the best route to your destination, define where you want to go. This means, to know the steps you must include in your sales process, you should define what you want to achieve at the end of each step or stage. For instance, you can start with goals like reducing sales cycle duration or increasing your win rates by a few percentage points. 2. Involve all internal stakeholders While defining goals for your sales teams, it is important to involve them and any other department or team member that has an impact on sales – such as the marketing or product design teams. Share the defined goals with them and get their inputs on whether these work or need improvement. Getting all these stakeholders on the same page also ensures that their processes and activities ultimately align with your sales goals. 3. Define the sales process steps To start with, you can use a sales process flowchart template like the one above to see which steps are followed (or should be followed) by your sales team. Remember, the order and elements of each step of your sales process will depend on your business type, industry, offerings, typical customer journeys, etc. When mapping your sales process steps, think about:
4. Align with the buyer journey Now you have a skeleton of the rough sales process your team follows. Against each sales process step here, write down the actions that your customers typically take. This could be for one or multiple customer personas. Doing this can help you determine how tightly aligned your sales process is with the actual buyer journey and how you can bring more harmony between the two. 5. Try, test, and tweak Once you have created a concrete sales process, implement and measure it. As your sales reps follow the process, they should measure what’s working, what isn’t, and how your prospects respond to each element of the sales process steps. With time, you will be able to identify areas of strength and improvement. Gradually tweak the process until you start seeing the desired results. A sales process can also help you understand what sort of tools and technologies your sales teams need to be more efficient and productive. A flexible sales process allows you to continuously improve it to fit changing needs and goals. Remember, what has worked for you in the past may not work now. The basic structure of the process you follow doesn’t have to change completely or become complicated. Just look at the stages and elements that can be improved to make each step more effective. Follow these best practices to constantly improve your sales process: 1. Observe your current sales process Just as you did when first creating a sales process, dissect your current process to know where change is needed and how you can help your sales team do better. You can sit through calls with prospects or listen to the last 10 calls to know how your reps deal with prospects in practice. 2. Develop and share best practices Gather best practices from industry experts and even your own top reps. By understanding what the top performers are doing right, you can replicate it across your entire sales team to maximise their output. 3. Look at your processes from the buyer’s perspective Does your sales process align with your ideal buyer’s discovery and buying journey? Do you understand their challenges and why they are looking for an offering like yours? Understanding these things can help you shape your sales process in such a way that your team has all the information and tools they need to establish strong connections and pitch your offerings to suit buyers’ needs. 4. Look into pipeline challenges To know why deals are getting stuck in your pipeline, you need to understand where your sales reps are struggling. They may not always come to you with their challenges, so ask them and take quick action to resolve bottlenecks. 5. Provide actions to further sales process steps Identify the triggers that compel prospects to move to the next stage of the sales cycle. It can be anything from mentioning their pain points at the right time to addressing their objections satisfactorily. 6. Equip sales teams with the right resources There are numerous sales enablement tools and intelligent customer management solutions that can help your sales team efficiently follow the sales process to close more deals faster. 7. Constantly measure the result As mentioned earlier, the key to perfecting your sales process is by measuring the right metrics to see where the process can be tweaked to optimise efficiency. Check out the next section to know how. With your sales process in place, you are set to close more deals faster. Now, to be able to improve the process over time, start by measuring the following metrics:
This metric tells you how long it typically takes your sales team to convert leads into customers. An effective sales process should be able to ease the buying process, directly reducing the cycle duration.
Whether you measure individual or collective sales quotas achieved, this metric can help you identify challenges that can be resolved to increase your sales team’s output.
Measure how many reps are following the sales process closely. This is very important to grow your revenue systematically. Tip: Get feedback from your sales team on how you can improve the sales process to suit their needs.
The more accurate your sales forecasts are, the more confident your sales team is about the sales process. Tip: If your sales forecasts do not match the actual results, go back to rethinking and improving your sales process further. Creating and following a flexible sales process can determine your sales team’s performance to a great extent. A sales process can ensure that your entire sales team has a consistent, effective playbook to guide them at every step. This means your sales reps can provide a consistent experience to every prospect and customer, regardless of the sales stage they are at. A sales process must always be dynamic, responding to constant feedback from internal team members and changing priorities. While there is no one-size-fits-all sales process, the above information can be used as a template and guide by any sales manager to build a suitable sales process to boost their business’s sales and revenues. Sales Cloud is a complete solution that can help your sales team easily win more deals from anywhere. It enables you to streamline your sales pipeline, automate repetitive tasks, collaborate, manage deals, and grow. Sales Cloud is driven by a powerful AI engine that makes forecasting, analysis, and reporting easier and more accurate. In which step of the selling process does a salesperson most likely meet a customer for the first time?Prospecting
The first step in the sales process is prospecting. In this stage, you find potential customers and determine whether they have a need for your product or service—and whether they can afford what you offer.
Which of the steps of the selling process is the most important to the customer?The Needs Assessment
This is arguably the most important step of the sales process because it allows you to determine how you can truly be of service. To be a highly effective salesperson, that is to sell to the prospect's needs, you first have to understand what those needs are.
What are the 7 steps of the selling process?There are seven common steps to the selling process: prospecting, preparation, approach, presentation, handling objections, closing and follow-up.
In which step of the selling process does a salesperson learn as much as possible about a prospective customer?Preparation and pre-approach
A good salesperson will learn as much as they can about a prospect, the buyer's needs, and their relevant background information before pitching.
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In which of the following steps of the selling process is a salesperson most likely to meet the customer for the first time?
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