Have you ever had a sale that seemed like it was going to close, so you whipped out your sales process and started following the steps - only to have everything fall apart?
If you answered "Yes," then this article is for you!
While most buyers respond well to your sales formula, you may have encountered a few who acted in unpredictable ways. Here is one step that you can add to your sales process to address these outliers.
Add A "Conditional" Step to Your Sales Process
Your existing and successful sales process covers many situations. However, when not every buyer reacts as expected, it's time to include "conditional" steps so that you and your team can take control of the reigns and build a system for specific circumstances.
Here is how to add a "conditional" step to your sales process.
1. You or a team member encounter an outlying circumstance that the usual sales cycle doesn't cover.
2. It's possible (if not probable) that this situation threw you or your team off, and you did not close the sale.
Fair enough, but now it's time to learn from the lesson.
3. Break down the situation. What exactly happened?
Here is an example of a pretty common outlying situation that most sales processes don't cover:
The buyer was ready to buy immediately, and the usual sales process threw them off, took too much time, and caused the potential buyer to back out. One rule of thumb that Ryan Reilly of Sandler recommended in a recent interview is that if the buyer asks you for something twice, sell it to them. Another method of identifying the quick sale is to ask the buyer what they'd like to get out of the conversation. If they say that they'd like to walk away having purchased your product/service, skip all the sales demos and sell the product/service to them.
4. Create a subsystem for these circumstances.
This system would include:
- Recognizing that a "conditional" situation has occurred.
- Steps for handling this situation.
- Steps for recovering from the situation if the salesperson misidentified that the situation fell into the "conditional" category.
5. Test it out.
Once you have added "conditional" steps to your sales process, test them out. Make sure that all of them work - including the recovery steps.
6. Review the sales process and the "conditional" steps every six months.
Are you hoping to build better business systems for your team to follow? Connect with the experts at Business Success Consulting Group for hands-on help!
