Here’s the most elegant definition of B2B sales that I’ve ever found. It presents the process in five, simple steps:
- STEP #1. Discover where your customer is today. Before you call on a prospect, use the Internet or business contacts find out as much as you can about where the prospect is today, what’s going on with their business, where they’re having problems, how happy they are with the products they’re currently using, how they currently do things which your offerings might help them do better. When you initially meet with your first customer contact, ask open-ended questions to obtain information that fills in the details you couldn’t find out through your research.
(See Research a Prospect in 10 Minutes for more.) - STEP #2. Discover where your customer wants to be. After you’ve got a solid picture of where the prospect is today, gradually transition the customer conversation to asking questions about your contact’s vision for the future, what would it be like in a perfect world, what’s worked so far, what could work better, how the contact would feel if that problem were solved, etc. You need to understand the customer’s destination before you can help your customer to arrive there.
(See Nine Perfect Sales Conversation Helpers for more.) - STEP #3. Position your solution as the best vehicle to get from the current situation to the desired one. Based upon what you’ve learned in steps 1 and 2, craft a vision of a solution that can help the customer make the transition to a better future situation. Present only those elements of your products and services that are part of that tightly-focused solution. Don’t confuse your customer with all the features and functions of your solution that are irrelevant to his or her needs.
(See How to Create a Compelling Sales Message for more.) - STEP #4. Repeat steps 1 through 3 with multiple, increasingly important, contacts. Every customer contact will have a different perspective on the current situation and the desired goal. For each customer contact, discover that perspective and position your solution so that each person involved views the solution as crucial to his or her long-term business success. As the sales process continues, your solution will increasingly and widely perceived as being of great value to the customer’s firm.
(See How to Call on a CEO for more.) - STEP #5. Close the deal. If you followed the four steps above, you have already positioned yourself to close the deal. The main thing here is to have the courage to actually ask for the business, at the right time, and with the right people in the room.
(See How to Close the Deal…Perfectly for more.)
The above is based on a conversation I recently had with Bill Stinnett, author of the bestselling books Think Like Your Customer and the new Selling Results (McGraw Hill, 2006).
Readers: Is the above too simplistic? Or does Bill hit the right milestones?
