The Sales Process

It’s important to understand that sales is a process, not simply a transaction or an isolated event. Every company has a sales process, whether it applies to selling computers, telephone systems, medical equipment, insurance, or software.

The first step of the sales process is to identify the ideal prospect, to ask “what is the profile of the company that would benefit the most from our products and services?” This is actually one of the biggest problems facing companies today.

According to various analyses, 35 percent of all prospects are a poor fit for a company’s products and services. It would save a lot of time and energy if the poor-fitting prospect could be identified right up front, so the sales person could move on and focus on the right prospect. Years ago, the term “Blue Bird” was used for a piece of business that just happened to fly your way. Today, a “Blue Bird” could turn into a “Black Hawk” if you don’t carefully assess whether the prospect is a good fit. This is complicated by the fact that sales people are optimists and believe every company in the world is not just a good fit for their company’s solutions, but a great fit.

Qualifying prospects used to be fairly simple. Who will make the decision (the decision maker), who else are you talking to (the competition), how much have you budgeted (money), what are your needs (reason to buy), and when do you plan to decide (timing)? Once these questions were answered, you had a Qualified Prospect. Today’s qualification criteria are much more complex. For instance:

  • Decision Maker: This could be a committee of 12, with members changing weekly due to changes in specifications for the project.
  • Competition: It is now common to see new competitors enter the scene near the end of the proposal cycle.
  • Budgeting: Will the company buy or lease? What is the budget cycle and when might funds be available? Who else internally is competing for those funds. Might the funds go away?
  • Needs: These seem to change as often as the decision makers.
  • Timing: It is dynamic, not static, changing along with needs, competitors, and decision makers.

The result of all this is that it has become incredibly challenging to sales organizations to accurately forecast when business will close. Companies focus more on Customer Relationship Management tools to track prospects than they do on understanding the nature and challenges of the sales cycle. Recognizing who your best prospects are and qualifying them early on will increase your chance for a successful sale.

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