MARKETING: The Selling Process

Generally one of the major reasons for any business to survive is because of its ability to sell. If a business can sell and bring in revenue there are high chances that the business would be around for a long time in as much it’s able to sell.

So days ago I posted on the consumer buying process, today I want to talk about the selling process. This is the process that is takes place for good or service to change hands for a price. This is one of the most important areas in marketing and it’s one which every startup must take into consideration to survive for the long them. Selling is a must for every business entity for there to be revenue which the business can gain good profit from.
Generally there are stages in the selling process which I am going to share with you on this post in a way that is easily understandable for every one interested on this topic.

The Selling Process is as follow:

1. Prospecting: This is the stage where the marketer finds prospective clients that they feel are suitable for their product. This can be in form of lead (a list of contact of prospective customers) generation. Prospecting is a very important stage of sell because it is during this stage that you try to find out who your ideal customers are and finding out quality information about them to help you pitch your product/service to them to buy from you. Here helps you know who your customers really are. You can prospect through building a really good email list, or even phone number or address list of your prospective buyers.
2. Pre-approach: This is the stage where you prepare to meet your prospects on real time bases, this can be physical or via electronic means like video conferencing, phone calls and the likes. This is a very important stage as you would really need to plan the way you are going to approach your prospect during this stage of the selling process. You may what to plan your tone of voice, your dress code, and the rest alike to impress your prospect one way or the other to make sure you are able to pull a sale.
3. Approach: This is the actual stage were the marketer or sales person actually approach the prospect in real time. This could be physical or electronic; it all depends on who your customers are. During this first approach stage you want to make sure you like a really lasting and positive impression on your customer, because as the saying goes “first impression matters a lot” this is very true when it comes to marketing and sales. If it’s virtual or physical you want to make sure you extend some good pleasantries to your prospect and you of a friendly tone of voice, is is important because you don’t want your prospect to see or perceive you as an intruder or an enemy but rather you want your prospect to perceive you as a dear friend that wants the best for him/her.
4. Need assessment: This is the stage of the selling process were by the marketer assess the particular need of the prospect in respect to you the marketer’s offering. Every customer is unique and so you want to find out the need in your prospect live that your product or service can solve. To me once you are able to get this right; I think you have over 50% chances of finishing/closing the sale with that prospect; yes really it’s that important.
5. Presentation: Now after assessing the need of your prospect you then present to the prospect the solution your product or service can bring for the prospect. In this stage you can a actually give a trial of your product or service for free to your prospect to help convince your prospect your product or service can really solve their problem. Here you want to make sure you give the best pitch you can give to your prospect concerning your product/service as much as you can, to be able to convince your prospect that your product is actually for him/her.
6. Handing objections: Yes, this is the stage of the selling process were you handle “kick backs” from your prospect because your prospect may have some fear or doubts about your product or service or even may not have the money to pay for your product or service, in this case you may want to give them a way to get finance to purchase the product or service or even give a discount to your prospect to facilitates the selling process.
7. Close sale: This is the stage were you prospect finally becomes a customer who pays to get your product or service. This is the “Eldorado” of every sales person on earth because this is how you actually bring in revenue to the business and help the survival of the business. This is what makes or breaks a business, if a business can’t close sales their survival is fully at stake, which is not good for the owners or investors.
8. Follow up: A lot of businesses give less importance to this stage of the sell process, which is most likely to affect their repeat sales to a customer. This is the stage were you continue to maintain contact with your customer and getting feed backs from them as well as helping them in any way you can after you have close a sale with them, this would ensure that whenever they want to buy your product or services class they are more likely to REBUY from you, which is what you should want because it far easier to maintain old customers to getting new once, since they are already use to your product or service or some of them have even become fans of your product or service.

You may want to note that this stages may not move straight down as listed and explained above as some of the stages of the process may repeat or even go up wards. Say for instance during prospecting you gathered the wrong prospects for your product, once you find out that you have gathered the wrong prospect for your product or service, you are sure to go back to prospecting even if you have reached the approach stage before because since you are going to be approaching the wrong people for your product or services you are most likely not to make any meaningful sales.

Thank you for reading this article, if you find it useful Upvote it and comment what you think about it, also you can resteem this to help other people.

Hmm, Please Wait! Follow me @jofomaja and I promise I won’t waste your time. Thank you once again.