Improving your sales process will help you to grow your business

Being an entrepreneur means that you are a salesman and therefore you need to make sure your sales process is excellent.

Selling is where your bread and butter is made and if you are not making sales then you are not doing business. Here is how you can improve your sales to grow your business.

In sales, there are two important components you need to do: be disciplined and pay attention to detail. If you can do these two things, then you are well on your way to making a successful sale.

Another two points to consider are:

Putting your mind in the right gear

You are going to fail but this should not deter you. Why? Because through every failure there is a lesson to be learnt and a chance to create a better method for the next time you go out for a sale. You will hear “no” a lot, so you need to have a tough skin and know that you will achieve your goal through perseverance.

Checking out your competition

It is important to know your competition very well. Know what their products, and their sales and market strategies are. By learning about your competition, you can see where you are lacking and ways to improve it.

You could also see how your competition is positioning their product and position your product in a different and unique way to gain the attention of your clients.

Now you can move on to the sales process.

In the sales process there are six steps. Check out the steps and see where you are lacking in skills so that you can improve your sales.

STEP 1: Finding your clients

Clients can be found in three different ways: people you know, people who know the people you know and new people. The best people to sell to are the people who know the people you know because they have a reliable reference from your friend.

If you want to find new people you can use social media, networking events and making friends with the people who you regularly bump into at the train station or where you go for lunch.

Create a list of the top 20 people who you think are making it in your industry and contact them. Ask them if you can meet them for a cup of coffee or lunch on you and be prepared to have a relationship-building discussion.

STEP 2: Approach and contact

Create a script which you add your personality to. You can use this script to contact people on social media platforms or via email or telephone.

You can friend request them on LinkedIn and then send the script to ask them for 30 minutes of their time to chat about how they became a successful entrepreneur.

STEP 3: Presentation

Most people are great at giving presentations but here are a few points to remember:

• Do not talk too much.
• Ask your potential customers questions to ensure you are offering them the product which will satisfy their needs.
• Ensure you customize your offering to them.
• Do not try to deceive them through telling them nonsense.

STEP 4: Follow-up

This point is where being disciplined and detail-orientated comes into play in a big way. Contact your prospective client a week after the presentation. If they say they are not interested ask them if you can contact them in 6 months’ time. Many times they will say it is okay.

Then put the details of the call into a spreadsheet with the date in the future when you will call them back. When you call them back use the details from the previous call to show them that you were listening to them and to build a relationship with them.

STEP 5: Referrals

Do not forget to ask your contacts for referrals especially if that is how you make your money. If people are keen on your product and know someone who will benefit from using it. They will share their information with you.

STEP 6: Maintain the customer relationship

This is a very important step. By looking after your relationships with customers you will grow your business exponentially. If you are constantly after the next best thing you will not be able to grow a solid, loyal customer base. Therefore, customer relationship maintenance is critical.

By following these steps and seeing where you lack you will be able to improve your sales process and grow to become an influencer in your industry.

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