Getting Started with Outbound Sales: Lecture 2
The sales process
At a high level, this is what a sales process looks like:
Identify your segments: Who are your ideal customers? Who will you be selling to? Break this into smaller groups so your team can create targetted pitches.
Generate leads: Come up with a list of people you want to contact and identify their contact information. This may be something you do in house or something you reach out to a third prty to help with.
Qualification: In this stage, your sales team contact the leads, either by email or by phone. They determine whether the lead is likely to become a customer and decide whether it’s worth pursuing the lead further.
Calls & Meetings: Now the sales team provides demos, answers questions about your products and services and try to resolve any concerns raised by the leads.
Closing: If everything goes well, your sales team signs a contract and hands the customer off to another team.
What is needed for an effective sales process
Really understand your customers and segment them into verticals: The better you understand your customers
Get high quality leads: Don’t just buy a list. Buying a list of names that meet some basic criteriea usually results in horrible response rates. Instead, develop your own list based on knowledge in an industry. That way, you’ll end up with a list of contacts that are not constantly getting bombarded with sales pitches and are more likely to respond.
Offer incredible value: When you really understand your customer pain points, you’ll be in a far better position to offer strong value as part of your pitch. For example, if you sell software, you could offer white-glove assistance in getting setup. It’s a win-win - the lead gets personalized assistance and you get a customer!
Create an awesome sales script: The team can’t just be winging it. They need to know what typically works with a specific kind of customer. With well segmented customers, your script will be increasingly focussed and effective.