Click Here For The: Understanding The Customer Buying Cycle Video

By understanding the customer buying cycle you are preparing yourself for a successful sales career. Although the importance of understanding the sales process can not be understated, you must learn your customers buying cycle to be a truly great sales professional.

The Customer Buying Cycle

Awareness of Needs

• Customer becomes aware of his needs.
• Customer recognizes that her needs and problems are growing.
• Customer comes to terms with the fact that significant problems exist and that he must take action.

Research of Options

• Customer does the necessary research to find the best fit for her product.
• Customer considers several vendors who have expertise in the industry.
• Customer narrows the search to a few companies who seem to have a fitting solution for his exact needs.

Decision to Purchase

• Customer makes the decision to purchase the product.
• Customer identifies a single vendor who is the best fit to solve his problem, address his specific needs, and bring the most value.

Implementation of Product/Service

• Customer installs and uses the product/service.
• Customer will form an opinion on whether to use this vendor again, based on this experience and the service she received from the company.
• As time goes on and other needs arise, the customer may or may not call on this vendor for another product.

 

“Make your product easier to buy than your competition, or you will find your customers buying from them, not you.” Mark Cuban

How Customers Make Decisions

Decision to Purchase

Gathering proposals

• First, the customer must first invite select reps to meet with him.
• He discusses the situation so the sales reps can fully understand the situation and problems he faces.
• After determining which reps seem to best understand his situation, he must then decide which companies to invite to submit a proposal.

Identifying the best solution/vendor

• After receiving proposals, the customer and his internal team must analyze all factors to ensure that the proposed solution fits their exact needs.
• They must carefully consider service, delivery, quality, and pricing because problems with any of those will have ramifications on their business.
• After evaluating the proposals, the customer identifies the best solution and chooses the vendor.

Understanding your customers buying cycle is extremely important. If you review this content and put it into practice, you will become more successful as a sales professional.

Happy Selling!

Your sales trainers and sales coaches at The Sales Coaching Institute

Do Your Sales Reps Need A Digital Detox From Technology To Get Back To The Basics of Selling! Prospecting, Presenting & Closing.

Modern technology has made amazing strides in allowing businesses to communicate more effectively. Paper trails have never been easier to create than by hitting the send button in your email. But technology is also making larger gaps in the way clients are treated and making contact with clients. Maybe it’s time your sales team went into a digital detox to reconnect with the effective basics of selling.

 

Continue To Set Smart Sales Goals

Sales have always been driven with a quota in mind. Sales reps know the mark they have to make and how many clients they would have to see
to be able to make that mark. Relying on programs and customer service applications to manage time and expectations takes away from the basics of hard-core selling of days spent getting in front of customer’s belly to belly. Returning to the basics of breaking down sales goals so sales reps is important to helping them reach the most qualified prospects in any given period of time.

Prospects, Presenting and Closing

Three simple words encompass the goals of all sales reps. They must be ever searching for prospects, presenting their sales pitch and closing deals. Technology brings along all of the paperwork sales reps used to worry about when they were at the office to every meeting via cell phones and the digital world. Now that paperwork travels everywhere with them, you should develop new habits that will ensure times saved is spent hunting down clients and setting up appointments. A sales rep’s time should be balanced with most of their day dedicated to prospects, presenting and closing. Obsessive email checking and texting takes away from this focus. You should set a goal to only check emails and texts during certain times of the day to help yourself and your team remain focused.

Related Articles:

5 Step Process To Prospecting

3 Steps To Help Prospects Commit

 

Belly to Belly and Paper to Pen

It’s time for reps to limit technology use to only the most important and influential activities and focus more on face to face meetings. Start putting paper to pen to write thank you notes, remember a client’s birthday with a snail mail card personally signed and stop with the texting and emails. Reps need to “do lunch” as they say and get back to the basics of pampering and engaging clients to drum up business.

Remember, technology is still going to be crucial in today’s digital world. However, the basics of sales can NOT be forgotten. Try to get back to the basics of selling to increase your sales numbers.

Related Articles:

Cultivating & Capitalizing On The Sales Relationship

Stop Pitching & Start Solving Client Problems

If your sales team needs a refresher course on face to face communication Doug Dvorak is a keynote speaker and sales trainer specializing in successful sales techniques. Visit http://dougdvorak.com/contactus.asp or https://salescoach.us for more details.

Motivation in Sales – The Basics

When many business managers hear the term “sales force motivation plan” they see dollar signs that end up cutting into profits to compensate top sales performers. However, motivation in a sales team doesn’t have to include big bonuses and large payouts for meeting sales goals.

According to the Harvard Business Review, there is in excess of $800 billion a year spent on sales force compensation in the United States. This total represents approximately three times as much as the same businesses spend on advertising. However, and this may be surprising, these simple cash incentives rarely impact the very members of the sales team that are most important.

One of the big drawbacks to using a strict dollar value type of incentive is that they typically cap at a specific level. This limits the high performers who become unmotivated to move past the upper level of the cap. The low performers will not see the possibility in reaching the high levels, so they opt out of the program or perform only to the lowest incentive level.

Even the core performers, or those that steadily perform to the sales goals and targets, are not solely motivated by cash. In a 2013 study by Peter Ostrow of the Aberdeen Group, it was found that money incentives were actually only ranked slightly higher than internal recognition, learning new skills and competition within the team.

To further back this study the 2014 TINYpulse Employee Engagement and Organizational Culture Report found that over 200,000 sales professionals in 500 companies around the world ranked money or cash benefits at seventh at providing motivation to improve in their job.

The issues that ranked higher in the survey included peer recognition, camaraderie, feeling encouraged, being recognized and having an intrinsic desire to go a good job. With all of these issues more motivating than cash benefits, programs in the workplace that encourage and support this type of positive workplace culture need to be at the forefront of sales team development and plan strategy.

This highlights the importance of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The extrinsic motivation for a sales team can include those cash bonuses and advances, prizes, inter-team competition and even tracking and monitoring of reaching targets set by the sales managers.

Intrinsic motivation includes internal rewards for the sales team. This includes feeling a sense of contributing to the common goals, meeting personal milestones, developing a sense of belonging to the workplace culture and increasing mastery in sales at a personal level.

To build a culture in a sales team that encourages both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, consider the following key factors:

• Set Goals – there needs to be a good combination of both individual and team goals. By setting group goals based on projected sales, you can incorporate the extrinsic motivators of competition, tracking and monitoring as well as actual prizes and bonuses for meeting or exceeding goals. By setting smaller individual goals which are done privately between the sales manager and each team member, it is possible to tap into intrinsic motivation.

Related Article: What Will Your Life Be Like In 1 Year?

• Use past performance – incentivizing or motivating sales people based on improving past performance is a good starting point. This allows the process to be more intrinsic and fosters collaboration and belonging within the sales group rather than what can become unhealthy types of competition. It is more akin to competing against yourself rather than the team to achieve both internal satisfaction and external rewards.

• Social Recognition – encouraging social recognition for a job well done should be part of the corporate culture. This can include providing peer to peer recognition within the team as well as recognition by direct managers and those further up the corporate ladder. Recognition is only meaningful if it is personalized, specific and targeted to the person earning the praise. It doesn’t have to be formalized, but it needs to occur for sales staff to be intrinsically motivated to continue to exceed expectations.

• Increase mastery of necessary skills – one of the key intrinsic motivators is for the sales staff to feel competent and have the training and support they need to do their job. In top companies interviewed in the Aberdeen Group study it was found that 84% of the companies identified as top sales businesses provided coaching, training and mentoring services to all employees that included regular feedback from supervisors to sales team members. This is highly effective for both top performers as well as those that are struggling.

• Personalize incentives – simply assuming what motivates a given sales professional and a sales team can lead to poor motivation levels. Instead, consider meeting with the team to not only set goals but to consider what are the motivators to use at the various levels within the program. Sometimes simple things, such as earning the opportunity to work from home one day a week can be highly motivating. The book by Mark Faust “Growth or Bust: Proven Turnaround Strategies to Grow Your Business” takes this a step further. He indicates that a day off with pay to go to a special event such as golfing, fishing or taking in a ball game is often highly motivational for all sales staff.

• Out of the Box – in addition to personalized incentives, consider having the element of chance within the win. You can have a prize wheel to spin, a secret envelope or any other type of pick or play type of option. Choose prizes that are out of the ordinary such as a luxury spa day for the employee and a spouse, a weekend getaway at a local resort or even a free training event or conference attendance may be just what will motivate individuals.

• Provide clear direction – it is essential for sales professionals to know the expectations of the management when it comes to performance expectations. Often a lack of clear direction by the sales managers creates a lack of motivation in sales professionals.

It will also be critical to create an incentive program that allows everyone to have the opportunity to achieve goals, feel part of the team, and be encouraged to continue to improve. This is why personal goals and milestones are important to recognize and not just the end results. Be ambitious with goals, not deadlines.

Related Articles:

• Motivating Factors: How To Create A More Productive Team
• How & Why Employee Recognition Programs Produce Stellar ROI

In this video, we examine the importance of understanding the sales process and customer focused selling.

We discuss times when YOU were sold. What was the experience like? What was different about a good experience when being sold too compared to a bad experience?

We also look at Today’s competitive business world and its ever-changing factors.

• Customers
  • Customers are busier than ever
  • You have to prove yourself to customers
  • Customers have an “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” mentality
  • They are risk averse and avoid challenges
• Economy
  • The economy is always a factor in the business of selling
• Politics
  • Politics affects businesses whether we like to think so or not.
  • When government gets involved more heavily in certain sectors (healthcare) companies are affected
• Technology
  • Email and smartphones have changed the way we do business
  • Social media adds awareness and transparency
  • Product reviews are available on demand

Remember to always keep your focus on the customer and use a “what’s in it for me” point of view.

Keeping the Focus on the Customer

Optional Project: Identify two or three specific actions you could take, as salespeople, to implement these “golden rules” with your prospects.

The Golden Rules of The Sales Process

• Use a WIIFM Point of View (What’s In It For Me?)
• Gain Permission to Advance
• Get the Customer to Buy into the Decision

 

Happy Selling!

 

Related Article:

• 5 Steps To Understanding The Sales Cycle

 

Related Blog & Video:

• Understanding Each Phase of The Customer Buying Cycle

 

Happy Selling!

The Sales Coaching Institute: salescoach.us

Sales teams in most organizations have always been composed of individual people, that have worked on their own within a team unit to compete with each other to get the highest number of sales. Times are changing and businesses are rethinking their strategies in order to enrich how their services or goods are represented in the marketplace.

While sales people can perform well if they work alone, they can become much more productive if they are paired into groups as an actual team. The ultimate goal is productivity and customer satisfaction, not which salesperson can outdo the other. Pairing salespeople into groups will blend their individual unique skills to fully enhance their abilities to create valuable solutions by understanding customer needs and presenting attractive solutions to customers problems. Surprisingly, this approach works much more than it fails.

 

Below are 7 secrets of a happy sales team

 

Make Sure Your Team is Complementary

When you are grouping your sales teams together, make sure that their skills complement each other. If all of your team members have product knowledge, but no social skills, then you are going to have a problem. Creating a dynamic team where all members have unique skills will keep the team harmonious and productive.

 

Leader Involvement

If sales teams are working to pitch products or services relentlessly, while their leader is hiding in an office drinking a cappuccino on a regular basis, then the sales team probably won’t be receptive. Leaders have to lead by coaching and facilitating to inspire their teams. If a sales team knows that their leader is willing to pitch in, then they will be much happier overall.

Related Article:

Sales Leadership: 6 Steps To Becoming An Effective Sales Leader

 

Communication & Collaboration

For a sales team to be effective, they have to respect each other. The idea is to blend their strengths to create a powerful sales force. Communicating openly and collaborating together is essential if businesses expect their sales teams to excel.

Related Articles:

Effective Communication Skills For Sales Professionals

How To Brainstorm With a Group

 

Break the Competitive Barriers

Many companies have contests where their sales staff members compete against each other on sales performance. This can cause real friction within the sales team, if those at the bottom feel inadequate. This type of scenario does not give sales staff incentives to work as a team, because then they would be hurting their own position. Shifting the main focus to overall team performance will keep sales teams much happier.

 

Allow Sales Staff to Have a Voice

Sales personnel’s input could be valuable to improving overall sales productivity. Team member engagement boosts morale, to where they feel like they are valuable. People who feel valued perform much better than those who don’t, and they are much happier with their jobs.

 

Recognition Goes a Long Way

Everyone wants to be patted on the back for their achievements. It’s human nature. Recognizing your sales staff members for good performances will keep them happy and inspire them to continue to do a great job. If they feel like they aren’t getting any recognition at all, then they will probably not be as productive.

 

Advancement

If sales team members feel like they have the opportunity to improve their careers through coaching, supervising, or in other positions, then they will be much more focused and driven, knowing that they have a goal to work towards. If their position has no opportunity for advancement, then they may end up feeling as if they are trapped in the position. Rewarding sales members for their efforts by promoting from within will keep their morale elevated.

 

Keeping a sales team happy isn’t hard to do, but the methods that actually work will vary from company to company. It really just depends on what resources each individual company has. However, even though they may be implemented differently, the things that keep sales teams happy are universal. Learn the secrets of a happy sales team and watch your productivity and profits soar.

Learn the secrets of a happy sales team and watch your productivity and profits soar.

A great sales team…

• Compliments Each Other
• Has A Great Leader
• Communicates Effectively
• Does Not Compete Against Itself
• Is Listened To
• Is Recognized
• Has Opportunities To Advance

 

Related Articles:

Sales Recruiting: How To Hire & Retain A Players To Drive Revenue For Your Sales Team

5 Things To Consider Before Investing In A Sales Team

5 Sales Talent Recruitment Strategies To Build A Sales Dream Team

 

Doug Dvorak is a certified speaking professional and sales coach that motivates teams and individuals across the nation. Team building programs and keynotes are available upon request.