7 steps to build a sales process in your business

Step 1 - Prepare a specific plan

Planning is the foundation for the enterprise sales process future. The more thoroughly you prepare, the more risks and mistakes you can avoid later. To make a specific plan, you need to:

• Understand the product/service: Identify the advantages/disadvantages and benefits it brings to customers.
• Identify potential customers: Use the 5W1H system to determine factors such as age, personality, needs, etc. For example, cheap hosting services target customers who need to build websites. Therefore, hosting providers will focus on identifying customer profiles that are in need of using these services to exploit and approach.
• Prepare sales documents: Including introductory documents, sample images, price quotes, business cards,... for both online and offline sales.
• Set up a business plan: Set a specific time, place, and form of sales.

Step 2 - Search for potential customers

This stage involves finding and identifying potential buyers or customers. You need to determine whether they have specific needs or wants that your business can satisfy and what they can afford.

This process includes research to identify ideal customers, creating a list of potential customers, and screening based on criteria such as whether they are business owners, homeowners, or their average monthly income. Is it suitable for the product price? Thanks to that, you will narrow down the group of buyers within a certain customer file.

Step 3 - Reach target customers

This is an important step in the sales process that sales staff and managers need to prepare carefully. During this stage, you will make the first contact with the potential customer. The goal is to get them to engage with you by personalizing the meeting or establishing a rapport. Ask questions to engage customers in conversation, thereby building a connection and deeper understanding of their needs.

Step 4 - Introduce your business's products and services

At this stage, you have a clear understanding of your prospect's individual needs and wants. You can showcase products through in-depth presentations, use examples and slideshows, or simply chat to establish rapport and answer questions. To make this step effective, focus on personalizing and framing your product as a solution to their problem.  

Step 5 - Make a quote and convince customers

After chatting and collecting information from customers, this is the decisive stage to convince them to buy. Usually, customers will object to the price. The most effective way to persuade is to emphasize that the product's benefits far outweigh the costs. It's important to ask directly if the customer wants to make a purchase and make sure they fully understand the terms of the transaction. However, with different customers, you will have different ways of persuasion. Such as:

• For price-conscious customers, you can apply preferential policies, promotions, etc.
• For customers who value appearance, convince them by talking about product quality.
• For customers who are still wondering and comparing with other units that also provide similar products, you can convince them by solving their difficulties or meeting their wishes.

Step 6 - Answer questions and finalize orders

If customers still have questions about your product/service, advise them so they can clearly see that the product meets their needs and is worth the cost. If this step is done well, the likelihood of the customer closing the order will be very high, this is a decisive step in the enterprise sales process.

Once you have successfully closed the sale, you can apply techniques to upsell additional products, upgrades, or higher-end versions. After completing the transaction, always thank the customer and do not immediately disconnect. Salespeople can use tactics to entice potential customers, such as offering freebies, free service periods, creating a sense of urgency, or asking customers about their preferred payment schedule. 

Step 7 - After-sales customer care

Many people often do not take the customer care step seriously, but this is an important step that helps you build a team of loyal customers and increase your chances of attracting potential customers. According to research, one loyal customer is likely to recommend your product/service to three other people. So, don't ignore customer care after they buy and use your products. This is the last but extremely important step in sales process.

Difficulties in building a standard sales process

Businesses can face many difficulties when designing one sales process standard. Because each employee has different sales methods, leading to different approaches and constructions, the sales process is different. Standardization sales process for the company will encounter many different opinions from members of the company.

Additionally, there are a lot of diagrams and theories surrounding the construction sales process standard. Choosing a theoretical basis suitable for the current business situation requires a lot of time and resources.

To increase the applicability of the sales process, we need to integrate complex customer behavior and analytics. This makes building and maintaining diagrams sales process more difficult, specifically:

• Customer behavior and needs change continuously.
• The emergence of new marketing channels.
• New technologies can be used to standardize and optimize the sales process.

So no sales process is common to all businesses. Instead, the company needs to build its own sales process individually, depending on your business model, sales strategy and target customers.

Automate the sales process quickly thanks to Viindoo Sales software

Viindoo Sales is a powerful and customizable business management software that offers modules for a variety of functions, including sales. Below are step-by-step instructions to help you get started sales process:

• Determine the sales process: Start by outlining the sales process of business, which includes the stages, activities, and interactions that take place from lead generation to deal closing. Identify key milestones, such as the prospect's qualifications, proposal submission, negotiation, and contract signing.
• Manage potential customers: Set up software functions coming Sales to capture and manage potential customers effectively. Set up lead sources, assign lead owners, and create lead scoring rules to prioritize and evaluate leads based on predefined criteria.
• Opportunity management: Create and configure appropriate opportunity stages in the sales process. Customize opportunity fields, such as estimated revenue, close date, and close likelihood, to help sales teams track and manage their leads. 
• Automation and workflow: Use the workflow automation features of coming Sales to streamline the sales process. Create automation rules to trigger actions based on specific events, such as sending follow-up emails, assigning tasks, or changing opportunity stages.
• Product configuration and price: Set up your product categories in coming Sales, including product details, variants and prices. Associate products with accurate quote opportunities and create proposals.
• Sales reporting and analysis: Create custom dashboards and reports to track key sales metrics, such as lead conversion rate, pipeline value, and sales performance. Viindoo Sales provides powerful reporting tools to help you gain insights into the sales process mine.
• Continuous optimization: Regularly review and optimize sales process your in coming Sales based on feedback and performance data. Make necessary adjustments to improve efficiency, streamline workflows, and enhance customer interactions.
• Integration with other modules: Depending on your business needs, integrate the CRM module with other related Viindoo modules, such as Inventory, Billing, and Customer Support. This integration ensures a seamless flow of information between departments.