Aligning the Selling and Buying Processes
Technology has been awareness in disguise especially for consumers. With more and more information online readily available, consumers have far more knowledge which has led them to make independent decisions easily. This has affected the sellers ‘ decisions. In this blog, we’ll look at how companies and sales teams can align their selling and buying process to obtain optimal conversion rates.
Changes in the buying process due to new technology, social media and the internet has created fundamental changes in the sales process. In the past times, the sales process was what drove the interaction between a prospective customer and the seller. Salespeople prospected and identified new customers, led the analysis of needs and requirements, proposed solutions and thus closed a sale.
But now the times have changed. Now, it is the buyer who has become in charge of the speed, direction and to some extent, the result of the sale. Nowadays, consumers do not follow a linear process of buying. They gather their information about solutions and options that are available with potential providers and screen them themselves. They select only those providers they wish to consider and use then knowledge gathered from those providers to further analyze and refine their requirements.
- In such situations, let us take a look at some steps that can be followed by your sales team to align their process with the buyers’.
1. Prospect & Identify:
Like the traditional sales process, the first step is to prospect, identify and qualify the individual buyer within the account. In early times, the decision maker and what all financial resources they have to utilize were scrutinized but now the attention has shifted to whether the consumer will buy and if yes, then when? Qualifying an individual has now shifted to qualifying the decision team, their thought process and predispositions.
2. Credibility & Need:
The start of any relationship is built on trust and in the sales world, it means establishing your credibility. A successful salesperson would always position themselves and their company in the highest of esteems before initiating the selling process. It is all the more important in today’s era, when the internet is full of fake and fraud especially related to sales.
Needs-based discovery is still critical, but it’s not enough. Customers come to the needs discovery phase with already-defined criteria, and successful salespeople know how to use their industry and customer expertise to tie these needs to the organization’s strategy and critical success factors.
3. Find a Solution & Propose Business Worth:
Today, a simple product offering would not result in a conversion of any prospective client. It would also not differentiate you from your competitor. A thorough understanding of the whole product, which includes product features as well as non-product elements like delivery, financial arrangements, service-level agreements, systems integration is required to be given to the prospect. The last step of the buying process usually involves executive review and buy-in. You should know that executives are not only interested in the product features and its benefits, but need to know how their purchase will affect their company or improve their ability to implement strategy.
4. Build a Relationship:
In a recent survey of sales executives, it was shown that salespeople are bad at reselling to existing customers, with over 60% indicating that they leave money on the table because of poor cross-selling and up-selling.
You should help customers use and monitor their purchases; act as risk managers for their clients. You must help in supporting implementation and recognizing that the absence of expressed dissatisfaction is not as rewarding or risk-free as a satisfied and engaged customer.
In order to align your buying and selling process, working alongside buyers throughout the buying process can help you develop trust and build stronger, longer-lasting relationships with your clients. You can only become a successful salesperson when you become an expert in your customers’ businesses, function as problem-solver and think more about your customers’ needs and challenges throughout the buying process. This would create a sales organization truly focused on the customer and retain better growth results.