The Sales Process

When Adam Grant sought to clarify the skill of a salesperson, he referenced salespeople from a spectacles shop. In his example Grant illustrates two distinct methods of selling eyeglasses:?

• First one focuses on flattery, persuasion and emotions triggers,?
• Second one prioritizes understanding the client's genuine needs.

In the first scenario, Grant describes a salesperson who sets glasses on the clients’ nose and enthusiastically praises how well they fit and enhance the appearance of the person. This approach relies on the salesperson's "authority"? -I know the matter, trust me-? in order to persuade the client. Essentially, the salesperson is attempting to convince the client that they are just about to find the right solution for the client’s needs. While the intent may not be intentionally manipulative, it may be unclear where to split honest persuasion and direct manipulation, considering the legitimate interest on the sales purposes.?

Robert Cialdini highlighted the persuasive techniques in his seminal work, cautioning consumers against manipulative sales tactics. Persuasion for Cialdini is a good thing until it is pursued for a mutually beneficial transaction, where buyer and provider are in a relationship characterised by mutual value creation. Seeking to establish an imbalance of value between the parties indicates a manipulative intent.

Conversely, in Grant's second method, the salesperson refrains from presenting any eyeglasses for an extended time—perhaps perceived as very long. Instead, they engage in genuine conversation with the client, exploring their motivations, their intended uses, and the expectations they hope to fulfill with the purchase. This approach aims to foster a deeper understanding, allowing the salesperson to tailor their recommendations based on real facts: client’s beliefs and values and client’s effective expression, their precise wording rather than just superficial assumptions.

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The need to understand the client’s needs

Every sales book or sales trainer emphasizes the importance of addressing the client’s effective needs while avoiding any shortcut to close deals. This mantra is echoed by every sales guru in order to inspire salespeople. However, many salespeople are effectively tempted to adopt the minimum-means strategy, seeking a more efficient way to achieve sales. This tendency may grow with their role’s confidence; as they learn how to identify clients' general trends in needs and expectations, salespeople might speed up the process, for that the salespeople can make assumptions in order to streamline the process (and their effort).

In the fast-paced world of sales, the process to understand the client's real needs can be a double-edged sword. The idea of respecting the client’s ultimate needs is not discarded; rather, many salespeople are convinced they are effectively meeting this principle. Because they learn how to infer meaning rapidly from the client’s expression they swift to quickly and efficiently proposing the solution that meets those needs.?

The wonder is: are they truly addressing the client’s needs, or they may incur in misunderstandings that may lead to a suboptimal customer-experience?

Sales processes in real-life scenarios

It is not surprising to find significant differences between sales processes performed in extremely fast-paced environments, such as crowded cities, compared to those in laid-back, warm Mediterranean towns. In bustling urban settings, sales rely on quick understanding and rapid responses while, in slow-paced towns, the process often depends on leisurely conversations to share ideas.

The former approach is undeniably more efficient and is preferred by hyperactive individuals, while the latter may take up a considerable amount of time just to foster connections. Here we can appreciate why the client’s understanding can be considered a double-edged sword: its use should be carefully calibrated with the effective situation.?

Several potential problems may arise in the sales process, as excellence is ultimately defined by the recipient's perception, precluding a one-size-fits-all answer, the solution lies on the salesperson's sharp mind in touch with the situation.

• The first approach works well as long as the salesperson's assumptions—what they believe to understand about the client—are accurate. For example, if the salesperson assumes the client likes to show off, their relationship will proceed smoothly as long as that is true for the client. However, when one or more relevant assumptions conflict with the client’s beliefs, the salesperson may be forced to reframe the conversation.

Consider this scenario: if the salesperson assumes the client will use their glasses for driving, but the client strongly feels that they do not need to, this disagreement could escalate. Similarly, if the rep assumes beautiful ladies are vain (connecting beauty and vanity) and therefore the client wants to leverage her appearance, the rep might overlook her true identity as someone seeking for practical tools. Such shortcuts can lead to misunderstandings or even conflict.

In sales, assumptions can be both a guide and a trap. While a correct assumption often serves to smooth and fasten the exchange, a simple misjudgment could turn a potential sale into an awkward standoff.

• On the other hand, the second style—focused on effectively clarifying needs and expectations—is effective as long as the client perceives the purchasing process challenging or the solution as mission-critical.

Consider this scenario: the client has already many eyeglasses for almost every mundane occasion, as well as for work-related time. Although they desire something distinct, it is unlikely that they will continue to use it, if they use it at all.

In this case rapidity may be useful for engaging the client in the sales process. While a slow motion of an excessively detailed analysis may risk not engaging the customer therefore missing to seize the momentum.?

How to balance full understanding and careful service with the urgency of sale?

The bad news is that it requires a strong commitment and a strong training well beyond just sales. To quote Henry Mintzenberg: “The real challenge in crafting strategy lies in detecting the subtle discontinuities (...) . And for that there is no technique, no program, just a sharp mind in touch with the situation.” When working on customer relationships we can expect the same requirement: a sharp mind in touch with the situation.

The good news is that it is doable and actually relatively easy to achieve:?

Like golfing, knowing the matter and making it fast, avoiding shortcuts.

In managing relationships with customers the software mirrors sales processes to facilitate salespeople’s deployment. To pursue the correct balance between a proper understanding and an efficient process, the design of the pipeline plays an essential role.

Each sales process, likewise a pipeline, convoys a flow of events. Events take place within moments, situations specific to each stage of the process.

Each event may change the stage and move the process forward. Stages follow one another as steps towards the end of the flow: the agreement.?

Because the sales process is a continuous flow of people's activities, stages are moments in which something is going to happen, they can be dynamically designed.?

The sales process in the CRM

We identified a set of 4 stages that fit most of the possible sales processes in BtoB.?

They are:

Discovery opportunities

Qualification

Developing solution(s)

Negotiation

Let’s see them in detail being aware that they represent a good rendering of a sales process' main moments, then adapting to each business may be required.

Discovery opportunities

This stage takes place at the beginning of a sales process: there is a meeting between parties dedicated to evaluate customer needs and expectations. Setting this stage as separate from the stage Qualification highlights the relevance of the Discovery stage outcome: effectively dedicating time to understand requests, ideas and expectations of the (potential) customer. Discovering happens by proactively asking. And in that regard, the quality of queries is fundamental for the success of the information gathering.

It is imperative to dig into the prospect’s explanation, to unveil details about the? opportunity that may be possible by applying a set of questions to unveil the situation, the expectations and the counterpart’s feelings. It implies dedicating time for the process.

As time pressures, often salespeople may be keen to take shortcuts: as they can quickly understand what the client wants. This may be a mistake: make assumptions on limited information. The use of assumptions is a great human brain tool, it enables us to grasp meanings and intentions in no time. But it is also a trap if we become too confident in the effectiveness of those assumptions.

This is then a very important stage, where not only sales people are enabled to better understand what the client really needs but, even more important, the process may be useful to bring the relationship to a next level, making it more meaningful for the customer.

Being able to act with the best intentions is a powerful driving force that people immediately perceive: a force that wins trust enabling better selling.

Discovery Opportunities is a powerful sales tool, well beyond just a task along a process. Reps should perform it to set any sales process for the best, no matter what they sell.

Qualification

Discovery opportunities enables us to clarify what possible solutions (maybe more than one), may fit with the prospect’s needs.

Hence now is time to clarify if the prospect is in the condition to become a client.

When a business believes everyone can be a client that business will fail. If a salesperson, hungry for sales, aims to close contracts is the priority no-matter what, that salesperson is in trouble.

Businesses that have more success carefully select customers that enable best performance.

This function is one of the most important sales issues, it implies salespeople's purpose and what are the expected outcomes of their work.

Lack of qualification may lead businesses in facing higher mismatch in client satisfaction, an excess of complaints, a lower ROI and ultimately become irrelevant.

Developing solution(s)

Once we know what the real client needs are, and we know that we can make it, and we know that the value the client assigns the solution effectively matches our business’ mission, then is time to illustrate the possible solution, or solutions.

The output of this stage is more than just creating the offer:?

• it is to be sure the client perceives the value proposition
• it is to win all their objections
• It is to engage them with the possibilities we describe

This stage is the real output of the sales process, the proposal itself is the tangible product, the prospect engagement is the intangible, but more valuable part of it. The role of the salesperson is not to produce the proposal, a cold, impersonal document, rather to work for the prospect engagement on the proposal. The real sales take place in this stage, everything before that was only introductory. Here is where the salesperson is called on performing the best of their art.

A missing agreement is a great learning opportunity, what has been done incorrectly so far? What detail was overlooked?

Negotiation

This stage allows us to rectify any errors made so far. If the prospect is not enthusiastically embracing the agreement, it may indicate that we have not succeeded in creating an optimal customer experience.

Negotiation often arises when the client requests changes or adjustments, perhaps because certain aspects did not meet their expectations, or they are simply accustomed to haggling. It’s important to recognize that an ideal scenario would involve little to no negotiation, but perfection is largely theoretical.

The outcome of this stage is to learn from the process by gradually harmonising the terms of the agreement,? identifying what worked well and what didn’t. The output is an agreement that generates value for both parties. Aiming to that, a perfect negotiation lies on creating a third option that transcends mere acceptance or rejection of terms, this embodies the concept of a value co-creating process.?

Overview

The analysis of a sales process should start from its outputs, then understanding why prospects convert or quit (and when) and what they say or hide about the relationship with the brand. It may be done better by going back to each moment of truth (1) and wondering about them to know by a proper investigation how to improve efficiency.?

Because whether a deal is lost or won, it is always a learning opportunity.?

Whether an organisation is about to redesign the sales process or just in pursuit of improvement, the analysis of the output is valuable when comprehending both, won and lost opportunities, by the art of asking questions: strategic questions in search for the object, not to find who is liable.

In pursuit of feeling confident and improvising, a good advice is to master the rules first.?(2)

The role of a CRM tool in sales is to support, guide and measure sales people's daily effort in the management of deals and people behind them.

The logic of the CRM as a marketing strategy is to enable the organisation in its mission in the market; planning the use of the digital tool, very likely implies for the organisation a rethinking of its way of selling, define how policies fit into strategy, create a guidance and a behaviour control not to punish, but to learn and improve.

No other methods have been able to make it happen as much as a digital CRM tool implementation can achieve it nowadays. Organisations have an opportunity to grab, and to stay up to date with the unrested environment.

1) Gronroos, C., Gummesson, E. (Eds), Service Marketing - Nordic School Perspectives, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Research Report 1985, p. 2. Carlzon, J., (1987). Moments of truth, Cambridge, Mass. Ballinger.

2) Attributed to Pablo Picasso: “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist”.

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