Sales Process:

Personal selling is an important tool to sell the products to the consumers. The company has to hire salespeople for selling the product. The rank of the salesperson increases with the increase in the value of the product.

The salesperson must follow these steps of Sales process but can change as per requirement:

  1. Prospecting
  2. Qualifying
  3. Placing Presentation
  4. Objections and handling objections
  5. Closing Sale

 

  1. Prospecting:

The first step in the selling process deals with finding prospects who will buy their product. The salesperson tries to find out the people who need the product and can afford to buy it. So, they try to create a database of prospective customers (Prospects).

Prospects are the ‘potential customers’ i.e. persons who might become customers. A prospect can be an individual or an institution.

Characteristics of a good prospect:

  1. The need of that product, pre-existing or can be created.
  2. In some cases, the requirement of a licence or legal capacity to buy the product.
  3. The capability to pay for the product.
  4. The ultimate decision-making power to buy the product.

 

Know your customer (KYC)

In this step of prospecting, the salesperson tries to obtain the database of prospective customers from various internal and external sources:

  1. References given by customers.
  2. References from sales managers
  3. Networking
  4. Obtaining the database from outside agencies that deal in providing such data.

 

  1. Qualifying or Selecting the Prospects

After collecting the database, the salesperson has to find out which of these prospective customers would buy the product so that he pursues further.

He makes sure that the customer needs the product, he can afford the product, and he listens to the salesperson with interest. Then he plans for the sale.

For existing customers, past records and for a new customer, data can be obtained from internet or from data-collecting agencies. He can also conduct an ‘On the spot’ research when the customer comes to buy a product.

 

  1. Planning the Presentation (Pre-Approach):

After collecting the information collected, the salesperson tries to plan his presentation before meeting the customer. Planning of presentation involves deciding: How to approach the buyer? What questions to be asked? How to present features and advantages of the product to satisfy the customer? How to demonstrate the product?

The plan of presentation should be flexible. The salesperson should look impressive and presentable when he first meets the customer. He should be well-dressed and should meet the customer with a smile and a warm handshake.

Placing the Presentation (Approach):

Now the preparation and placement of the presentation is to be made by the salesperson to discuss about the product features and its benefits. The purpose is to convince the customer to buy the product. Demonstration is also made if required.

In order to be effective, presentation should be simple, convincing, in easy language, made from customer’s perspective, give a solution to the customer’s problem, eye-catching and involving.

Demonstration:

It is done to make the presentation more effective and to convince the customers. It is very much part of the presentation and can be in the form of visuals such as, charts and graphs, pictures, samples, powerpoint presentations, testimonials etc.

 

  1. Objections and Handling Objections:

During the Presentation, the salesperson should immediately give attention to these objections and questions raised by the customer.

How to handle the objections:

The salesman should:

  1. Listen to the customer very carefully and patiently.
  2. Respect the views of the customers.
  3. Give clarifications for the doubts raised.
  4. Make sure that the customer is fully satisfied about his objections.

Types of objections:

  1. Objections related to high price

Handling the objection: The salesperson can try to convince the buyer about the value of the product.

  1. Objections related to the Product or Service:

Handling the objection: The salesperson has to assure the customer about the quality, features and performance of the product and convince him by showing positive reviews of the existing customers.

3. Objections related to Procrastinating (by giving lame excuses):

Handling the Objection: The only way to handle this kind of objection is to ask for a future commitment to buy from the customer.

  1. Concealed Objections:

Handling the Objection: These types of objections can be best handled making the customer talk a lot so that he speaks out the real reason behind not buying.

 

  1. Closing the Sale:

After dealing with the objections, it is time to close the sale or strike a deal. In case of non-technical products, the sale has to be closed immediately after the presentation or meeting. For the complex and technical products, the process of closing the sale is lengthy and takes a few calls before finally closing.

Techniques of Closing Sales:

The salesman tries to make the sale as soon as possible. Various ways of closing the sale are:

  1. Assumption Close: In this case, the salesperson after meeting the customer assumes that the deal is done and asks the customer to confirm if the order be placed.
  2. Concluding Close: In this technique, the salesman concludes by summarising the benefits of the product and tries to strike the deal, when the discussion is over.
  3. Special scheme Close: If the customer is not giving the order, the salesperson tries to offer certain additional benefits like offering a discount, in case he immediately gets order.
  4. Future Close: When the salesperson is convinced that the customer will buy the product but needs a little time to arrive at a decision, he closes the sale by asking the customer – like, to take time to decide by tomorrow.
  5. Alternative Close: In case the salesman finds it difficult to finalise the deal, he can offer one or two alternatives to the customer, like - to go in for white colour or black one?
  6. Affordability Close: In case, the deal is not materialising because of customer’s inability to pay; the salesperson tells the customer about the facility of Easy Monthly Instalment and close the deal.

Follow-up. For the ultimate satisfaction of the customer, the salesman should fix up a follow-up call with the customer. This is especially necessary in case of electronics and technical products such as refrigerators, televisions etc. The chances of the customers becoming repeat customers become bright this way.

Positioning the Product – Class 10