Previously we talked about the Discovery stage, These steps serve as the foundation for your sales process, after mapping the customer journey.
The next critical step is to get your lead to “agree” with you. And this is where we discussed more in today’s article.
THE INITIAL EVALUATION STAGE
This stage is where both parties agree to loop in other people from both sides, share additional information relevant to the deal, and move forward with learning more. The more from this stage to formal evaluation is where companies struggle, either because the sales process become too complex for their internal team to handle or the customer realizes the complexity of the solution and choose to do nothing.
USING MOMENTUM FORWARD TO DRIVE/LEAD THE BUYER
This is a critical stage where the customer begins to rule out various competitors and options because a company’s offering is not a good fit or they don’t trust that the company can actually help them. The latter is the reason that many deals go dark and why many organizations struggle at this step. There is a misalignment between what the sales organization is saying and what the customer believes may be possible. Keep in mind that the buyer might have already narrowed down a few potential partners at this time.
One golden rule to remember is that B2B clients don’t care about signed contract but more about outcomes and solved problems.
An innovative seller makes sure they understand that a new potential customer cares about the progress and success of the product early on in the process.
SEPERATE SOLUTIONING
The biggest nuance you need to account for when designing your sales experience at the initial evaluation stage is the concept of separate solutioning. It doesn’t matter whether the other people involved are 3-4 separate divisions in a large company or 1-2 people in a small business – the key to understanding in the initial evaluation stage is that it is the salesperson’s job to meet with each individual stakeholder and their unique challenges and needs so that in the end you can address those in the “formal evaluation stage”.
A seller cannot simply rely on one person to relay information actress the org ad schedule everything. An innovative seller must understand that if you want to move a deal forward. They have to be the person who helps each individual person in the buying process move from COLD to VETTED. Without this mindset and plans, it is tough to build a process that doesn’t match the preferences of each stakeholder.
It is also important to think about the digital touchpoints in your sales process at this point as well. Many organizations either lack content or digital strategies to keep various buying groups engaged.
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When you combine a digital experience and add a salesperson to the process, you will see much better engagement across the buying group. You are looking for a customer to go on a mutually agreed-upon journey after they loop in other people.
Before you move to designing your sales experience for closing and onboarding, make sure to pause and go through the process in these articles with your team. My purpose in writing these articles is to help sales organizations think differently and, more importantly, to take those ideas and put them into action.
Whether you are a Frontline rep or a VP, you can make small changes to your process today! These first two stages are critical. They determine when and how you should move to later stages, to ensure that your sales organization and you personally are ready to get people moving if they come to you.
Educated or vetted.
Disclaimer note:
The opinions expressed in this post are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of any company and their associates.
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