Friday, February 9, 2007

The Selling Process is a Sales Map to Success

If you have a GPS, Global Positioning System in your car, you already appreciate the value of knowing where you are at all times. We don't have one of these GPS systems and I'm thinking about investing in one for our next vehicle. Although, I have a wonderful sense of direction, really, I prefer to rent a vehicle with a GPS system when traveling. A GPS system is invaluable on the road with the system alerts that notify you when you get off track or as you approach an important off ramp. The satellite system is a great tool for people on the move. If you think driving is the only way to use a GPS system, think again. A GPS sales system saves a business time and lost customers. The built in prospect and customer tracking system reduces the loss of opportunities and customers. It is almost like tracking a FEDEX package across the country in that you will know where the sales opportunity is all the time.

The Sales GPS System

One of the reasons salespeople get lost in sales is they don't have a map. Having a map is critical to ending any journey with success. Unfortunately, many business owners and salespeople don't have a sales or marketing map.

I have to confess, there was a time when I didn't have a sales map. Naturally, I got lost many times. It was a challenge of not knowing where I was or where the prospect was in the sales process. Remember, I mentioned earlier, my sense of direction is good. Well, it wasn't working during the early stages of my selling career. The routine of making sales calls and doing the sales activities just didn't get the results I was looking for. It would be years later that I would fine tune my sales process and develop the GPS and mapping system of selling. The evolution of this system is what we offer today.

If the words, sales process and sales map are foreign to you or you can't tell where you are with each prospect, there are ways to calculate your position. NO, the answer isn't in the stars. Let's make it simple and position you in a two step selling process.

* If you have more questions than you have answers about a prospect, you are in the discovery phase. This is the first phase of selling and you should ask more questions than speaking.
* If you have more answers than you have questions for the prospect, you are in the development phase. This is the second phase of selling and you must have a few answers to the problems the prospect has. You have this because you asked good questions in the first phase.

This simple test will tell you where you are in each step of a selling process with prospects. If you want a better description of how to know where you are in sales, we encourage you to join our webinar on "the game of sales." We regularly share our success secrets about the selling process and the game of sales.

Once you understand the selling process and your sales map, selling gets easier. You will also discover that there isn't much difference between a GPS and our Selling Magic sales acceleration program. Both systems will help you stay on track with reminders and guides. Both systems are automated and will save you time while helping you reach a successful destination. Each of these systems is simple to operate.