How to Develop Sales Approach For Small to Medium Businesses

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By Alrady
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Tired of lack of focus in your sales? Draw a Flow chart of these steps and keep it above your monitor.

In tough economic times a business must hunker down and define successful strategies. Balancing new and old customers - closing that back door.

Follow these steps to start your more effective sales journey.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Make sure to track all your sales leads &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Some USEFUL things:
Contact Management Program
Small Business Systems Software
Project Management Software
Prospecting, Tracking, Reporting Softwares
Sales Training Videos or Seminars to Train your Sales Force

Step 1

train sales force

Hire your sales force, train your sales force and incorporate these steps into your training so that sales systems can be focused.
Step 2

Sales Leads Management Software

Gathering -Resource pool of sales leads; a referrals pool of potential clients.

This can come from a variety of sources:
yellow pages, business cards, referrals, inbound call requests, local newspaper, driving around and identifying new and existing businesses, and using the Chamber of Commerce for prospect list.

There are many more sources, but you get the idea.
Step 3

Prospecting, Tracking, Reporting Softwares

Identifying - The process of pinpointing prime target area. Who belongs in prospective customer pool? Who are the high end, medium or low end prospects?
Identify level of interest on a scale of 1-10, use low level marketing to determine interest level. Geographic location can also be a consideration in the identification process.
Step 4

training sales team - every employee is in sales

Selling – Can overlap with Identifying. This is your actual cold calling, appointment setting, mailing solicitation flyers, site visits etc. Selling begins BEFORE you make contact with customer.

There are a zillion articles and courses on selling. If this is a weak area, strengthen it. Everyone in the office is in sales - whether they realize it or not. Train them.
Step 5

Contact Management Program

Processing – Making sure customers have orders processed quickly and efficiently. Record customer’s contact information and notations into your sales contact program or database. Notate any special considerations. WE like Gold Mine software for this process.

This is one of the most crucial steps in having a winning sales strategy. You do not want to lose valuable sales leads. You are networking all your contacts.
Step 6

small business telemarketing

Retaining – A good retention program has two aspects: proactive and reactive. Just because a customer doesn't call, does not mean they are happy. Make sure customer contact is not only when they are unhappy.
Step 7

PROACTIVE:
Contact customers. Evaluate their satisfaction with product. Develop well thought out program of touching the customer. Call and touch base, send thank you’s or send referrals to their clients. Network.
Step 8

Reactive – how does telephone front desk treat customer when they call you? Do you answer voice mail and email quickly. Do you view customer as interupption or opportunity?

Customers are not an interruption to your day. A complaint does not make them an automatic problem child. There is always an element of truth to their complaint - no matter how painful.
Step 9

do not copy

Good Luck with your new revived sales approach. Let us know how sucessful you are.

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Comments

karileighk said

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on 7/9/2009 Awesome details. More should read this.

Alrady said

on 6/26/2009 The time is economy is still down its time to get the sales going stronger. If sales are lackluster it might be time to analyze and tweak the approach.