A Step-by-Step Approach to the Sales Process

When we discuss a step-by-step approach to the sales process, we’re taking a scientific approach, which most people don’t do. They just keep going out there and getting in front of people, smiling and dialing, whatever it is they’re doing. And when you take a more strategic approach, you just get far more consistent results.

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David: Hi, and welcome back. In today’s episode, co-host Kevin Rosenquist, and I will be discussing a step-by-step process to the sales approach. Welcome back, Kevin.

Kevin: Great to see you, David. Excited to talk about this.

David: Yeah, it’s great to see you as well. This actually came up because I saw this question going through a Facebook group. I thought it’s an interesting topic because everybody’s got their own idea of what that is, what that should be, and very few people actually have what they would describe as a step-by-step approach to the sales process, which I believe is critical if you want to be able to create consistent results.

Kevin: Why is it you think that people don’t implement a step-by-step process? Is it just because they just like to shoot from the hip a little bit more or what is the reasoning?

David: Well, there are a lot of salespeople who do just like to go with the flow and they go with the conversation and everything like that.

And there are some people who can do that extremely well.

Kevin: Sure.

David: But my feeling is that even those who can do that extremely well are essentially harming themselves, by not having at least a framework that they go back to again and again and again, so that when prospects or clients inevitably get them derailed, they know exactly where to come back to so that they’re not missing any steps.

That’s why I think having the sales process in place is pretty important.

Kevin: Obviously, there’s no universal sales approach for every industry because you know every industry is a little different, so how can a business lay out a good step-by-step sales approach that is suitable for what they do?

David: Great question. So in our business, one of the things that we help our clients with is exactly this. And a lot of our clients are in the print and promotional products industries, but this also applies to any other B2B business. It actually applies to a B2 C business. I haven’t really found an industry where it doesn’t apply.

And so when we initially laid this out in a program called Top Secrets of Customer Acquisition, we basically laid out six steps to customer acquisition. I’ll put up a graph here to sort of demonstrate it as we’re going through.

But the first step that we’ve identified is the targeting. Who exactly is it that I’m going to go after? Because if I don’t know who I’m targeting, I’ve got no one to sell to.

I’ve got to have a really crystal clear idea of who the people are that I would like to go after. And so for me it always starts with that, who is it that I want to sell to?

Kevin: And in this day and age, we have so much data, we have so much information that there shouldn’t be any reason you can’t figure out that pretty precise target.

David: Exactly, and a lot of times people want to feel like they sell to everybody. But the problem is that, as the saying goes, if you feel like you’re selling to everybody, you’re probably not selling to anyone.

Because people don’t always get it. They don’t resonate with something unless they feel like the messaging is actually directed toward them.

So, it’s a really good idea to. target small, Aim small, miss small, as they said in the movie the Patriot, right? Aim small, miss small.

You want to be able to do that with your targeting because when you do that, you can be more consistent in what you’re saying to the people that you’re approaching.

It’ll make a lot more sense to them, and you’ll be able to get a lot more traction with what you’re doing.

Kevin: All right, so after targeting the right people, what’s next?

David: All right. It’s a step I refer to as hunting and gathering. This is just like, back in the old days when we were living in caves, you had to go out and do your hunting and gathering.

And this is the non-fun, non glorious, non-sexy part of selling. When we target, that’s basically saying, okay, I wanna go after this kind of group of people. But the nitty gritty of it is, okay, who are they? Where are they and how can I reach them?

So hunting and gathering to me means identifying who are actually the people within your market that you want to go after, right?

So if you’re targeting business to business, you want to say, am I going after particular cities, am I going after particular industrial parks? And then who are the people that I want to start with?

Because until you know that, once again, you have no one to market to. So targeting is first. That’s sort of the big picture approach.

And then hunting and gathering is honing down and saying, who are the initial people that I’m going to initiate contact with?

That’s what I consider to be the second step, because again, it’s necessary if you want to know who you’re gonna be selling to.

Kevin: Why do you consider that the unsexy or, un fun part of the sales process?

David: Well, just because it’s grunt work, essentially. It’s like, okay, how am I going to find these names? Am I going to go online? Or am I going to do it offline? Am I going to pay some company to be able to do that for me? To be able to identify the people who could potentially buy?

Because I want to know their names, I want to know their positions within organizations if I’m selling B2B. I want to know their email addresses, their phone numbers, I need all that stuff.

And so I’m either doing that or I’m paying an assistant to do it, or I’m paying another company to do it. So, for that reason, particularly salespeople who like being in front of people and like doing their thing and like presenting solutions, it’s just not fun.

It’s a tedious thing that has to happen. And a lot of times people will avoid it. Now if you think of people who may do cold calling, for example. If you’ve got a list of names and phone numbers and you’re just doing cold calls and you haven’t even really thought about where are these people and where do they come from, if you haven’t done your targeting right, if you haven’t done your hunting and gathering right, you’re going to spend a lot of time on the phone with people who are probably not best suited to buying from you.

Kevin: That’s my nightmare. Cold calling.

David: Yeah.

Kevin: Not going to lie. It’s my nightmare.

David: It’s a nightmare for a lot of people. And I think there are a lot of industries that told salespeople, this is what you must do. This is your job.

They equated first contact with cold calling. And one of the things I’ve always told my clients from the beginning is those are two different things.

I mean, cold calling is one form of first contact, but it sure isn’t the only one.

Kevin: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Alright, let’s go on to step three. What’s next?

David: Okay, step three is first contact. Now, one of the things that I do here, I’ve got six steps, but I do pair some of these steps together. So, I consider step three to be First Contact and what I refer to as the three by three follow up procedure.

And the reason I put those two things together is that a lot of times we reach out to people and then we never reach out to them again, and we’re not sure how often to reach out to them.

Do we keep pursuing them forever? At what point do we disqualify them? And so what I’ve done for our clients is we put together what I refer to as the three by three follow up procedure, which basically is a series of contacts initiated over a relatively short period of time, a period of a couple of weeks.

That gives you enough opportunity to be able to be in touch with the person, but without driving them crazy.

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

David: So, as part of the process, the reason I group them together is that you don’t want to do your first contact unless you are committed to doing the follow-up necessary to be able to then get to the fourth step, which we’ll discuss in a moment.

Kevin: Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so well let, let’s just move on. What is the fourth step then?

David: Okay, so the fourth step then is, and it’s going to be two steps again, but I’m putting them together. It’s Qualifi…

Kevin: Four A and four B!

David: Yeah, exactly. Four A and four B. It’s qualification and segmentation. Okay?

So we’re initiating first contact. We’re initiating the three by three follow up procedure for the purpose of getting them qualified in or out as quickly as possible.

And so essentially we’re segmenting them into groups so that we know exactly how to follow up with each one. Most salespeople don’t really do this.

I mean, even the ones who are using a CRM, they’re usually gathering the information. They’re in touch with people, they’re keeping track with their notes, what they’re saying to the person, maybe what next steps are and things like that.

But one of the things I always encourage our clients to do is to qualify them in or out and get them segmented into one of five levels of qualification.

So really quickly, the way that this works is that every single prospect you ever come into contact with, and every client you ever have, will always, only ever fall into one of five levels of qualification.

Either they’re ready to buy now. “Oh, Kevin, I’m so glad you called. Can I please buy your stuff,” right?

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

David: Usually the smallest group.

Kevin: Right.

David: The ones we’re ready to buy now. Second group are those who have specific dates in mind. “Oh, listen, that sounds really good. I’ve got an event coming up in September. Don’t have anything until then, but yeah, I’d like to talk to you about that as we get closer to that.”

I’ve got a specific date in mind, but I’m not quite ready to go. So that’s the second group, specific dates.

Third group are those who are generally receptive. I’m open to the idea. I like the idea. Not sure exactly what, I’m not sure exactly when, but I’m at least willing to continue conversations with you. That’s the third group.

The fourth group are those who are disqualified. No need, no desire, no money, no budget, no willingness to spend. Rude, obnoxious, belligerent. They fall into that category. Disqualified.

And then the fifth group are the unresponsives. These are the people who just don’t call you back.

They’re the ones who ghost you. Every single prospect falls into one of those five categories. When you know where they fall, you know exactly how to follow up with each one.

If they’re ready to buy, you provide them a quote. You sell to them.

They got specific dates in mind, you get them scheduled for follow up at the appropriate time.

If they’re generally receptive, you stay in touch with them until they’re either ready to buy or have specific dates in mind.

If they’re disqualified, you can either just get rid of ’em right away. Or you can try to get a referral from them before you get rid of them.

A lot of that will depend on how many people are falling into the first three categories, because when you got a lot of people falling into the first three categories, you don’t care about the ones who are disqualified.

Kevin: You don’t need, you don’t need the ones that the other ones, yeah.

David: You don’t need it. And you don’t need the ones who ghost you either.

Kevin: Yeah.

David: So depending on how many are falling into the first three, you can really let go of a lot of the people who cause you the most headaches. So that’s why qualification, segmentation go together, and that’s why it’s step four.

Kevin: All right, step five.

David: Step five is examining the metrics, looking at the numbers and saying, okay, what actually happened as a result of my first contact, my follow up, my qualification and segmentation?

Because , let’s say you do this with a group of a couple dozen people, two dozen, three dozen people.

Your numbers have to tell the entire story.

If I reached out to 36 people, then each of those 36 has to fall into one of those five categories of qualification. The numbers need to add up to 36, right?

How many are ready to buy? And how many specific dates? How many are generally receptive? How many disqualified, how many unresponsive? If it doesn’t add up to 36, you;ve go to go back and fix it, right?

Because then you can really focus your time, energy, and effort on the first three categories of people that you know are very likely to spend money with you.

Kevin: A quick aside, do you find that salespeople aren’t utilizing their CRMs to the fullest potential? Is are they putting in minimal information and not segmenting and not doing all this stuff ’cause they’re just like, I don’t have time for it.

David: I think they tend to put in the information they think is most helpful. From my standpoint, I’m like, “enter a field that says qualification level, right? And enter a date that that field was filled out most recently.

So that when you look in your CRM, you can say, okay, on March 15th, I qualified this person in. As of that point, they had a specific date in mind of September, right?

So then you put a note in your follow-up system that you want to be in touch with them by July or August to talk to them about the thing that’s coming up in September.

Now when you do that, and you’re actually in touch with them in July, “Hey listen, when we last spoke, you said you had this thing coming up in September. I had a couple of thoughts I wanted to run by you,” they’re going to go, “oh, that’s great. ’cause I wasn’t planning on thinking about it until a week before it was due,” right?

Kevin: Right. Yeah, yeah.

David: And so you’re getting ahead of it. You’re demonstrating that you pay attention and you are now far more attentive than the people who just don’t do that.

Kevin: All right, well, let’s wrap up this step-by-step approach. What do we got for number six?

David: Number six is tweak and repeat. Because once you get this process down, it’s cyclical. It’s like a cycle. This is what you want to do. You want to tweak it and repeat it.

If you’re not getting a lot of good response from your first contact, you need to look at the first contact and say, okay, what am I doing?

What’s the response that I’m getting? Do they hate what I’m doing? One of the examples I like to use is a note wrapped around a rock thrown through a window could be first contact. It’s going to be memorable. It’s not going to be positive. So…

Kevin: Not going to be the most effective approach. No.

David: Exactly. So we want to say, alright, how are they responding to what I’m doing? A cold call is going to get a very different response than if I’m sending something through the mail or if I’m meeting someone at a networking function.

So looking at what we’re doing, gauging the response to that, will allow us to tweak and repeat intelligently.

When we go back to do it again, we’re going to be able to keep track of those results and say, “was this better than what I did or was it worse than what I did?”

We’re taking a scientific approach, which most people don’t do. They just keep going out there and getting in front of people, smiling and dialing, whatever it is they’re doing.

And when you take a more strategic approach, you just get far more consistent results.

Kevin: And it’s a lot easier on your brain.

David: Yeah, it is. It is. Because you don’t have to think as much. And when you’ve got that stuff stored in your CRM, and you know what you need to talk to them about next time you don’t have to think about it.

And when you go back to them and you’re like, “yeah, last time we spoke you said you wanted to do this, this, and this,” and they’re like, “I didn’t even remember that. But yeah, you’re paying attention.”

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

David: Very few people do that.

Kevin: Yeah. It’s impressive. That’s a good thing.

David: Yep.

Kevin: So, for anyone who might want to talk about how to get their steps dialed in, what’s the best way to reach you?

David: Just go to TopSecrets.com/call. Schedule a call with myself or my team. If you want to get simple processes in place that are going to allow you to create more consistent results in your business, that’s the best place to go. TopSecrets.com/call.

Kevin: Awesome. Well thanks so much for all the insight, David. Really appreciate it.

David: Alright, thank you Kevin.