September 1, 2008
Sales Process and Philosophy
When the customer comes first, the customer will last. -Robert Half
Every sales person has a process. One they’ve learned or created on their own. One they have enhanced or dully repeated time after time.
Generally, six steps make up every sales process:
- Prospect
- Contact
- Presentation
- Proposal
- Close
- Transaction
This varies slightly, sometimes uses different words, yet basically each sales person needs to find a client and sell something to them. But the success of the sale results from a strong underlying philosophy of integrity.
In Selling With Integrity, international speaker and entrepreneur Sharon Drew Morgen outlines a unique sales process – the "Buying Facilitation" process – based on the idea that buyers have their own answers. She explains that a potentially adversarial relationship between buyer and seller can become one with genuine collaboration and consideration. Honesty rather than manipulation.
"Selling with Integrity describes the first new paradigm in sales. It offers a model for how to bring soul into sales, and teaches the hands-on skills to do it."–Jack Canfield
Morgen urges sellers first to pay attention to buyers' buying patterns rather than new ways of selling. In her book, she offers step-by-step guidelines, practical how-to's and numerous examples of her revolutionary approach to the sales process. A sales process with integrity.
She developed this new sales process by accident. After she and her husband took jobs in England for an international computer services firm, she found hers just wasn’t working for her. When she offered to resign, the company wanted to keep her so they allowed her to create her own job. What she came up with: a job to support her husband’s work. His highly technical position worked for him but he complained that various companies had no place to go for systems design or training in the 4th Generation Language arena he was working in.
Although she didn’t understand the technical details of his job, she did understand the interrelationships between people and their computers. What she wanted and needed to create was a service to meet people’s needs in those relationships. Since her husband was supporting both of them in a comfortable style, she didn’t take the "job" seriously at first, but just as something to keep herself busy.
Her first call was to American Express (She started with the "A"s.) She began by asking the receptionist for help: "I’m sure you’re busy but I’m wondering if you’d have a few moments to help me." Evidently a good opening, as the receptionist agreed to help her by giving her the names of several people who took care of their computer support needs.
One was named Jim and her first call to him made him laugh: "Hello, this is Sharon Drew Morgen. This is a sales call. Is this a good time to speak?" He was intrigued and let her ask more questions, probe him for what his needs were. Because she didn’t have a service to sell yet, she didn’t really need to close any business. Instead, she was searching for holes in service and solutions to mend them. Through a question and answer process, and not a hard selling process (since she didn’t yet have anything to sell), Jim discovered that he was missing some specific technical support. Though he was able to solve his own problem internally, he referred her to others and she was on her way. Selling solutions without manipulation
Here’s how the process works:
1. Build rapport with receptionist.
"Can you help?"
2. Build rapport with buyer.
"This is a sales call."
3. Question strategically.
"What’s missing?"
4. Enlist the aid of buyer’s team.
"Can you solve the problem yourself?"
5. If Yes, Ask for referrals
When people started saying No to question #4 she had to revise her process, so she added three new steps.
6. Establish the criteria necessary to justify an external resource.
"What will satisfy all stakeholders?"
7. Facilitate discovery of fit.
"Would you want to buy from me?"
8. Collaborate on next steps.
"What do you want to do now?"
In Morgen’s "Buyers’ Facilitation" process, she puts a strong emphasis on doing what’s right. She explains that the sales person must put the potential client’s problems first, the sales person’s needs second. This turns into a collaboration as they work together to identify whether or not they will do business together. This much gentler approach the prospect part of the discussion rather than just listening as a passive buyer.
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