Sales & Selling - I
Sales = Revenue
Revenue Spearhead
Everything else we have talked about up to now has been just to get the team on to the playing field. That’s all. Now the team has to play the game, in the real world, for real stakes, and be successful.
Sales is the mechanism which converts products into revenue.
Sales is the team on the playing field, scoring goals by selling product and collecting revenue. If sales revenue is insufficient, the business organization will fail. Everything else which we do we do so that the Sales Team can succeed. Sales is the feet on the street turning prospect interest into satisfied paying customers. Sales is the revenue spearhead.
Sometimes Sales consists of distribution channels. Sometimes it is a sales force. Sometimes it is an online presence driven by advertising. Sometimes it is just a stall by the side of the road selling juice.The particular fighting force formation does not matter. The only thing that matters is connecting with prospects, converting prospects to customers, and ensuring they are happy with our product so that the organization can get paid.
Sales is the mechanism which exchanges products for revenue. Sales takes priority over everything else. Sales involves how-to, why-for, training, planning, organization, daily reports, hands-on management, people skills, motivation, and morale.
Strategy provides us with an overall roadmap for using the organization’s resources to achieve an objective. Marketing took that strategy and made it more specific by defining products, market segments, and target customer profile through which we think the strategy will become manifest. But Sales has to achieve the goals.
In a market-based economic system, it comes down to independent customers making individual decisions to want your product enough to order it and pay for it. That is where Sales resides, working with customers, shepherding them throughout the buying process.
Sales means revenue; revenue means sales. No sales, no business. It is that important.
Yet given all that, I am amazed at how many entrepreneurs take Sales for granted, or think that customers will flock to their doorstep to purchase the product. Or they fail to grasp that customers have choices, have been spending their money on other goods before the new fancy product entered the market and really know of no reason to desire that product.
Sales, Selling
What is Sales or Selling Products?
Most think that Selling is simply: Party A (‘seller’) transacting the transfer of ownership of an item (‘product’) to Party B (‘buyer’) for an agreed upon consideration (‘price’).
Indeed Auctions, Classified Ad Sales, Garage Sales, and often modern retail sales are of this nature.
Many products and businesses, however, are not so simple and mechanical. I use the following definition of Selling:
Selling is the process of assisting a potential buyer in making the decision to purchase a product in exchange for money. It involves connecting with a customer, understanding the customer’s needs and wants, showing how one’s product is a solution for the customer’s needs, answering objections and questions, successfully closing (contractually) the purchasing transaction, and in some cases continuing to foster the long-term relationship with the customer. This process generates revenue.
The key takeaways from this definition are:
Process
Assistance
Buying decision
Personal connection
Needs & wants (question of motivation)
Suitability to satisfy
Responding to questions, objections, doubts, fears
Fostering relationship
Often you’ll see the word “persuasion” used when describing selling. Indeed, many sales people and organizations view their job as one of persuading a prospect to buy. But in the long run, assisting a potential buyer in their consideration of the suitability of your product for their needs yields a better, long-term, satisfied customer relationship.
People want to be helped. They want a salesman to understand their needs and help them find a good solution. They want an advocate on their behalf within an organization.
The more you are professional and honest with a customer, the more loyal they will become. Sometimes your product will not be the best one for them. That is okay. Explain that and your reason and they will be grateful for your assistance.
This aspect of assisting a potential buyer is where ‘the rubber meets the road’.
The Buying Process Psychology
In my book I relate my utter dismal failure in sales when I started my first business. My engineering mind did not know there was a process. I thought that selling was a simple transactional encounter. I was lost and did not know I was lost.
Fortunately, I searched for Sales Training, attended a free Dale Carnegie Sales Course introductory session and found it helpful. I signed up for the course and it changed my business thinking and understanding.
I learned that potential buyers (aka “prospects”) psychologically progress through Five Stages on their way to internally finalizing the motivation to hand over their money in exchange for a product. These five stages are based on the Percy Whiting book: The 5 Great Rules of Selling.1
Once I learned the basics, I could quickly discern where a prospect was and what they needed at that stage. The stages are: Attention, Interest, Conviction, Desire, Close.
In later articles, I will cover more about the Prospect Conversion Funnel and how that relates to these Five Stages of Selling.
Making Use of this Information
I have a variety of Quick & Dirty Methods for building off of these basics and turning this framework into actionable and highly effective strategic plans. Ignite! Act! Win! Training and Business Coaching works closely with you to move your business forward to success.
The Mechanics of Business is an integrated approach, built off of a strong theoretical foundation of how business operations work to generate sales in any market.
In these articles I am showing you the insights which unlocked magic for me.
Follow-up articles will introduce the theory behind Prospect Conversion and applying QC principles to the Sales Process. Stay tuned to this Channel!
Contact me directly for getting hands-on Business Coaching to help you efficiently leverage this information in your business.
Whiting, Percy. The 5 Great Rules of Selling. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1947.