{"id":3999,"date":"2020-04-16T08:00:49","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T12:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/?p=3999"},"modified":"2020-04-16T14:36:28","modified_gmt":"2020-04-16T18:36:28","slug":"thoughtful-thursdays-a-sales-process-to-consider-part-1-confirm-potential","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/2020\/04\/16\/thoughtful-thursdays-a-sales-process-to-consider-part-1-confirm-potential\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughtful Thursdays &#8211; A sales process to consider &#8211; Part 2 &#8211; Confirm potential"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Last week&#8217;s post introduced <a aria-label=\"a sales process to consider (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/2020\/04\/09\/thoughtful-thursdays-a-sales-process-to-consider-part-1\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" class=\"aioseop-link\">a sales process to consider<\/a> and talked<br>about the first step &#8211; Target. Developing a rich list of prospects<br>to feed the sales process is essential to maintaining sales<br>growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today&#8217;s thought is about taking that list and confirming the<br>existence of sales potential. Do the prospects you have identifed have a need for the products and services you are offering?<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once you have your initial list of prospects, it is a good idea<br>review it and categorize the prospects based on who you might want to work with most &#8211; and &#8216;A&#8217; and &#8216;B&#8217; list.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What tools are you going to need to help with the conversation with your prospect? First identify how you are going to connect. Will it be by telephone, direct in-person visits, email or or a social media platform? Each<br>approach may require some different tools such as:<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Business cards<\/li><li>Features and Benefits of your offering<\/li><li>Brochures<\/li><li>Testimonials<\/li><li>Scripts<\/li><li>Method of record keeping &#8211; call reports<\/li><li>Engaging copy<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Before attempting to make any contact, conduct basic research. The Internet is a good place to start. If they have a website, visit it and find out about them. Search there name and see if there is any current news about them. Who are their customers? How do they go to market?<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the same time, develop a script. This is not to be read from, but used as a tool to keep you focused on the job at hand. What are you going to say and the order you are going to say it. Here are a few suggestions as to what to include in your script in no particular order.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Your name<\/li><li>Why you are connecting &#8211; To determine if there is a need for the proiucts and services you are able to supply.<\/li><li>Your value propostion(s) &#8211; The benefits of working with you. Be mindful that different people value different things.<\/li><li>Questions that will give you the information needed to determine if there is a real opportunity to pursue. <\/li><li>Anticipated objections and responses.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>A script that is often overlooked is one for voice mail. What message are you going to leave if you have the opportunity to leave one. While expecting a call back may be optimistic, it is important for your prospect to know that you did call. Knowing what you are going to say before you say it is very important. How many messages have you received that leave you shrugging your shoulders? You do not want your message to have that affect. A good message is clear, succinct and has a call to action.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once you have prepared your message, practice it with a friend or colleague.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Begin to reach out to your &#8216;B&#8217; list first to get comfortable making the calls.<br>If you plan to use email and follow up with a call, using the services of a professional copy writer may be benificial. The success you have will be contingent upon having a compelling and engaging message. You may want to have two approaches and conduct an A\/B test to see which is more effective.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Again, test your approach with your &#8216;B&#8217; list before approaching your &#8216;A&#8217; list. <br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At this stage you are not yet selling, but determining if your prospects have a need for your products\/services. Design your conversations accordingly. Has your research correctly identified the target market?<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Next week I will talk about gaining approval.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Good selling,<br>Richard<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Have a question about sales?&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sakanashiandassociates.com\/contact\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Contact Sakanashi and Associates Inc.<\/a>&nbsp;and I will respond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week&#8217;s post introduced a sales process to consider and talkedabout the first step &#8211; Target. Developing a rich list of prospectsto feed the sales process is essential to maintaining salesgrowth. Today&#8217;s thought is about&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/2020\/04\/16\/thoughtful-thursdays-a-sales-process-to-consider-part-1-confirm-potential\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,3],"tags":[69,73],"class_list":["post-3999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sales-process","category-thoughtful-thursdays","tag-sales-process-2","tag-thoughtful-thursdays"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3999"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4003,"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3999\/revisions\/4003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}