A sales process is a systematic series of steps that converts a prospective buyer into a customer. Many companies follow different methodologies, but the actual process is usually pretty similar across the board. We'll talk about what steps make up a successful sales process and why having one tailored to your business is important. We'll also discuss different sales process formats, CRMs, metrics, and things to avoid when it comes to building your sales process.

SPIN, SNAP, Sandler, MEDDIC, Conceptual, and CustomerCentric. What are we talking about? Dance moves? Nope. These are actually some of the most widely used sales methodologies. If you're looking to tailor a process to your business' strengths or to meet the customer demands, you need a sales methodology. Think of it as a playbook that guides and informs your tactics throughout the sales process. In this course, we'll review the six methodologies we listed to help you differentiate between them and determine which method is right for your business.

Isn't it wonderful that you can cold call a prospect at any time and they will warmly accept your interruption to their day? Wait, has that not been your experience? Yeah, it can be brutal trying to secure time with a customer, but even more difficult with prospects. Let's talk about some different methods you can use to get on a prospect's calendar, so you can do some selling. We'll cover seeking opportunities, quickly recognizing potential leads, and getting to know your customers.

Selling is all about relationships. Certainly you've heard this before. This idea is the core motivation behind consultative selling, as this approach is rooted in creating trustworthy and honest relationships. It puts the focus on the customer and their experience. In this program, we'll discuss how consultative selling works, and why it works. We'll talk about the importance of authenticity, listening, and delivering on your promises. We'll also go over some common mistakes to avoid.

The sales process is cyclical by nature. Companies encounter upswings and downswings in sales all the time. Understanding these cyclical swings can help you plan and design a better sales process, so you can get in front of financial downturns and lessen the blow. In this course, we'll discuss cyclical patterns and industries. We'll talk about pattern indicators that you should pay attention to and prediction strategies to help you forecast more accurately. We'll also go over forecasting methods and tracking your data.

Field sales, or outside sales, is a type of selling strategy where representatives meet prospects face-to-face, or outside of the office. This is an ever-changing landscape due to digital communication. That doesn't mean, however, that outside sales has lost its value in our remote world; it just needs to keep up with the technology. In this program, we'll go over the role of a field sales rep. We'll discuss the difference between inside and outside sales, why face-to-face sales is important in certain industries, and how to successfully sell in person.

Being different, bigger, or cheaper isn't always enough to win or keep customers. The truth is, customers don't always know what solutions or products will help them. What they are keenly aware of, however, are the challenges they face. That is where you come in. Regardless of your industry, you need to address your customer's unmet needs, and to do this, you need to understand the biggest problems they face. In this course, we'll talk about how to find that information. We'll go over using existing customer data, asking relevant questions, analyzing the competition, and how to differentiate yourself.

Tiered selling is a way to bundle features into multiple packages, where each package is sold at a different price. A common approach is basic, standard, and premium offerings, or "Good-Better-Best" packaging. While the perception of bundled packages is favorable in the eyes of the buyer, this gives the advantage to you, the seller. In this course, we'll use a shopping mall theme to talk about the benefits of a tiered selling approach and how to best implement it to increase your growth and revenue.

Bringing in new customers is essential to hitting your sales numbers. However, selling to existing customers is one of the easiest and more effective ways to increase your profitability. Repeat customers are likely to spend more, refer more people, and bring in more business. In this course, we'll go over some effective strategies to increase revenue using upselling and cross-selling. We'll discuss strategic planning, timing, rewards, and some common sales mistakes you want to avoid.

It's like pulling teeth trying to get people to talk to you sometimes, isn't it? People will barely make eye contact with you, let alone divulge to you all of their problems, concerns, and dissatisfactions. How do you sell in this environment? How do you get to the root of their unmet needs to offer your solutions? That's what we'll talk about in this program. We'll discuss two different sales methodologies to help identify customer needs. We'll also talk about how to approach the sales process, knowing what to ask, to help get people talking.

Some say that if you've been effective throughout the entire sales process with your customer, then the close should be the easiest part. Regardless of where you stand on this argument, closing requires some strategizing. You need to know what the buying signs look like and when to go for the close. It's also important to understand the various closing techniques and when to apply them. We'll cover all of that, and more, in this course on closing strategies.