Business.com

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• Complete Guide to Building a Sales Process
• Our Community Is Moving
• 7 Ways to Use Text Messaging for Customer Service
• How to Create a Sales Cadence

Complete Guide to Building a Sales Process Posted: 25 Mar 2021 09:00 AM PDT Every business goes through a similar process and series of steps to make a sale. Understanding how the sales process works will help you maintain a consistent approach to turning leads into customers. What is a sales process? The sales process – also known as a sales cycle – is the method your company follows to sell your product or service to customers. It involves a series of steps, from initial contact with a lead to the final sale. The sales process is similar to developing a relationship with someone new. When you first meet, you get to know each other, learn what they like, and determine their goals. Along the way, you decide if you can work together and whether you are a match. If this is the case, the relationship can proceed and grow. Importance of building a sales process These are some benefits of building a sales process for your business: You can optimize the structure of your sales team to support the sales process and identify the main challenges in the sales cycle. It will be easier to onboard new sales personnel. It helps you identify short-term and long-term goals and how each step in the sales process supports the next one. It highlights where time and resources are being wasted, so you can remove activities with low return on investment and focus your efforts on activities with more positive returns. It identifies the steps that need to be improved. This allows you to invest in training, education, and practice to get better in areas of weakness, which will help match your success in other parts of the sales process. Tip: Creating a sales process will not only improve your business's bottom line, but also help your employees succeed individually. Stages of the sales process There are seven stages in the sales process: Prospect for potential customers. Make contact with prospects. Qualify prospects. Nurture prospects. Present your offer. Overcome objections. Close the deal. 1. Prospect for potential customers. The first step is to prospect for customers, which requires some research. This stage has three components. Create an ideal customer profile (ICP). The goal is to identify and understand your ideal customers. This helps you determine whom to contact and why you are contacting them as potential customers. The ICP uses real data to create a fictional characterization of a client who: Can provide your company with value (e.g., revenue, influence) Your company can provide value to (e.g., return on investment, better service) Identify potential leads. Use the ICP to create a list of potential leads that fit this profile. Use a variety of sources (e.g., online databases, social media) to develop a list of ideal client companies. Then create a list of prospects from these companies that your sales team can contact and qualify. Perform initial qualification. First, qualify the company by conducting research to see if it meets the criteria that matter to you (e.g., company size, geography, industry, growth phase). Then qualify the prospects with an interview to determine if they are a good fit as a customer. Determine if the prospect has: A need for your product or service The budget to purchase your product or service The authority to make the purchasing decision The timing to make the purchase 2. Make contact with prospects. After identifying the ideal prospect, reach out to contact them. This step has two parts: Determine the best way to contact the prospect (e.g., telephone, email, social media). Reach out to the prospect. Make sure you are prepared (e.g., with a script, introduction and questions) before making contact. Introduce yourself and work on building trust, not making a sale. 3. Qualify prospects. Although you have already done your research to qualify the prospect before making contact, you still need to determine if they would make an ideal customer. This can only happen in a direct conversation with the prospect (either over the phone or in person). To qualify the prospect, learn more about them. Ask about their goals, budget, challenges and other issues that will help you to make your decision. Make sure that the person you are speaking with has the power to make decisions on doing business with you. When speaking with the prospect, identify opportunities to provide value. Qualifying the prospect involves confirming whether they meet the criteria of a good customer. If they are not a good fit, tell the prospect why. If they are still interested, determine why. 4. Nurture prospects. Once you have qualified the prospect, demonstrate the relevance of your solution to them. This typically involves answering questions about your unique offer, the benefits you provide, and the problems you solve. When answering the prospect's questions and learning about their needs, you have to nurture them along the process of making a decision. This involves: Moving the prospect along the stages of awareness Unaware: The person does not know they have a problem. Problem aware / pain aware: The person knows they have a problem but is not aware of a solution. Solution aware: The person knows there is a solution but does not know about your product. Product aware: The person knows about your product but does not know if it can solve their problem. Most aware: The person knows a lot about your product but needs to know about its benefits. Educating the prospect about the product, service or industry Personalizing your communications Responding to common challenges Building your reputation with the prospect as someone who is helpful, responsible and reliable in your area of expertise Some prospects may be both interested in your offering and qualified, but might not be ready or able to become a customer at this time. To nurture this type of prospect, stay in touch going forward and demonstrate your ability to help. This will help to keep you top of mind when they are ready to buy. FYI: In stages three and four, the prospect might be ready to buy because they need a solution immediately. In this case, move to the next stage. 5. Present your offer. Use the information you have collected to this point to present the prospect with your best possible offer. Make the offer personalized, targeted and relevant to your prospect's needs. Craft the offer to address their challenges, budget and goals. While the content of your offer is very important, how you present the offer can be the difference between success and failure. Consider your audience and the situation when deciding how to present your offer. Creativity can be very effective, but you should also focus on what works best for you given the experience of previous presentations. 6. Overcome objections. You've made the best possible offer – now it's up to the prospect to make the next move. The most common response is some type of objection to your offer, such as: Price (e.g., too expensive for the value provided) Risk (e.g., too "dangerous" to switch to a new solution) Content of offer (e.g., offer does not provide enough detail) Contract terms (e.g., term is too long) Ideally, you addressed the common objections during the nurturing phase or when creating the offer. However, you cannot always address every objection before the prospect makes it. To overcome or address objections: Be patient and measured in your response. Listen to the prospect's concerns objectively. Do not rush or pressure the prospect to move forward. Address objections that are related to each other. For example, if the prospect questions the value and price, go over everything you've included in the offer to show how the value you provide exceeds the price. When you have explained your reasoning, ask the prospect if you have properly addressed their objection. Read between the lines of generic objections (e.g., "We are not interested"). Ask more questions to determine the real reasons behind each objection. Listen carefully to the answers before responding. 7. Close the deal. Once you have overcome all objections, you can close the deal to make the sale. First, work on sealing the deal. The goal is to confirm the prospect's engagement and work toward the next steps. The key is to make it easier for the prospect to say yes to the deal. Prime the prospect by reminding them how they will achieve a specific goal in purchasing your product or service. To close the deal: Ask a direct question or make a direct statement (e.g., "Would you like to sign the deal now?"). Ask an indirect question (e.g., "Are you satisfied with what is included in the offer?"). Provide an incentive to close the deal (e.g., add a sign-up bonus). Offer a free trial period (e.g., "Try it for one week"). Emphasize the urgency or scarcity of the offer (e.g., "This is a limited-time offer"). Ask what else the prospect requires to make a decision. When the prospect has committed to the purchase, answer any additional questions they have and give them details on the next steps. Provide a written agreement and summary of the conversation so that their supervisor or other stakeholders can review it for accuracy. If the prospect still responds with "not yet" or "not now" for reasons beyond your control (or theirs), then return the prospect to the nurturing stage. Stay in touch and follow up with prospects who are not ready to purchase. Did you know? The best CRM and sales enablement software platforms allow you to create processes and workflows that can be automated and help streamline your team's work. How to implement a sales process Consider the following approach to implement the sales process in your organization. Understand the customer. The sales process begins with the buyer. To implement an effective sales process, you must understand the buyer and then design your sales process to address their goals, motivations, and needs. This requires identifying and then answering their "why" question. For instance, why is the buyer looking for a solution? Why are they looking to you for the solution? Build a sales process to help your salespeople find the answer to the key question. Conduct interviews with buyers and salespeople and perform industry research to find the answers to include in the process. Set milestones. Once you've defined the stages of your sales process, establish the key steps and milestones within those stages. A milestone could be identifying where the buyer is in the sales process or engaging with stakeholders within a certain time period. Score each milestone to determine how many resources to invest into that part of the sales process. When you set a milestone for each stage, train salespeople to meet that milestone at the assigned stage. This will prevent them from skipping steps or taking the wrong approach at the wrong time (such as talking about the price too soon). Instructing salespeople on when and how to do handoffs will also help correct problems in the sales process. This simplifies the process of helping buyers move from one stage to the next. Apply skills and resources. Build skills, resources and activities into the sales process to help your salespeople move to the next milestone. Resources could include brochures, case studies and whitepapers for a salesperson to share with customers. Provide your salespeople with specific training for particular milestones or have them engage in activities for other milestones. Iterate and improve. A sales process is not static; it should be refined and improved over time. Get feedback from salespeople, measure buyer behavior, and track and analyze sales data to evaluate the effectiveness of your sales process. Use the results to solidify the successful activities and resources within the sales process, implement activities and processes to prevent negative outcomes, and remove activities and resources that do not advance the sales process. This will keep the sales process relevant, actionable and efficient. By constantly iterating and improving your sales process, you will: Reduce the time it takes to onboard new salespeople. Increase the percentage of successful sales. Minimize costly mistakes. Improve sales forecasting. Reach sales targets on a more consistent basis. Align your technology and systems with the sales process. It's important to equip your salespeople with technology (such as CRM software) that enables them to perform each step of the sales process efficiently. However, software tools alone won't make salespeople more effective or encourage them to follow best practices. You need to combine the technology with supportive systems, guidance and resources. Provide technology that streamlines the sales process, collects and organizes information on customers, and lists the required activities for salespeople to follow. Create systems and resources to support the sales team's use of the technology during the sales process, such as these: Checklists to make sure all steps are performed in order Content and video to demonstrate the importance of the stages and milestones Buyer-focused content tied to where they are in the sales process Reminders to prevent salespeople from skipping steps Training content for each step in the sales process

Our Community Is Moving Posted: 25 Mar 2021 06:42 AM PDT Thank you for all the amazing contributions you have made to the business.com community. By sharing your personal experiences, advice, and original content, you have played a huge part in helping small business leaders around the world improve their companies and teams, and for that, we are extremely grateful! We have recently announced the exciting news that we are moving the business.com community to a Facebook group. We're doing this for two reasons. First, Facebook Groups has created excellent group discussion and moderation features that will support the continued popularity and growth of the business.com community. Second, this move allows us to reposition our community (and its members) as a leading resource for entrepreneurs and business professionals by creating a more focused network that better aligns with our audience. How will this change how I use the business.com community? Our reimagined community will allow for a better experience in the following ways: You can now follow and add business professionals directly to your existing social network. With the business.com Facebook community, you can personalize your group activity notification settings. You can share interesting event invites and resources directly with the group. You're able to find and connect with like-minded business professionals. You can customize how you ask questions of business.com community members. What will happen to my business.com profile? Starting April 1, we will begin removing access to your profile, messages and any Q&A threads you have participated in. We highly recommend logging in before then to ensure you have retrieved any important information or contacts you may want to save. You can log in to your profile via this link. Where can I find the business.com Facebook group? You can join the business.com Facebook group here. Please invite your business connections who may not have been part of the community before this transition – the more the merrier! When will you stop accepting new contributor applications and content submissions? As of early February 2021, we paused the review of any new contributor program applications. Additionally, any contributor content that is pending editorial review will not be published. You are welcome to retrieve your pending submissions through your dashboard and publish them elsewhere. How long will the content I've posted on business.com stay on the site? Within the next couple of months, we will scale down a large portion of contributor content. If you were a contributor with us, we highly recommend that you use this grace period to retrieve previously published content. You can find your articles by visiting your profile page or your contributor dashboard. Once this content is no longer living on our site, you are welcome to publish it elsewhere. We are excited about this change and are looking forward to this new (and improved) phase of the business.com community! If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to our support team at social@business.com.

7 Ways to Use Text Messaging for Customer Service Posted: 25 Mar 2021 06:00 AM PDT Most people are familiar and comfortable with communicating with their friends and family through text messaging. Conversational SMS messages have also become a regular part of the business messaging environment. As a result, businesses are increasing their use of text messaging as a way to communicate with customers and support their customer service strategies. These seven ways to use text messaging for customer service can help improve your customer satisfaction rating. Benefits of using text messages for customer service Text messaging for customer service offers several benefits over other types of business communications. One-on-one communication: Text messaging enables your business to engage in two-way communication with your customers. Customers can interact with your business via SMS, and you can respond to their messages directly. Constant connection: Many people carry their mobile devices everywhere and use them regularly, so text messaging enables you to reach customers anywhere and at any time. Scalability: Text messaging enables you to communicate with large groups of customers at the same time. You can send text messages to every customer in your mailing list or to specific groups of customers. Text messaging is also less expensive and easier to scale than phone calls. Immediate responses: Text messaging is the quickest way to communicate with customers and get responses. Customers are more likely to read and respond to a text message compared to a phone call and will respond more quickly to text messages than emails. 7 ways to use text messages for customer service Businesses can use text messaging for customer service to do the following: Send timely and personalized messages to customers. Respond quickly to customer requests. Schedule messages to automate the customer service experience. Use autoresponders to provide instant answers to customer service questions. Provide appointment reminders and alerts. Use polls and surveys to collect feedback. Collect Google reviews. 1. Send timely and personalized messages to customers. Treating customers like individuals and sending timely messages will help you build strong customer relationships. Personalized text messages enable you to connect more strongly with customers. Emails are more effective than text messages when you need to provide more detailed information to customers or tell a story (as in marketing and case studies). However, text messaging is more personal, as you can speak directly to customers on a first-name basis and answer questions immediately. Phone calls and text messages are both effective for one-to-one communication. Text messages can be just as personal and deliberate as talking to the customer on the phone. However, text messages are easier to scale than phone calls. You can respond immediately to customer questions by text message, which helps to make customers feel heard and understood, builds rapport, and supports customer retention. Here's how you can personalize text messages in customer service interactions: Use a text messaging platform that provides the ability to include customer information (e.g., first name). Start the message with your name and the name of your business. Greet customers in a personalized way. Sign off conversations politely and clearly. Keep individual customer responses separate from the group chat. Tip: The timing of your text message can determine its effectiveness. Send text messages during regular business hours, not on the weekend or in the middle of the night (although the nature of your business might allow for off-hours text messages). 2. Respond quickly to customer requests. Email can be relatively slow for sending information, with extended periods between responses, which can reduce the effectiveness of the communication. Phone calls also take time and can cause frustration when customers are left on hold or the phone call is not handled properly. Slow responses to customer requests can lead to loss of customers and negative reviews of your business. Text messages are faster than email and phone calls, as people can respond to text messages in the middle of another task. Text messages also enable you to exchange information quickly, resulting in quicker responses. Make sure to respond to inbound text messages as soon as possible. Some data suggests the response time should be between 90 seconds and one hour, but it depends on your business and the complexity and urgency of the message. Text messaging is more convenient from a customer's perspective, as they can respond or reach out at their convenience. Customers tend to prefer conversing via text message because they don't have to deal with automated phone menus or wait for you to reply to an email. This puts the customer in control of the buying journey and the speed of communication. 3. Schedule messages to automate the customer service experience. The time you save with automation can accumulate significantly over the course of a business day. You can automate many elements of the customer service process. Automated text messages can include these singular messages: Welcome texts Payment reminders Order notifications Delivery notices Sales receipts You can also use automated text messages as part of marketing campaigns, sending messages to everyone on your contact list. These are some examples of text message marketing campaigns: New product announcements Notification of recently published articles and blog posts Promotional rewards Links to charitable donation pages Your business can use an automated texting application, customer relationship management (CRM) software, or other applications to schedule and send text messages. This can make your customer service and marketing teams more efficient and proactive in their communications. Automated text messages also create greater transparency with customers and enable you to answer questions immediately. 4. Use autoresponders to provide instant answers to customer service questions. Customers will often contact customer service or visit your website to find answers to questions about orders, service requests, delivery issues and other topics. Allowing customers to ask questions by text message enables them to receive answers more quickly, reducing their time spent trying to resolve a problem. Customers can send a text message when they are not satisfied with their experience, which enables you to address their issues immediately and prevent their dissatisfaction from growing too large. Reducing your customer service response time improves brand perception, increases the likelihood of repeat business, and encourages more positive reviews of your business. Setting up autoresponders enables you to provide immediate answers to common questions, such as your hours of operation, location and current availability. Automated response sets help you to meet customers' expectations and create a more positive customer experience. To make autoresponders more effective, follow these tips: Personalize the message where applicable. Give an estimated response time so customers know when to expect an answer to their question or comment. Include alternative ways for customers to connect (e.g., an email address or phone number for a specific contact person who can handle their request). Use a friendly tone in the body of the text message. Explain the next steps in the process. 5. Provide appointment reminders and alerts. It makes good business sense to be proactive in reminding customers of appointments. This reduces the number of canceled or missed appointments, which keeps customers satisfied, employees busy, and your calendar full. You can set up your text messaging or calendar app to send appointment reminders when the customer makes the appointment, several days before the appointment, and on the date of the appointment. Include a call to action that compels the customer to confirm the appointment, as well as a way for the customer to reschedule or cancel the appointment. You can use text messaging to send alerts about limited-time offers, changes to seasonal inventory, updates on new arrivals, links to special events, and more. This form of proactive text messaging can boost sales, increase traffic to your business and website, and spur customer interest. 6. Use polls and surveys to collect customer feedback. Collecting customer feedback is a great way to find out what customers like and don't like about your business. However, the traditional ways of conducting polls and surveys are time-consuming and require investments in software and other resources. Sending out text-based surveys is a more efficient way of collecting customer feedback, as you can include a link to a Google Form with a poll or survey in the body of the text message. This enables you to get immediate responses to your surveys and increases your interactions with customers. Polls and surveys are designed to collect customer feedback in slightly different ways: Polls ask one multiple-choice question about the person's preferences or choices and require very little analysis. Surveys ask several questions of different types (e.g., multiple-choice and long-form answers) that must then be analyzed and grouped into categories. Polls and surveys can be sent by text message: As a link to a review or survey website As a multiple-choice poll As an open-ended poll As a customer experience survey To solicit votes for a decision 7. Collect Google reviews. Many customers check Google reviews before visiting or buying from a business, typically reading the newest reviews first. Google reviews increase your search rankings; the more reviews you receive, the better your business's credibility. Positive reviews also provide social proof that a business treats its customers well. That's why it's important to check your business's Google reviews to learn what customers are saying about you. You can use text messaging to follow up with customers to make sure they have had a good experience. You can send a timely message (i.e., soon after a sale or a customer visit) requesting a review, with a link to your Google Reviews page in the text message. A message to the customer right after a positive interaction is more likely to result in a positive review. Follow these steps to increase your number of Google reviews: Claim your Google My Business page. Verify your business information so that it appears on Google's search results, services, and maps. Create a short link to Google Reviews. Ask your customers to provide reviews. Reply to reviews to build trust with customers.

How to Create a Sales Cadence Posted: 25 Mar 2021 04:30 AM PDT Success in sales begins with planning. This includes crafting a sales strategy, formulating a sales process, and writing a sales proposal. How a sales team follows up with a prospect should also be planned out. You can achieve this by creating a sales cadence, which ensures your sales reps follow up with prospects consistently. What is a sales cadence? A sales cadence is a scheduled series of actions that sales reps take to establish a connection when looking to close a sale with a prospect. It provides a systematic framework for sales reps to follow in the course of doing their job. It includes all the sales rep's touchpoints with a prospect, including phone calls, voicemails, emails and social media interactions. A sales cadence begins at the first point of contact and continues through a sequence of interactions until the sales rep either converts the prospect into a sales opportunity or the prospect leaves the sales cadence for more nurturing.  Importance of a sales cadence A sales cadence enables sales reps to diversify their outreach to prospects across multiple channels. Some prospects respond more positively (or are easier to reach) over the phone, while others prefer to communicate by email or social media. An effective sales cadence includes multiple channels for connecting with prospects. Benefits for sales reps A sales cadence helps sales reps by: Providing a structured framework of follow-up calls and emails for every prospect Removing the guesswork from their approach Maintaining consistency for all prospect interactions Helping them to close more deals in less time Moving leads through the stages of the sales funnel Benefits for businesses A sales cadence helps businesses by: Boosting conversion rates for leads brought in through outbound sales and marketing channels Ensuring consistency among sales reps Supporting greater accuracy in predictions of sales numbers Examples of a sales cadence You can have more than one sales cadence (e.g., for inbound vs. outbound prospecting or for different markets). Below are two examples of sales cadences. Example of outbound sales cadence This is an example of a sales cadence for approaching a C-level executive prospect: Day 1: Personalized email and LinkedIn connection request Day 3: Email Day 6: Email Day 8: Phone call (leave a voicemail if there is no response) and email Day 11: Email Day 13: Email Day 16: Breakup email Example of inbound sales cadence This is an example of a sales cadence to respond to a C-level executive who has already shown some level of interest in your company: Day 1: Introductory phone call (leave a voicemail if there is no response) and introductory email Day 2: Phone call (leave a voicemail if there is no response) and send another email or reply to their email Day 3: Phone call only Day 5: Phone call only and reply to previous email Day 7: Phone call (leave a voicemail if there is no response) Day 8: Phone call only and message on their LinkedIn page Day 10: Phone call and email Day 14: Email Day 18: Phone call and email Day 21: Breakup email and phone call (leave a voicemail if there is no response) Elements of a good sales cadence Ideal customer profile The first step is to identify your ideal customer profile, which provides clarity on your prospect's industry, their persona and how to reach them. The sales cadence will vary according to multiple factors, such as the prospect's position at their company. To create an ideal customer profile for the businesses you want to target, identify similar characteristics among your current client businesses. Answer the following questions: What is the target company's industry? How large is the company? How many employees does it have? What is the company's annual revenue and profit? Where is the company located? Which department can use your product or service? What problems are they trying to solve?  What solution are they currently using? Next, look for the right people to contact at the company. Search LinkedIn for keywords related to their title. Then, create personalized messages to engage with those prospects. Categorize prospects according to their hierarchy (e.g., decision-makers, upper-level managers, lower-level managers) and create a sales cadence for each category. Medium of communication The sales cadence should cover all typical modes of communication, including phone calls, voicemails, emails, text messages and social media networks. When choosing a channel for each step of the sales cadence, consider the industry and buyer persona. For example, in-person meetings might work better for some industries, while others might be very active on social media. Read through the prospect's website and social media pages to determine where they are most active. Timing of contact is also important. Consider when people are most likely to read their emails or answer phone calls before you reach out. Focus on contacting prospects when it will be most convenient for them. Number of contact attempts Reaching out too few times is a common error for inexperienced sales reps. Many people give up after two or three attempts. It takes an average of seven touchpoints to get a prospect's attention, while the ideal sales cadence will have eight to 12 touchpoints. However, every buyer persona and industry is different. Start with a minimum number of touchpoints and be consistent; use data and experimentation to adjust the number of contact attempts. Time between attempts Leave sufficient spacing between touchpoints to avoid overwhelming the prospect. They need some time to read your content, understand how you could help them, and make a decision. Two days between touchpoints is ideal – keep the spacing consistent. Duration of sales cadence The duration (i.e., length of time from first to last touchpoint) of the sales cadence should be about two to four weeks. Determining factors include the prospect's engagement with your contact (e.g., ignoring all messages vs. clicking on email links) and the target industry (e.g., SMB vs. enterprise). Content of your message How you start an email or cold call to a prospect will greatly affect how they react. Your content must be intriguing and informative to keep the conversation going. Personalizing the subject line and body copy of your email will improve your open rates. Explain why you're contacting the prospect, what you can do to help, how they will benefit from the relationship, and who else you have worked with. Follow up in future emails with materials that demonstrate how your product or service will help to solve their problem (e.g., case studies or customer success stories). When cold calling, explain why you are calling, focus on one problem the prospect wants to solve, and describe your solution. Always ask for a convenient time to call again. Trial and error Every sales cadence will vary according to factors unique to that business and industry. Monitor the effectiveness of your sales cadence after reaching out to prospects. If prospects are not opening emails, test a different subject line. If click-through and email response rates are below average, add more useful content. If prospects are returning more phone calls in the morning than after lunch, change your sales cadence to match. Record the results of your sales cadence, and compare your current results to past results to see what is working or not. Tips for creating an effective sales cadence Follow these tips to create a sales cadence that works and does not annoy prospects: Wait at least one day (but not more than four days) between contact attempts. Increase the time between contacts after each attempt. Use your CRM software to maintain the consistency of your sales cadence plan. Be persistent in your approach, but don't become clingy or obsessive. Always ask how your prospect prefers to be contacted, and use this information for future contact. Send different types of valuable content that will resonate with your prospect. Consider both quality and quantity of contacts. Test every part of your sales cadence (e.g., number of emails, click-through rates, content with the best responses). Track your results, identify and focus on what works, and repeat.

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