7-step sales workflow: When to use it and when to break it

A salesperson like you probably knows how difficult it can be to turn potential leads into closed sales, even for the best salesperson. To convince customers that your solution is the best for their particular problem, you must have different skills and knowledge across industries.

In business textbooks, a seven-step sales workflow is a good start, especially when 60% or more of sales ops teams’ pipelines are created and deployed actively. It is important to customize your seven-step sales workflow not only to your particular business, but also to your target customers as you move them through the funnel.

The textbook 7-step sales workflow

We recommend seven steps for finding potential customers, closing the sale, and retaining clients for repeat business and referrals. Below are these steps.

1. Prospecting

In the sales process, prospecting is the first step. This is where you identify potential customers and determine if they need your product or service and can afford it. Qualifying is the process of assessing whether your customers are in need and can afford it.

Having one prospect at a company isn’t enough in modern sales:

Account maps can be useful in identifying the multiple decision-makers involved in a typical purchase, as there are usually six to eight stakeholders involved in it.

2. Preparation

Preparing for initial contact with a potential customer, researching the market, and gathering all relevant information. You will succeed if you prepare your sales presentation to suit your prospects’ needs. Understanding your prospects’ needs and objections will help you set yourself apart from your competitors and overcome their objections.

3. Approach

In the next step, we’ll make contact with your client. This is referred to as the approach. We may meet in person, we may communicate by phone.

• Premium approach: Gifts at the outset of your interactions with potential clients

• Question approach: Get the prospect interested by asking a question

• The product approach: Offer your prospects a free sample of your product or service to evaluate and review

4. Presentation

You demonstrate how your product or service meets the needs of your potential customer during the presentation phase. A presentation implies using PowerPoint and giving a sales pitch, but that doesn’t always have to be the case—you should pay attention to your customer’s needs and respond accordingly.

5. Handling objections

You need to listen to your prospect’s concerns and address them during the objection handling step of the sales workflow. Although 80% of sales require at least five follow-ups to convert, 44% of salespeople abandon pursuit after one rejection, 22% after two rejections, 14% after three, and 12% after four. Good salespeople handle objections and alleviate concerns successfully.

6. Closing

Your closing stage is when you receive a decision from your client regarding whether or not to move forward. The following three closing techniques may work for you. The alternative choice is close: Assuming the sale and offering the prospect a choice – for example, “Will you pay in full or in installments?” or “Will you pay in cash or in advance?””

Standing room only close: Creating urgency by emphasizing that time is of the essence-for example, “We are only offering six spots left” or “The price will go up after this month.” Extend the prospect’s mind by offering something extra to get them to close, such as a free month of service or a discount.

7. Follow-up

In order to keep customers coming back for repeat business and referrals, you need to follow-up with them after you close the sale. It is crucial to maintain relationships since retaining current customers is six to seven times less expensive than acquiring new ones.

Be persistent

The seven-step sales workflow doesn’t account for repeated approaches, presentations, meetings, or phone calls where you handle objections. Most customers don’t buy right away. You need to handle objections and try again, try again. For example, a 13-step sales workflow or a 21-step sales workflow may not work.

Make sure you stay in contact with potential, current, and past customers. Establish a sales workflow that meets your customers’ needs.

Document your successes once you’ve tried out a couple of different approaches, tweaking the original seven steps in the sales workflow to fit your customers’ needs more efficiently. This will allow you to pick out the steps that work the best and onboard new representatives quickly.