Stage

****** Software On Sailboats Pocket Sales Manager
****** Keywords: CRM software, mobile crm

Stage

Top Previous Next

Stage
Previous Top Next

The Desktop Sales Manager uses seven stages to track your progress in a sales Opportunity:

Leads - the artillery barrage of the selling war. Advertising, trade shows, Internet hits, calls, cold calling - anything that creates a general awareness of your company and its capabilities.

Identify Opportunities - is the process of finding clients with projects that will require the type of products or services your company offers.

Assess Business - chasing the wrong Opportunities is very, very expensive. Is there funding? Timing? Executive sponsors? Do we have technical fit? What is the lifetime value of this customer? What is the cost of acquiring this business? The risks to our success? The person who is probably least likely to make this decision objectively is sales rep with a mortgage to make and a quota to meet.

Develop Solution - Have we walked in the client's moccasins enough to understand his problems? What is our strategy? Do we understand all the issues our solution implies? Do we have an ROI message? What is the competitive solution? How are we going to convey our message? What's their decision process?

Present Propose - our chance to educate our client on the joy they will find in our products and services. No one wants to hear our company's history - no exceptions. What is our proof - how will they test drive our solution? Evaluation? When do we merely quote or do we prepare proposal? Shall we take the client to our ivory tower and inflict a headquarters visit? What is the competitive proposal?

Gain Commitment - what is our close ratio? How often do we get to this point in the sales process?

Implement Confirm - is the first step in adding a lifetime customer to our client list. We are just beginning what may become a profitable relationship with this client. How well do we do this?