STEP ONE is Find the Prospect. A prospect is defined as a potential
client who is likely to have a need for our products or services. For
instance, say you are in the jet airplane business. Are you going to go to
the local gas station to try and sell a corporate jet? Probably not.
Typically, local gas stations are not your best prospects for multimillion
dollar airplanes. There are good and bad prospects for any business or
salesperson, and an understanding of who the best prospects are and how to
find them is critical to excellent sales performance. So the first thing we
have to learn is the best way to go about finding the right people to talk
to about our products and services. 
STEP TWO is Find the Decision Maker. How many times have you
discovered, far into your discussions with a company you've identified as a
good prospect, that you are talking to the wrong person? You find out that
the president of the company makes all buying decisions, and you've spent
your time doing a needs analysis, presentation and proposal for the office
manager. Or maybe it's a branch office; you learn the decision is made in
Chicago, but your territory is Minneapolis. The point is, you need to do
some digging for information about your prospect before you make the initial
selling approach. 
STEP THREE is Arrange an Appointment. Before we can become actively
involved in the "selling" phase of our business, we have to be face to face
(or phone to phone, in the case of telephone-oriented sales) with the people
with whom we might develop a business relationship. In our zeal and
enthusiasm to accomplish this we sometimes might get on the phone and just
push people into seeing us. Have you ever been approached this way, either
in your business or at home? Remember when someone was overly aggressive or
even borderline unethical in pursuit of an appointment with you? How did you
feel? These manipulative, aggressive strategies are often unsuccessful, not to mention unprofessional. People slam down the phone or ask us to leave their reception area. It's very unpleasant. And it's unnecessary. There are positive things we can do to arrange appointments. There are some very effective opening statements we can use that will lead to or result in the potential prospect saying, "Sure, come on in, let's talk," without any further questions or an examination. There are creative, attention-getting approaches that will produce well-intentioned, well-positioned appointments. There are nonmanipulative techniques that will help us overcome the reflex resistance that we often face as salespeople.
STEP FOUR is Ask Questions and Listen. After we set the appointment,
our excitement builds. We have a prospect. We know who the decision maker
is, and we have an appointment. Unfortunately, this is a point in the
selling process where many salespeople go astray. Because of our excitement
and our comfort level with speaking about our products, our services and our
company, we may have a tendency to start telling our story too soon, before
we've earned the right to do so. Imagine you've been given the privilege of an appointment with the decision maker of a very, very good prospect for your products. Do you start off the conversation by telling her how great your products are, before asking questions about her company's situation? This would be like a doctor scheduling you for a heart transplant before he examined you or even asked you any questions. Would you want to work with that doctor? Of course not. Like a good doctor, a good salesperson needs to spend time asking the right questions. Our goal in Step Four is to probe for information about the decision maker's goals, the company, the current situation, unmet needs and the like, and then attentively listen to the answers.
STEP FIVE is Present the Solution. This is the point in the sales
process where we share those exciting stories with the prospect about how
many years we've been in business and why that experience may be important.
We may even present a list of satisfied clients or a testimonial letter that
we've received from someone in a business similar to theirs. We might say,
here is some information about my company, here's a corporate brochure that
explains our services, and finally, here's the product that I recommend
based on my analysis of your explanation of your situation. Everything is
moving along well during Step Five, and the stage is now set for the
successful completion of the business transaction and the beginning of the
client/salesperson relationship. 
STEP SIX is Ask for the Commitment. As odd as it may seem, many
potential sales are lost because salespeople do not come right out and ask
the prospective customer for the business. Many salespeople think that
closing the sale is the hardest part of the sales process. But it is only a
small, though important, part of the big picture, and it is really quite
simple. Understanding how people arrive at decisions and why they might not
be as willing to move forward is important knowledge and gives us key
insights into how to help people become involved with our products and
services.
We are providing that experience to you in the form of guides, tools, and templates to make your life a whole lot easier in achieving the revenues that will make your company best-in-class.
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carefully matched to the needs and objectives of our clients. At our core is
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