“I keep your LSP steps up on the wall in my office right over the phone and think about what step I'm on with every client on every call. Your class truly changed my life and I'll always be grateful!!

- Rick/Oracle

Love that comment for sure. So I want to review the LSP... as during my last assignment every sales issue the company was having could be solved by using the LSP. I am also including every back office sales issue too. Whether it be in the trenches or sales operations, by using the LSP all issues are solved and the end results is a lower cost of sales operations and more sales productivity for each and every sales person.

So in review...

The Sales Process (Logical Sales Process) Sales is rocket science. Just as in rocket science is built from a foundation of physical and mathematical laws and principles, sales can be distilled to its very simple laws and principles. While branded selling systems and approaches serve purposes the simple laws and principles underlying them all have remained relatively unchanged since the beginning of time. The fact is, you must start at the beginning and earn the right to proceed from one step to the other. Skipping any steps will in danger the success of your efforts and leave you frustrated over lost time and wasted effort. There is a proven methodology to sales success. Earn the right to proceed from one step to the other and your success rate will explode. Those steps are what I call the Logical Sales Process, and they include...

1. The Opening. This is where it all starts...or stops depending on your approach and techniques you use to develop a course for further discussion. This is where we start to build trust and a purpose for continuing discussion regarding the prospects business needs and goals. Many sales are lost right at this step. Don’t doubt me on this!

Objectives of this first steps are...

a. Put yourself and the customer at ease

b. Establish a professional image

c. Demonstrate a positive attitude

d. Establish rapport and trustworthiness

e. Achieve two-way communication

Understanding and developing the right relationships with customers is what successful selling is all about. Don’t be so much in a hurry to get down to business that you rush or skip this important step. The problem is trustworthiness isn’t established at all, yet the sales person is excited that they had a good call. Double efforts on this very first step.

So ask yourself, what strategies you can do in addition to what you are currently doing to enhance this step. Also think of the things you are doing that add no value at this step of the sales cycle, and stop doing them.

2. Creating Interest. The key to arousing the prospect’s curiosity is to offer a benefit of why they should continue the sales process with you. Every prospect has one big question in mind when a salesperson calls, “How can I benefit from listening to this person? Will I be wasting my time?” The objectives of this step are...

a. Justify further discussion

b. Generate desire for more information

c. Build credibility as a consultative sales person

This is the step where the prospects are feeling you may have a solution. Interest alone won’t make the sale, but without interest, no desire and without desire no sale. So we’re back to what separates you from your competitor. Do you really know? What is the new value you bring to the table? Is that value important to the prospect? Talk among your team. Write those on a white board and think about them, challenge them. You may discover a better and more effective way to articulate your value in terms your prospect will grab a hold of.

3. Questioning. The objective is to determine the priority of a prospect’s business needs, the financial impact of those needs so that you can construct and sell the right solution to meet those needs. Without a proven and dynamic method of questioning, you are left with little, if any information in which to help you solve customer’s business problems.

Your only alternative is to be delegated to peddling products, which offers you lower margins and a much lower closing rate. Ingenuity Sales Consulting believes this step may be where you have the greatest leverage to differentiate yourself from your competitor! These “Questioning” strategies allow you to get and understand critical business information needed in order to give your presentation the necessary business impact. Thus, the advantage and financial benefits become very clear and the business impact of those solutions understood. It all boils down to this. Everything after this step will depend on how well you execute the questioning step. Talk to your sales team about this. Think about opportunities you knew you had in the bag only to lose them in the eleventh hour and how by being discipline to the question stage you may have won those! What additional information would you have discovered that you could have used to fine your presentation, or separate yourself from your competitors?

IT’S WORTH HAVING THIS CONVERSATION WITH YOUR ENTIRE SALES TEAM.

4. Presentation. Objective of the presentation step is...to sell and idea, product or service which directly addresses the customer’s needs so that benefits (not the technology) may be discussed and qualified. It’s one of the most obvious, yet vital aspects of selling. Your presentation and how to put so much interest into that presentation will have your customer following you every step of the way. By the time you finish, your prospect will be ready to be sold! Feature-advantage-reaction question. Do not assume the prospect is connecting the dots. You have do that for them. I’ve see many solid deals go the other way during the presentation step. Practice before you present. This is not the time to improvise. Be thinking about who will be in the room, what they really want to hear, (most sales people don’t really know) and who will be doing the presenting? Think in advance of possible objections and block those in advance. In fact go review this step and the strategies which go along with the presentation.

5. Closing. What’s the difference between an order-taker and the professional sales person? Ingenuity Sales Consulting believes that the order takers simply “accept” the orders that buyers give them and professional salespeople “help” people buy. The next step becomes self evident to the prospect. Closing step objectives...

a. Obtain customer commitment to buy

b. Understand any customers concerns

c. Resolve those concerns

d. Sell a complete solution

6. Objections. By objecting, the prospect is participating in the sale and has told you something. This presents you with an opportunity for increased understanding and more effective tailoring of your sales presentation to the prospect’s needs. Objections are like a guidance system. The prospect is saying to you “Don’t go that way, go this way. Even though objections are listed as the sixth step, they can come at anytime during the sales cycle. The key is to recognize an objection when you hear one so you can handle it then and there. You don’t want an early objection to go and have it come up when you are closing. Instead of trying to say YES, go for a “NO”! Try this, after the presentation and answering all the questions your audience may have, ask...”So Mr. Prospect, do you see another solution getting you the results or outcomes as we can provide?” Do you feel like without our solutions you can get to where you need to be? “I teach this in my advance consultative selling class. The safety of saying “no “by a prospect is very powerful and offers a unique position for the seller. Try it. You will close more deals. Don’t mistake the above for solution selling, it is not. There may be many different solutions that solve a business problem. The question remains how do you know it is the best solution as determined by the prospect? The only way is a consultative sales approach using the above Logical Sales Process.

Steps to do next:

If you are looking for ways in which to increase your sales team effectiveness for the rest of 2021 review this with your sales team. Discuss, talk, review and of course practice. If you have questions, give me a call.

Have a great day selling.