When you know what matters to your customer, you increase the chances of making a sale.

In the previous article, we discussed the five stages of a sales pipeline.

We got emails from readers asking how salespeople and managers could structure their activities to navigate through these stages and effectively manage the sales pipeline and improve sales performance. 

We think that’s a good question. It’s one thing to know what should be done and another to know how to do it.

Many people know that they should become more productive at the workplace. Where they struggle is in knowing how to achieve this goal. Similarly, salespeople know that they must manage an opportunity or lead that enters the pipeline. From our experience, we’ve seen that where most of them struggle is in how to do it.

Here are ten questions your salespeople can answer to structure the end-to-end sales process for simple and complex sales alike.

1. What is the nature of the opportunity?

What data do you need for this opportunity? 

This includes the customer, your organization, your competition, the market scenario (is it booming or in a recession), and other environmental factors.

The information can be found from industry publications, public balance sheets, records of previous customer interactions, competitor analysis, and more.

Without this information, it’s almost impossible to gauge the size of the opportunity and the effort that pursuing it will require.

2. Is the opportunity qualified?

Does this lead meet the criteria of our prospects and customer?

This includes aspects ranging from customer size to budget, need for product, urgency, geographic location, the cost to service, and more.

This information can be gained from the data collected in the above point and from speaking to the customer.

Without formal criteria to qualify your opportunities, the sales team could try to sell to everyone in its attempts to meet sales numbers, and this could backfire with undesirable results like unrealistic customer experience, returned goods, late payments, and so on.

Everyone is not your customer. It’s essential to set formal criteria to identify your customer segment

3. Who are the participants in the buying process?

On the buyer’s side, who are people that can influence the decision of the sale?

In the B2B space, the stakeholders can be more than just the purchase manager or CXO. They will mostly include actual users of the product or service as well. In the B2C space, while the male might buy the product, the final decision maker could be the woman in the family.

Without considering this, your salespeople could end up pitching the sale to the wrong audience.

4. What is important to them?

Now that you’ve identified the key participants in the sale, what are their most pressing needs?

Is it an improvement in efficiency and productivity so that they can spend more time on critical tasks? Is it peace of mind by taking care of the family’s needs? Is it the aspiration for a more comfortable lifestyle? It’s important to note that these points should be about what the customer wants, not what the business thinks the customer wants.

Only by identifying these can you align the sales process to address the real needs of the buyer and increase your chances of making the sale.

5. Who is the competition?

What do your competition offer, terms of product, delivery, and service?

It’s important to focus more on the customer, but one cannot ignore the competition. Knowledge of the industry gives you an edge if you offer something that competition doesn’t or highlight something that the competition doesn’t even if it provides the same thing as you, but the buyer doesn’t know.

6. What are our competitive strengths and weaknesses?

Where do you stand compared to the competition in fulfilling customer needs?

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