Sales funnel is a very interesting approach in mapping the process of selling a product and it is being portrayed in several different ways across the users but in general, a sales funnel is a step by step process in a sale starting from the bigger end to the smaller end, leading to the complete sale of the product inclusive of sales process and sales strategy and involves several steps including marketing, product prices and so on.
So once a salesperson decides his sales funnel, he should be able to find a way to move through it flexibly. There might be situations where it might not work out according to the plan and there might be areas where the customers may make it a necessity to step out of the funnel plan, but it is essentially important that the sales person tries to stick on to the planned funnel and keep up the strategy.
Failing to do so, is a very common situation which every sales person is bound to face. Most importantly, focus must be put on the ways to manage the sales process when the situation is slipping out of the funnel design. There are several ways where this can be prevented and moved through. It might vary based on the situations and areas where attention is needed but in general, there are three important steps that can ensure major development in case of such slips.
Tip 1 : Stay on track – Maintaining the proper order is one of the most important strategy in any situation, be it a sale or a business process. Most situations in such cases needs to be in order. Mixing up of the order might be chaotic. For example, in a product sale process, it becomes absurd when a sales person quotes the price as the first point when describing a product. It is never a step to impress a customer in any way rather, To ensure a successful sale, marketing must be brought forward to make sure that the customer is given detailed awareness regarding the product and give them a confidence towards that particular purchase.
Even if the pricing is higher than their budget, there are times when the customer gets impressed by the ideas put forth by the marketing team and the pros that they would get to experience with the product in hand, they splurge in the extra rate to get the product without second thoughts. That is where sales strategy succeeds. So, it is for the best if the funnel process is taken in order so as to not result in any loss or deteriorate from the sales process.
Tip 2 : Main focus on customer – At the end of the day, it all leads to the customer satisfaction. There are some sales people, whose main focus moves to the profit rather than the aspect of what the customer is in need of. In such cases, there are issues. The main issues include customer dis-satisfaction, losing customers and decrease in product sale and none of this is good for the salesperson. On a business front, there is nothing wrong in focusing on the sales profit but it always good to set the priorities straight.
It is also important that during the entry level of the sales funnel, it is important that the marketing team executes a thorough discussion with the customer regarding the kind of features and requirements that they look forward to seeing in their final product. The pros and cons of certain aspects regarding the product should be noted and focus on the areas which the customer is skeptic about. This capability of the marketing person to provide the necessary assurance to the customer will be a great sales strategy.
Tip 2 : Improvising the standards of the product and process– Any area we take today, is never stagnant. Every process in this modern world, comes with evolution. We struggle, we learn, we implement, and we succeed. It is like a vicious circle, it keeps going on and on, with each improvement through and through. As far as the sales process is concerned, it is no stranger to this improvisation concept. To begin with the customer interaction, the internet has rightfully shrunk the world. So, giving the customer an opportunity to witness the features of the product from their location is something very important to make it easy for the customer.
The satisfaction is then witnessed on the progress of the sales. Simple communication means to simplify the process is very essential these days and stands to be one of the key sales strategies. Another notable example is the payment methods. In this fast world, the payment options have been made instant. So, introducing a popular payment gateway to simplify things will ease it out on the sales margin. These are two important factors that might frustrate the customer. Similarly, as far as the product is concerned, holding onto a design which was successful two decades ago is not going to help today. So the marketing team has to make it a point to keep themselves in line with the trend and also to make sure to stress on the prime position that the product might hold in the market.
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Like stated earlier, there are many situations which might need a push or a management necessity to rectify the flaw but the above explained three steps will always come in handy for a successful sales funnel management.