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Back to the pavilion – You know I am sales a professional, I cannot hold myself to write on sales, last time I thought to give break on sales articles and I shifted towards management side, But I realized that I will not be able to take my breath properly –Lol- Then I suddenly took my laptop and start writing on sales – Now it’s good now my fan club that I am feeling better now – Lol – Don’t worry , I am now back with one of my favorite topic of sale – Sales Call procedure .
Before moving ahead to the body of topic, let me clear one thing that sales call is known as with many titles in different companies.
- BCP – Basic call procedure
- 7 steps of call
- 8 steps of call
All enlisted titles will contain same content – Hopefully you will not get confuse in titles.
Concept
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What steps you can follow to pitch your sales and close the deal successfully. When a sales rep will go to a shop to offer any of its product to the customer then randomly he/she can go and offer to the shopkeeper – now there is a probability that a very deal can be successful or not – but if s/he will follow some steps during his/her sales pitch then chances of success of that call is very high. Let’s see those steps of call step by step.
Let jot down 7/ 8 Steps of calls first:
1- Preparation / Initial contact
3- Store Check
One of the Youtube user has uploaded a best video regarding steps of call - please find below great video:
Video credit : Chiao Ruo Chai via Youtube
Preparation / Initial call
Preparation carries different concept with itself – preparation for customer / shopkeeper, and as well preparation of your personality. When any SR will be moving to its route then h/she has to wear neat and clean dress and polished shoes, so that customer must feel comfortable in dealing with the sales rep.
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After that s/he must carry day planner, SFO for order punching and list of customers for that particular route and available stock position that s/he has to book. After all of these formalities now comes the preparation for customers / account, that includes many questions like;
· How do you find your lead / customer ?
· How they find you ?
· How much you know about them ?
· How you contacted them ? Are they new or repeated customer ?
· Research something regarding customer’s business
· Customer’s financial muscles
· For customer have you brought broucher, marketing material or sales offer ( Trade offer or sales scheme)
· Before meeting customer have you clearly set the objective of sales call
· What output you are expecting from the sales call
· And what would be next step of sales call!
Simply first step is also called as prospecting – In sales call you have to differentiate between a sales lead ( new customer ) and repeated customer , because sales dealing with both accounts will be different.
Greeting – Introduction
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In the first step you have identified the prospects- your account or shopkeeper, in this stage you have to meet your customer in order to welcome him/her. In greeting part you need to first open the window of communication with your customer, that communication window can only be open when you will find that your customer is qualified for the business – This greetings part can be further extended when you will ;
· Know business similarities between you and the customer
· Customer interest
· Speak less and listen more ( Almost 80% of your time you have to listen your account and 20% time you can speak)
· Listen business challenges of your customer
· Ask any support he/she is in need from the company
Through this way you will be able to get to know the customer’s business and its need. It is mostly said that you can judge your account, that whether s/he is interested in your business or not starting from this part of BCP ( Basic call procedure ) , warm welcome by the Shopkeeper will make you feel that s/he is willing to invest in your products or not. That’s why this part of the BCP is given high priority in sales call.
Store Check
Image credit : Screenshot via Youtube video
Store check refers to the stock check and shelf check. When you are done with greetings then here comes the store check of customer. For sales order this is necessary for you to go with this step, without this step you cannot generate ample amount of sales. In retail shop order could be generated through just shelf check but when you will visit wholesaler or large mini market store then surely you have to check store a well – because they keep their stock in Store. In nutshell for order generation, shelf and store check both are significantly important.
Merchandising:
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After the store and shelf check, in mean while sales rep has to engage him/her self in merchandising of product as well – merchandising simply represent the presentation of product at their most suitable location. Through merchandising sales rep has to create most contacting points for the customer to purchase your product.
In merchandising there come hanging display of product (Sachet SKUs of product) and shelf merchandising – Both are important to display for sales point of view. When sales rep will go for merchandising then products will be displayed and store will get down in inventory then you can ask your accounts then here is the need of these SKUs which are short in inventory, then sales order can be generated in good amount.
Review Objective:
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When any SR will leave his/her office then surely s/he will start the day with some objective of a sale a particular account. That objective may be of generating amount of sale or selling some newly launched SKUs or anything else, after completion of store check and merchandising now SR will review the objective again, whether to stuck up with same objective or need some alteration into it.
It may be like, you thought of selling Rs.5000 to that account after merchandising and store check that objective of sale can be Rs.6000 or Rs.4000 depends of situation.
Presentation and Close:
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After review of Sales Objective, now SR will start his/her sales pitch and start presenting to the accounts regarding sales offer. In presentation SR will inform the accounts regarding sales offer, company’s initiative, trade offers on brands and will give range sales all. In this stage of Sales call SR should make sure that s/he is not only generating Sales but also focusing on availability of all SKUs of each brand – that’s called as range selling as well in sales terminology.
In presentation part your actual sales pitch gets out - range selling , distribution of brands, shop productivity and SKUs availability are also integral part of presentation that you have to actually cover in your sale call and only way to throw best sales call is to focus presentation part.
Record and Report:
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In this stage SR has to note down all the formalities of accounts like sales order, his issues with companies, his claims or anything that is important for accounts to be addressed later on. After getting the idea from customer and recording all formalities , it is important to address those issues and matters with your Line Manager as well .
Because If the customer issues' and matters will not be given high value and should not be taken up with serious attitude for resolving purpose then there are great chances that you loose your customer in next visit
Call analysis:
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In last stage of call SR will analyze whether his sales call went perfect according to the objective or no, if not then what mistakes s/he has done during call that can be improved later on on next account.
I am sure if any SR will follow all these steps during sales call then surely his or sale generation from any customer will be skyrocketed comparatively than a normal sales call. Apart from all these steps, following video lecture must be viewed by SR in order to improve sales skills ;
Video credit : Victor Antonio via Youtube
See you soon in next article , Happy reading !
Thanks,
Lagharyy.
