The Ultimate Sales Framework is a deep dive into the world of Value Ladders and Sales Funnels to help you grow your business leads and sales through a structured approach to the devlopment of your product or services based marketing and sales systems. It is worth understanding the basics of sales before you embark on this course.
Possibly the best place to start is to buy the book by Chris Batten, called Making Rain. You can get your copy directly through this site at a discount or if you prefer through most online book stores. Instead you may prefer to take advantage of this first chapter and continue with this introduction which will recap the main points that you will need to be aware of, such as the basics of any good sales process and the irrifutable golden rules of selling for any business. In this way you can ensure you are properly equipped to navigate effectively the remainder of this course. So let us get started with the sales recap.
Before you begin, understand the ten key rules for sales
Rule One – People n0t products
Buying and selling is personal and requires the potential buyer to be motivated to make the purchase, this will only happen when they feel like the most important person in the transaction, which of course they are. The best way to achieve this feeling in them is to be insere in your interest and concentrate on the person and not the product. Remeber the product is in existence to serve the person not the other way around.
Rule Two – People hate to obe sold to but enjoy buying what they want
As a general rule people hate to be sold to, but they certoanly enjoy the process of buying, when it is something that they want. So our only objective is to create an environment in which the prospect wants to buy and wants to buy from us.
Rule Three – Someone will always get their way, you decide who
When it comes down to it, someone will walk away the winner, it is your role to create a win, win and not a single winner. The best win, win is the client gets what they want and you get the sale, or progress further toward the sale. Focus on a positive outcome for all and remeber best advice is always the best advice.
Rule Four – Always be prepared
Whether you are personally selling you using sales funnnels to gain sales you should never go into a sales selling presentation without being fully prepared. The more prepared you are the better the outcome will be.
Rule Five – Friendship not salesmanship wins the day
You will always gain more by building relationships. More value is gained and more lifetime revenue is generated through friendship than salesmanship, ni matter how good you might be at selling.
Rule Six – Focus your intro on ‘Why’ not ‘What’
Whether you call it your elevator pitch or your icebreaker, you only get one chance to make the firast im pression and if you give off the wrong mesage it can take an age to win back the propsect. With that in mind I want you to focus on the your elevator pitch or headline and where possible make it entertaining and let it stand out from the crowd by being filled with the passion that comes from your ‘Why’, and filled with your differential that comes from your ‘How.’ Do not worry about your ‘What’ that will look after itself.
Rule Seven – Everyone loves a story
Get your prospect thinking in terms of already having the advantage of what you have on offer, by telling them entertaining and relevant stories. Stories can be more entertaining, more memorable and without doubt build better relationshiops and the desire to buy.
Rule Eight – Practice, practice and then practice
The skills you use in sales and the slkills you need in the construction of your sales funel content need to be top-draw, like a top- class sportsperson the more you practice the better you will get. Increase your activity to increase your practice and thgerefore your skill levels.
Rule Nine – Always close
The Close is not aggressive but a natural conclusion, regardless of what it might be. A Close can be the ultimate sale, but it can also be a referral, another meeting either way always Close.
Rule Ten – Control the journey
You decide on the cadence of the sale. Control the pace with open and closed questions, understand the difference and when to use them. When using funnels you have control of the pace through your content. Never shy away from experimentation. Sales funnels will never fail but the content might. Be prepared to make changes when they are needed.
The basic sales process – the building blocks of your funnels
While this has been a subject that has been written about by a plethora of experts over the years, you will soon see that throughout all the diffeent authors on this subject the basic sales process remains constant, with good reason, afterall if it works why change it?
The basic process will always revert back to these key elements, the language may differ but the purpose and outcomes are always the same. Here then is the basic sales process:
Prospecting (Marketing)
Know Your Client (The Factfind)
Identify & Confirm the Need (What are they looking for?)
Present The Solution (The Offer)
Handle Objections (Answer questions & Requests for more info)
Close the sale (ask for the business)
Consolidate the sale (follow-up actions, avoid the suprise)
The Next Step
Now that you have reminded yourself of the two corenrstones to quality sales in the fofrm of the ten rules of slling and the basic sales process it is time for us to begin the exploration into the world of Value Ladders and Funnels, you can identify them as sales or buying funnels either way they are designed to do the same thing. Namely attracgt the right people into your buying process and then convert them in to warm or hot customers.