Developing solutions for your Inbound sales process starts with the understanding that buyers can research anything at any time. Buyers today have more access to information than ever before. This means that your sales process needs to align with the information your buyers already have access to. Today, we will be exploring the solutions for developing your Inbound sales process.
Why is inbound sales important?
Inbound sales is about aligning your sales process with the needs of your buyers. Inbound sales save you time and money and help you in working with more qualified leads. Consider this Hubspot article on inbound sales methodology . An effective Inbound sales strategy develops a sales process that supports the prospect throughout their buyer’s journey. The buyer’s journey consists of awareness, consideration, and decision stages, Inbound sales are about educating your prospects and gaining their trust while they are in the information-seeking stage of the buying cycle. The goal is not to push your solution or product on the prospect. Instead, you want to prioritize the buyer’s need to make an informed decision. With Inbound sales, your team should be focusing their time on how to convert prospects into qualified leads. We will cover how to identify leads in the following section. When a prospect expresses interest in your message, you can transition them into what is called the discovery mode. This is where you learn about the lead’s goals or challenges to assess whether they are ideal for conversion.
Why identify quality leads?
Identifying prospects within your target market increases the number of quality opportunities you will be able to identify. This also increases the productivity of your sales team since most of their time will be spent searching for leads that more closely fit your ideal customer profile. To learn more about the ideal customer profile consider this article. The quality of the leads matters more than the quantity of the leads. You need to identify what sets your organizations apart from the competition. When you are identifying your target market, you should include these criteria: 1) a prospect who understands what a conversion on their website looks like, and 2) a prospect who can generate enough revenue to support the professional services you offer (for example, targeting small businesses with at least $3million in annual revenue), 3) a prospect who sells something that involves a considerable purchasing process such as businesses that sell to other businesses who are selling more complex products or solutions. If your prospect falls short in any of these criteria, it is likely they will not be a good fit for your business. It is unlikely that all your prospects will fit perfectly into your criteria, so look for prospects that are worth pursuing. Once you have identified your target market, you can begin to conduct research for more prospects, consider this article for information on conducting research.
How do you run a discovery call?
If a prospect has shown interest in learning more about your product or service, the next step is to schedule a discovery call with them. The goal of the discovery call is to learn more about the prospect’s challenges they are looking to solve. Make sure you talk about the prospect’s goals and identify that they currently do not have a good solution to achieve their goals. For more information on discovery calls, consider this video. You want to share a plan that then fits with the prospect’s timeline. You want to discuss how your product or service can help them achieve their goals or overcome their challenges. The final step of your discovery call is to understand the budget of your prospect. This can go beyond the financial cost to implement that plan and can include time and human resource investments.
Remember the goal of Inbound sales solutions is to increase your probability of closing more opportunities for your business in a more effective way. If you need help with your Inbound sales solutions you can always reach out to me for a conversation.
