1. Document Your Sales Process

I was recently providing business consulting for a firm that was having trouble converting client prospects into paid clients. Clients were calling and inquiring online for the services, but these customer interactions weren’t being converted into successful sales.  

After we sat down and talked about the sales process, we discovered that there wasn’t a documented sales process that the inside salesperson would follow. This was creating confusion for the salesperson and the customer.  

After we worked through what the issues were, we defined what the ideal customer process would be like, and defined each stage of the customer journey, from the initial inquiry to the customer paying for the service.  

We formalized the process by developing a process map, put it on the salesperson’s desk so they had a template to use every time a customer called, and then we tested out the process to see how it worked. After the first few tries, we made a few tweaks to the process, and the business was already converting more clients into successful sales.  

Why? Because having a well-designed process allows you to:

  1. Understand how your prospects buy your product or service, enabling you to deliver the right information at each stage in the sales process and
  2. When you know what information to provide at each stage, you can find tailored solutions that your clients are willing to pay for.  

It’s a similar concept as when you go to a restaurant, generally knowing what kind of food you want, but not being able to pick an exact dish and asking for a recommendation from the server. Based off the insight that you provide to the server (i.e., the server will ask if you like spicy or savoury, hot or cold, etc.) the server can usually provide a recommendation that you pay for, simply based on your insight.

This is an easy and effective way to convert more customer prospects into paid customers.   

2. Constantly Ask for Feedback from Your Customers  

There’s a quote by Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, where he states,

“If you’re truly obsessed with your customers, it will cover a lot of errors.”

This quote rings true for all businesses, small, medium or large.  

It’s true. If you don’t obsess over what your customer wants, how do you expect to be able to provide a product or service that a customer even wants?  

How do you understand what the customer wants? You ask for feedback.  

This quote reminds me of the software development world, where developers and designers will often produce hundreds or even thousands of iterations of a software application or product before they finally get it right and officially launch to the marketplace. Think about something like Facebook. All the fancy buttons, such as the “like” button that everyone loves, were added over time based on feedback from the end users and the customers!  

Why? Because each iteration of the software product changes based on customer feedback until a standard and scalable product is created.  

Your business is no different. After every sale, ask for some customer feedback:  

“What did you like about my product or service?”

“What could have been improved?”  

The above are two simple non-intrusive questions, and they are all you need to get the feedback you’re looking for.  

Always use the insight from your customers to improve the products and services you offer. Just like in software development, always have that continuous improvement mindset to improve the experience for the customer.  

As Bezos says, this will cover a lot of errors.