Sales Success Requires a Tracking Process Part 2

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The focus of your selling cycle is to match the buying cycle of your customer. The first step the customer goes through is identifying that they have a need to solve a problem. Your sales force must identify the customer's problems before they can start their selling. Listening is an important attribute at this stage. By listening to what the customer says, types in an email, posts on a blog or a tweet, or places in printed material, you can learn plenty about your customers.

Once the customer has found that they have a problem, they gather information. During this stage of the buying cycle, specific information must be fed to the prospect. Too much irrelevant information forces the prospect to look elsewhere for a solution. The whole company can be involved in providing the right information such as product benefits and features, demonstrations, trials, customer support, referrals, etc. During this gathering stage, the desire for a solution builds within your prospects, as they want a solution. Experienced sales people will build upon that desire and direct it towards their solutions. Tracking the interaction with an automated tool will increase the efficiency of your sales process.

Knowing the buying cycle is paramount for success and you need to map this cycle to your unique customer. Some significant points to know about your ideal customers are:

• Industry
• Geographic coverage
• Size (revenue & employees)
• Company history
• Lifestyle
• Psychographic (Values)
• How do they buy?
• What problems do you solve for them?
• Who are their ideal customers?
• What are their key products?
• Who else sells to them?
• Why would they buy you over your competitors?

The more you know about your customers, the more you can please them during the buying cycle and after they have purchased your product. Knowing the correct information, you can follow up with them with the right information at the right time. Your touches to your customers will determine the relationship with them.
As you touch your customers, you need to understand who else touches them (departments and other employees in your company). In addition, it is important to know how and where the touches take place, and how these touches correspond to the buying cycle (need, information gathering and desire). Tracking this process is helpful for success, and today's automated tools can do just that.

You know your customer, you know their buying cycle, and you know what your company strategy is. The interaction between you and your customers is a series of touching and listening. Listening to your customers and prospects is getting more complex every day, as you must track what they are saying verbally as well as electronically (websites, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.). Do you have a process in place to listen to your customers? The more listening you do, the better you can touch the prospect and provide what they need and want. The goal is to create a great flow of the appropriate information to capture a larger share of your customers' wallets.

You need a proper tool to help you track your interaction with customer. History of message flow between you and your customers should be logged which will help you achieve your goal. A simple sales tracking tool like Sales Tracking Portal will help you greatly. Check out and register for free at its official website.

Article Source: Kenny Blog