What's Next?

You can't ask for next steps if you don't know what to ask for.

This is more than self-explanatory. Still, most of you can't articulate your sales process from beginning to end. Combine that with an effort not to appear "salesy" (I have big feelings about that term, too), and most of your sales cycles are dying on the vine. 

You sell what you sell daily, but your prospects might only buy what you sell once or twice in their career. The takeaway? They're begging you to lead them through the process. While they don't want to be told what to do, they need to be nudged in the right direction.

In the B2B sales space, the sellers who nudge the most effectively will win the most deals, while those who are either afraid or unaware of what to ask for will have hungry kids.

It all starts with knowing and believing in your sales process.  

I laid it out in the simplest terms this week on the podcast. There are only four big steps to the seller's process. While there may be several bullet points or activities within each of those steps, every sale takes the same shape.

You have to:

1. Identify who you can help

2. Get their attention

3. Communicate your value

4. Ask for next steps 

Every sales activity falls underneath these categories, and notice what is a whole step in itself- the "next steps" part. You need to know what they are, you need to ask for them, and you need to schedule them.

It's not a stretch to suggest that you could shorten your sales cycles by 30% if you did this. No new tactics or icky feelings, just an understanding of where to go and how to lead the way.

Selling's already hard. Don't make it more difficult than it needs to be.