How Sales Process And Inbound Sales Strategy Differ From Each Other?

July 30, 2024

Have you ever wished for an alternative to the 10-step long old-school sales process?

It could be a tiring experience to follow time-consuming steps in today’s fast-paced sales world. Wouldn’t it be great if there would have been a more efficient way to sell?

An inbound sales strategy is an efficient approach to the traditional sales process, and it's hassle-free for both prospects and sales reps.

Want to know how? Let's dive in!

What is the sales process?

A sales process is a set of well-defined steps that a salesperson takes to convert a lead into a customer. The sales process is a stress-free approach that reps can follow to close more deals by following a standard yet customizable framework.

What are the stages of the sales process?

There are seven core stages of the sales process

Image: Flowchart of the sales stages mentioned below.

1. Prospecting

It's the first and most crucial step in the sales process. Salespeople recognize potential customers and systematically create ways to reach out to them to convert them into clients.

Following are the methods of prospecting.

Cold calling: In this method, sales reps approach any stranger who has the potential to become a client. It requires reps to thoroughly understand the prospect's pain points to create messaging tailored to meet their requirements.
Direct mail: It's an email sequence that contains flyers, infographics, postcards, coupons to entice the reader to take action.
Social media outreach: Connecting with the prospects on social media, engaging in a conversation with them.

2. Lead Qualification

Once you have recognized the lead, the following step is to qualify them. Lead qualification is a kind of confirmation from the potential customer by getting their email address.

Here's how it works:

You offer a FREE bait through the social media, website, landing page, ads. with a CTA(Call-to-action)
The potential buyer will show an interest and click on the CTA.
They'll need to enter their email address to receive the gift. Sometimes, a lead gen form could ask buyers to fill in necessary details.
That's your qualified lead because they've shown interest in your offering. They'll likely make purchases from you in the future.

3. Know the Customer

As soon as you're done with the lead qualification process, you need to pay close attention to lead behavior.

Observe:

What are their pain points?
What problem are they trying to solve?
What are their likes, dislikes, and interests?
What are their purchasing habits?
How's the buying psychology?

These details are vital for you to prepare the messaging to offer a product/service that helps them solve their problem.

4. Pitching

Once you've identified the prospects' pain points, it's time to present them with your unique offerings.

A sales pitch is a way to entice prospects to buy from you.

Here’s how you can write great headlines:

Address the problem.

Remember, the sales pitch is not about you; it's about the prospects. Make sure you address their most significant pain points, challenges, etc., because you have access to that data.

2. Provide the solution.

Mention your unique solution and how it can save them. Explain why your solution is the best in the market and why they should go for it.

3. Mention your Unique Selling Proposition.

Make your offer irresistible and exclusive with the help of USP(Unique Selling proposition)

5. Objections handling

Objection handling is about clearing out doubts from the prospect's mind regarding your product/service.

A sales rep needs to be patient and resilient while doing so. They should have the following major qualities
Situational awareness
Understanding prospect's current situations.
What are they going through? What's leading them to ask the kind of questions they are asking? Think about it.
Leading with empathy
Empathy is the best way to deal with prospects' objections. That presents you as a calm, strong, and confident person.

6. Closing

Finally, It's time to close the deal. Do not upsell or down-sell as soon you close the deal.

Keep the clients in the loop, and ask them questions regarding the projects. Let them know every single detail.

Recommended podcast: How to close more deals with effective negotiation?

7. Follow-up + Nurture

Closing the deal isn't the journey's end. You need to keep up with the clients and nurture them with email sequences, helpful guides, and freebies.

What is Inbound Sales Strategy?

An inbound sale is a modern approach to strategic selling.

It’s all about leading the prospects with value. Unlike the traditional sales approach, an inbound sales strategy is formed in a way that attracts prospects to your product/service.

“Value delivery is worth a prospect’s time. Pre-call planning helps to prepare for value.”- lisa magnuson

There are a set of steps that a salesperson needs to undergo before landing the prospects. Understanding prospects to the core, preparing a social media sales strategy, and customizing the messaging according to individual buyers’ needs. Salespeople need to become a part of different stages of the buyer’s journey.

How to make selling interesting at every sales stage?

What are the stages of Inbound sales strategy?

Recreate the below image

We have discussed different steps related to the traditional sales process.

Modern inbound sales strategy consists of the following steps.

Identify

In the identification phase, salespeople determine if the cold audience is liable to become a lead. The cold audience is the strangers who don’t have an idea regarding the product/service. They’ve just shown interest in whatever content is being fed to them. The main objective of this phase is to generate awareness among cold audiences.

The content through which salespeople grab a cold audience’s attention can include the following:

YouTube Videos
YouTube ads
Instagram posts
Instagram ads
Facebook posts
Facebook ads

Connect

The proceeding phase is the connection building phase where salespeople try to convert leads into qualified leads by providing them with a lead magnet. A lead magnet is a FREE bet targeted to the cold audience to convert them into leads.

It can be:

An eBook
A checklist
A cheatsheet

To receive the bet, the audience is asked to provide an email address. If the audience signs up or provides the email address, it means it’s a qualified lead. Now, you can introduce them to your product/service because they’ve already shown interest in the bait.

Explore

Congratulations! You've qualified for the lead. Now it's time to nurture them with the relevant content around your product.

It's content that's created to educate prospects regarding your product/service. It could be social media content, an email sequence, or FREE guides, including eBooks–especially the “How to's” where qualified leads turn into a customer.

It’s a consideration stage where the cold leads have been converted into warm ones and are about to make the product buying decision.

Advice

At this stage, salespeople, know everything about potential buyers. They know their pain points, challenges, and problems they’re trying to solve through the data salespeople have gathered in the “Connect” stage.

Now it’s time to trigger prospects to make the purchasing decision. It’s done by showing them content related to how you can solve their specific problem, content address include their specific pain points, and content that makes them want to buy your product.

It’s a decision-making stage for the prospects.

Want to improve your sales numbers?

Whether to begin with a Traditional sales process or an inbound sales strategy can be confusing.

To help you get started with the process, here’s a fantastic free resource to help you sell faster in 2022! It’ll help you pace your workflow and help generate more sales opportunities.

Read it and nail your quota this year!