How to Scale with a Simple Sales Process

Serve Sell Close

There are three stages in any sales process; Serve, Sell and Close. The higher the price you charge, the more time you spend on each. Serve and sell consume most time and closing follows when you do them well.

The same three phases apply to Customer Experience. You serve your clients and earn the right to sell to them. This means closing more services, more users and higher prices. You also win references and referrals to serve, sell and close new clients.

At every stage you must avoid choice overload.

Choice Overload Effect

The more options people have the harder it is to decide. When they do decide, they are more likely to regret their choice, given all the alternatives. Your job is to make decisions easy and minimise regret.

Serve means giving before receiving. Do not be tempted to talk about everything your product offers. Focus on a value proposition that matters most to the buyer.

Sell means building the buy case. How does the product work, what are the logistics and who is it for? Who else uses it and why is it unique, which is when you show you’re the perfect person to deliver. Finally you introduce the investment, not the price or the cost.

Closing is a series of questions whose answers convince the buyer. Do not rush them or you risk losing a sale. Help buyers to visualise the pain relief and value for their business.

Do this by using the Peak-End Rule.

Peak-End Rule

You must master the buyer’s journey and its peaks and troughs. Buyers remember peaks so use them to your advantage. Once you have found the value for buyers, you move to close.

The transition from sell to close is through anchoring. As you run through your questions, the buyer sees the value compared to their investment. Then introduce a discount. The anchor is always above what you intend to charge.

Buyers remember the end of their experience as much as the peak. You must make sure this memory is upbeat. Congratulate their decision and send them a welcome message when the service starts.

Every interaction with clients requires a mini-version of serve, sell and close. Remind buyers of your value, before positioning your expertise and moving to the next step of the journey.

This applies to customer support as well as selling.

Experience and Upselling

At OTAS Technologies we offered investors 11 decision support tools. It was important to find the one that resonated with each buyer. As the users grew, we discovered short selling data was most popular.

The selling process involved a demonstration. We had multiple examples of the short selling data. This reinforced our value and how to extract it.

This single feature was enough to justify a purchase. The other ten tools were in effect for free. The closing process allowed buyers to realise this.

We applied the same process in post-sale training. One feature per session, starting with the most valuable. Ensure that users know how to extract value for themselves. Curiosity leads them to enquire about additional features.

We divided training into three. Multiple short sessions are better than one long one. You reinforce your message with examples.

Consequently, we built a user base who understood how to use our platform. They taught their colleagues and created additional demand. They provided references and referrals for more growth. The serve, sell, close system created a scalable sales process for the business.

How-to Exercises

The hardest part of the sales process is closing. This is when people commit to give you money. You must plan this stage and walk buyers through your process.

Use questions to do this. Start by serving, which means asking buyers to repeat the value proposition. You sell by asking them to say the benefit. The questions crescendo when there is no choice but to buy.

Write out ten questions to close your service. Here are three to get you started.

1. What do you see as the major benefits of this product?

2. What are the consequences if you do not solve your problem?

3. What will it be worth to your business when you solve your problem?

If you reply with your sample questions I’ll share my advice. I always start by serving.

I'm Simon Maughan and I write The Profit Elevator to guide small businesses to faster growth. Serve, sell, close is part of the Opportunity module in my P.R.O.F.I.T. Through Process programme.

If you found value in this letter, please share it with a colleague and a friend.