The Inside Sales Process – A Step By Step Guide
In this guide, you’ll learn the inside sales process that has worked absolute wonders for our Students and Sales Professionals all around the world.
Learning and following a sales process would have to be the most important thing you’ll ever learn in sales, because it’ll deliver something you’ll need to thrive in selling.
And that thing – is consistency.
Read on to learn our inside sales process sales process, and how you can implement it into your sales strategy.
The Benefits Of Using An Inside Sales Process
Also known as a sales formula or sales framework; the sales process is key to consistently succeeding in sales.
The benefits of using an inside sales process include:
- It creates a system; allowing you to close sales like a road map
- Certainty – for both you and your potential clients
- It allows you to control the process and conversation
By following an inside sales process, you’ll be a lot more confident while talking to potential clients, because you won’t have to worry about what to say next, what to ask, or what you should do next to move the sale forward.
Related article: What Is Inside Sales? – Your Ultimate Guide
The Inside Sales Process – A Step By Step Guide
Below is a more detailed breakdown of the inside sales process:
Rapport
The first part of any sales conversation, as well as the inside sales process is building rapport with your potential clients.
Without building rapport, your potential clients won’t feel comfortable disclosing anything and your sales conversation won’t move forward.
Rapport is important because people buy from people they like and trust.
By building rapport, you’ll be able to ask deep diving questions that can ultimately lead to a buying decision.
Related article: A Guide To Building Sales Rapport
Qualifying
The second part of the inside sales process, is qualifying your potential clients prior to going into a deep dive sales conversation.
Many Sales Professionals make the mistake of speaking with people they think are potential clients – but are not qualified to either afford their product or service or make a buying decision.
By qualifying people early, you’ll save a lot of time, energy, and money.
The qualifying framework to add to your inside sales process, is borrowed from an acronym called BANT.
Originally designed by IBM, it’s an easy to remember framework to remember what you need to ask to qualify your potential clients correctly.
BANT stands for:
- Budget
- Authority
- Need
- Time frame
Further reading: BANT In Sales – How Does It Work?
Pre-Framing
The third segment of the inside sales process, is what makes our sales process very different from the others out there.
We teach something called a pre-frame.
The deep diving sales conversation you will have with your potential client, is called the frame.
You’ll have the opportunity to ask questions, and ‘frame the conversation’ in a way which will ultimately lead to a decision being made – either proceeding with a sale or deciding you may not be the right fit for one another.
The pre-frame is the conversation you have prior to the frame; in this case, it is what’s discussed prior to going into your deep dive sales conversation.
During the pre-frame, you want to cover three important things:
- Ensure all decision makers are present
- Let them know that you’ll be asking a lot of questions, to work out whether you can in fact help and serve them and their needs
- Give them comfort that at the end of the conversation, it is more than OK to say no if they’re not interested. Also let them know that many people use the “I need to think about it” as a way of covering for no. By giving them comfort, they’ll be more transparent.
The reason the pre-frame is key, is for two reasons.
Firstly, you’re removing two core sales objections up front – the I need to think about it objection, and I need to speak to objection.
Secondly – you’re getting permission to ask deep diving questions, which is the next part of our inside sales process.
Using a pre-frame will be a game changer for your business and overall sales process, because you’ll get to the underlying truth faster than using a traditional sales methodology.
The Key To A Successful Inside Sales Process? – Questions
The most important part of the inside sales process, as well as your overall ability to close more sales, – is the art of asking the right questions.
At The 5% Institute, we emphasise the importance of asking questions because we believe in using a consultative sales approach.
By asking the right questions – you’ll be able to help guide your potential client toward the sale and help them sell themselves on the need for a solution.
During your inside sales process sales conversations, we recommend asking the following question examples:
- Finding pain
- Learning about their ideal outcome
- How they make buying decisions
- Why they’re speaking with you
- How long they’ve had their issue
We’ve written numerous articles on questioning and question categories, and recommend you read them to learn more. Check out the linked articles below to find out how.
- Sales Probing Questions
- Open Ended Sales Questions
- 10 x Questions To Ask A Potential Client
- 5 x Closing Questions To Win More Sales
An important note: finding pain is one of the most important ingredients for your questions and inside sales process.
This is because if you can’t find friction or any issues with their current situation – they won’t need to make a change.
The article below details how to do so effectively, without being pushy or breaking rapport.
Further reading: Pain Points & Sales – Your Ultimate Guide
Discussing Money
Discussing money is another important part of the inside sales process, because you can use the discussion to build monetary value around what a solution for their problem and pain points will mean.
When you’re discussing money, you ultimately want to understand two important things:
- What is it costing them by having these issues? Learn the financial and personal impact of what the pain points mean.
- How much would they pay to fix it, and have a solution?
Discussing this here makes asking for the sale, and your closing questions a breeze.
Presenting
Once money has been clearly discussed, the next stage of the inside sales process is presenting your solution.
Many Sales Professionals handle presenting incorrectly and do something we call ‘premature presentation’.
As per our article in Entrepreneur, premature presentation is when you present your product or service prior to understanding what they need solved and hope that something you say sticks and resonates.
This spray and pray method are outdated and won’t help your closing rate.
Instead – when you’re presenting your product or service, we recommend you do so by prescribing it to their pain points and demonstrate how each of their problems will be solved with specific features and benefits you have.
Using a prescription approach as a specialist would, will align you as a trusted adviser, rather than just another salesperson trying to make a quick sale.
Handling Objections & Closing
Finally, the last stage of the inside sales process is handling their areas of concern, and asking for the sale.
Although many people advocate using word tracks and sales scripts, we recommend not using either.
Instead – we recommend using a simple and easy to remember objections framework.
The framework is:
- Listen carefully
- Repeat back the objection, and ask them to expand
- Validate the area of concern
- Re-frame the concern
- Confirm you’re on the same page
To learn how to do this in detail, read the article here to find out how.
Once you’ve handled all their areas of concern, simply ask if they’d like you to help them achieve what they intend to have solved and have them sign any agreements you may have in place.
Final Thoughts On Our Inside Sales Process
The inside sales process is a great framework to use to close more sales, because it gives you consistency, as well as an easy to follow road map.
By following the inside sales process, you’ll lead your potential clients on a journey and positive sales experience, rather than position yourself as just another salesperson or commodity.
The sales process is the most fundamental, and important thing to master in sales if you wish to close consistently.
If you’d like to learn about our sales process in more detail, you can join the 7 Day Sales Challenge for free here.
Want To Close Sales Easier?
Are you committed to closing sales a lot easier, and consistently?
If so, you should check out our self-paced and affordable online sales training program; The 5% Sales Blueprint.
It’ll give you everything you need to close sales consistently.
To learn more, simply click on the link below for more information.
Our Online Sales Training Program – The 5% Sales Blueprint.
