6 steps to build an effective, detailed personal selling process

Many businesses focus on building an effective personal selling process to boost sales and dominate the market. In the article below, 1C Vietnam will introduce in detail 6 steps to implementing an effective personal selling process that businesses can refer to.

1. What is personal selling?

Personal selling is a form of direct communication between seller and buyer. In it, sales staff will use skills and knowledge to introduce products, persuade and build relationships with consumers to promote purchasing behavior.

2. Simple personal selling process helps increase sales quickly

Building a simple but effective personal sales process is extremely important for every salesperson. This process will help orient and carry out sales steps scientifically, allowing you to close more orders and increase sales quickly.

2.1. Step 1 - Research and understand customer needs

Before approaching, businesses need to clearly define their goals and build a portrait of potential customers. This is an important step in the personal selling process that helps businesses understand customers' needs, desires and behaviors, thereby providing appropriate marketing messages and strategies.

Companies should seek potential customers through channels such as telesales, advertising, personal relationships or referrals from old customers. From there, the business unit can sketch a customer portrait based on the following factors:

• Personal information: Age, gender, profession, job, current income,...
• Need: How does your product/service help them? Who is influential in their purchasing decision process?
• Behavior: Purchasing behavior, shopping channels, information search channels,...

2.2. Step 2 - Sources to reach potential customers

After preparing the potential customer file, businesses need to deploy activities to reach out and connect with buyers. Current popular approaches include:

• Take advantage of the business's available channels: Website, mobile app, telesale,...
• Take advantage of social networks: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, groups with high visits and interactions,...
• Run ads: Especially Google and Facebook ads.
• Take advantage of PR: Appear on newspapers, KOLs,...
• Marketing via Email Marketing, search engines.

In particular, the first impression is the most important factor that determines a customer's attitude toward a business. Therefore, to achieve the desired marketing results, each employee needs to pay attention to the following points:

• Use body language openly: Smile, confident and friendly voice,...
• Give appropriate compliments: Don't be too flattering, be appropriate to the context.
• Ask the right questions: Create good interactions with customers.
• Listen attentively: Understand customer concerns.
• Give sincere advice and useful information: Help solve customer problems.

2.3. Step 3 - Build relationships and trust with customers

In the personal selling process, businesses need to provide customers with accurate and transparent information about suppliers and product quality to build trust with customers. Specifically, sales staff should:

• List a list of reputable organizations and individuals that have trusted and used the business's products, helping customers see that the company's products/services have been verified by trustworthy individuals/organizations. trust.
• Enhance trust with positive feedback from customers who have used it.
• Be specific with numbers to demonstrate product development.
• Highlight special features that only the company's products have and compare them with competitors' products.

2.4. Step 4 - Introduce the product and provide solutions

Introducing a successful product/service is not simply about presenting its features, properties, and functions. Furthermore, to achieve this goal, sellers need to understand the psychology and problems that customers are facing and quickly provide support solutions.

Specifically, sales staff need to identify 4 main problems that buyers often encounter:

• Financial: Potential customers are paying too much for the product/service they currently use. Employees then need to prove that the company's products/services can help them save costs.
• Productivity: Target customers want to use their time more effectively for a certain product/service. Sellers need to show that their products/services provide outstanding features that help customers improve work efficiency.
• Process: Buyers want improvements to legacy sales processes that are complex and feature-less. Then, what employees need to do is emphasize that their product has a smart process and helps them significantly optimize their time.
• Support: Customers do not receive the support they want in the consulting and purchasing process such as quick delivery, card payment, etc. Sellers now need to present specifically and convincingly. about the services and incentives that businesses provide when buyers decide to use them.

2.5. Step 5 - Closing the order

Closing the sale is an important step that determines the success of the personal selling process. This is also the most difficult step that requires the skills and experience of employees. Therefore, to do it successfully, sellers need to pay attention to the following suggestions:

• When realizing that the customer is almost convinced, the salesperson needs to propose options related to closing the order, such as: "How much of this product do you want to buy?"; "What form of payment do you want? Cash, bank transfer or installment?"; "Do you want to receive the goods the same day or schedule another day?"...
• Employees can offer buyers a benefit to encourage them to close the deal, such as a coupon, a free month of service, etc.
• Sellers need to emphasize the urgency of time to create the feeling that consumers should act immediately, such as "This product/service is having an attractive promotion, only available today", " Quantity of products/services is limited, order quickly to not miss the opportunity"...

2.6. Step 6 - Monitor and evaluate customer satisfaction levels

The personal selling process goes beyond just closing a successful sale. In the next stage, businesses need to continue to monitor and support customers to retain, increase satisfaction and encourage them to return.

During this process, businesses can perform the following activities:

• Introduce new products/services that suit customer needs.
• Conduct surveys to further understand consumer needs and desires.
• Receive and resolve feedback.

3. Mistakes to keep in mind when building a personal selling process

To build an effective personal selling process, businesses need to avoid the following mistakes:

• Not completing each step before moving on to the next step: Each step in the sales process has an important role and needs to be done methodically. If one step is not completed, it will affect the next steps and reduce the efficiency of the entire process.
• Not clearly defining actions: Before building a personal sales process, businesses need to clearly identify customers, sales goals, sales methods, etc. This will help the company focus engage in necessary activities and avoid wasting time and effort.
• Use only one sales method: In the 4.0 technology era, there are many different sales methods, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. To sell effectively, businesses need to apply many different business models such as: combining online sales with traditional sales, or selling on e-commerce platforms with directly at stores.

Thus, building an effective personal selling process is a process that requires investment and effort from the business. However, when implemented properly, this process will bring great benefits to the company and help sales staff achieve high efficiency in their work. In addition, to update more useful information about corporate governance, don't forget to follow other articles on the 1C Vietnam website.