Inbound Selling has become something more and more salespeople and marketers are talking about. It has crept into our vocabulary as something that effective sales reps need to be doing..
So what is Inbound Selling? Most definitions iterate that its the process of selling, uniquely matched to the way consumers/businesses buy. Sounds easy enough right? Let's dive into the process itself
I found the above image from non-other than HubSpot's sales blog, and I think its a great depiction as to what the Inbound Selling process looks like, step-by-step.
- Identify
Finding potential prospects is really where the sales process begins, and makes a huge difference if done correctly. All too often I speak to sales professionals who are just not focusing on this step before they pick up the phone or send an email. If we don't define what makes a quality customer, we don't have any direction as to who is a good fit to call in the first place. Inbound prospecting as I like to call it, is a great way to identify good fit prospects, and engage them in our Inbound Selling process. Ensure you have a targeted approach by defining an ideal fit customer, using things like company size, industry, B2B/B2C, persona, etc.
- Connect
Ok so now you have that "Ideal Client Profille" built out, and maybe even built out a target list of prospects who fit the criteria. Great! Now what? Research, research, and more research. I am not saying you need to write a 20 page thesis on everything you can gather about the company, but it makes a huge difference if you learn what you can about the industry, your specific contact, and the business overall. Take a look at their website and identify areas you think they could improve on. Come up with some suggestions of how you can help, generate and write down some positiuoning statements. The idea here is to customize your outreach and treat every prospect like a human. This post by Pete Caputa, Inbound Selling leader, is an awesome one to reference here.
- Explore
I think this step is the most important part of the Inbound Selling process, and something that truly differentiates this sales process from the "old school" ways. A lot of salespeople focus on nailing their pitch, but really the focus needs to be on asking the right questions to diagnose and understand. This step is all about asking what the prospects goals are, what challenges they face, and how you can help them connect the two by providing value. Budget also needs to be a part of this conversation to set expectations. It is less about your product/service, and all about what their initiatives are. I like to say that in this step you want to act as an outside business consultant, going in to truly understand all of their business aspects and where there may be a gap.
- Advise
This is where we connect everything we have learned so far, and turn it into an actionable plan. Recap their goals and challenges, make your final recommendations as to the plan to achieve them. Lay out how you product / service is directly tied into that plan and ensure they understand the value add compared to the budget. Ensure your prospect understands the plan you have discussed, and come together with a timeline meeting their expectations.
As you can see with the above steps, Inbound selling is all about matching our sales process to the way our prospects buy. By learning everything we can about their business, goals and challenges, we can reccommend a helpful plan to help them. And in 2016 and beyond, sales is all about helping.
