Sales is often the backbone of your company, it helps grow your business, increase brand awareness and is a great sign of overall health for your company.

A strong understanding of the sales process benefits your clients, your business and your team in many ways.  Being able to walk a client through the buying process in an easily understandable and cohesive way is an excellent way to build trust with them. 

A strong sales understanding is crucial to making sure that you can sell the right product, to the right person, at the right time.

Below is a summary of many of the things I learned while taking this course, I hope you find some great value in it, just as I found when I took it.

What is inbound selling?

Inbound is all about providing a helpful, human and holistic experience to anyone who interacts with your company in any way.

Likewise, the inbound sales model is one that is customer-centric and focuses on providing value and building trust with potential customers. Instead of pushing sales onto consumers, inbound sales allows them to come to you by offering valuable content, insights, and solutions.

Inbound sales transforms the selling process to meet the empowered buyer where they are using a personalized, empathetic approach.

Inbound Sales Model:

Awareness – During this phase the buyer has identified a pain point they are currently experiencing and they want to know a solution for it, and what that solution looks like.
 

Consideration – In this phase, a buyer will fully understand their issue, and will begin to pursue different avenues in order to find a solution.
 

Decision – During this phase the buyer will choose their desired solution to their issue. Hopefully it is our solution! If we have successfully connected with them, explored their options, and advised them on what would work best for their solution.

Below is a graphic that shows both the buyer and seller journey.

Key Takeaways:

Always Listen:

Listening is always important, especially when you are really trying to understand someone’s pain point.  If you do not fully understand their issue, you will not be able to confidently suggest your solutions to it.  By listening to everything the buyer says, you set yourself up for success.  By being personable with them, listening to them, and truly getting to know them as a person, as well as intimately understanding the issue they are facing, you will be able to provide the best advice, and solutions for them.

Positivity Rules:

In the words of Dwayne The Rock Johnson:

“It is nice to be important, but it is important to be nice”

Positivity should be the wind in the sails of your selling.  Having a great attitude with your team, clients, and anyone else who interacts with you will really help you to connect with those around you.  I have always naturally leaned towards positivity, and no matter what I face, I always try to take it on with a smile, and an attitude that focuses on the good in every situation.
 

Buyer Persona:

On the more analytical side, a buyer persona is a very important part of both selling, and marketing.  Here is hubspots definition of a buyer persona:

“A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal buyer based on data, interviews, and some educated guesses. It’s essentially a definition of your ideal buyer”

Having a buyer persona is helpful in many ways, it helps cater your marketing and selling efforts to the right people, and it also helps put a bit of a face to those you are trying to sell to.  Putting together an accurate persona, or multiple personas can be a great way to help make sure you are focusing your energy on the right places and people.

Inbound vs Outbound Sales:

Inbound sales focuses on attracting leads to you, and focusing heavily on their needs and desires.

Outbound selling often focuses on outreach to those in your field or around you, even if those people or businesses may not have expressed much interest in your products. 

All in all, the inbound approach to selling is significantly more buyer focused than outbound.  It focuses on their needs, what pain points they have, and how you and your company can help them deal with those things.  One of our main beliefs here at Kehren Development is that business is personal.  Our goal is to keep business personal.  And this course really reaffirmed that idea, and showed that when you are personable, positive and buyer focused, you will ultimately be led to success through those things.