How to Optimize Your UCaaS Sales Process
- April 15, 2020
- Author: Keith Young
Do you have a sales process? Is it time to optimize your existing UCaaS sales process?
Even though companies with a clearly-defined sales process generate 18% more revenue, about 90% of sales reps don’t follow a formal sales process.
UCaaS sales are unique. You rarely – if ever – meet the buyer in person. Typically, your process involves prospecting, nurturing leads, and closing sales remotely.
A thoughtfully-designed step-by-step process for your entire team can increase your sales.
Why is a UCaaS Sales Process Important?
A sales process doesn’t have to be complicated. It’s not a to-do list. It’s simply a defined course of action followed by the people who work in your business.
An optimized UCaaS sales process equips your business to generate sales consistently. This happens because the sales process empowers your staff which leads to greater customer satisfaction.
A standardized sales process also gives you the ability to accurately measure and forecast performance. By evaluating the effectiveness of each stage in your process, you can continuously improve on the performance of your team and increase sales.
A Simple UCaaS Sales Process
Keep your sales process simple. It should be easy for your salespeople to follow. The more complex it is, the harder it is to stick to, resulting in inconsistencies.
A typical UCaaS sales process looks something like this:
1. Know your target market
Who is your ideal customer? If you don’t understand exactly who has a need for what you offer, it’s difficult to sell to anybody.
Define your target market by figuring out what solutions and benefits your business provides. What problems do you solve? Then create an ideal customer profile including their budget.
Without this first step, everything else in the process will be less effective.
2. Prospect & generate leads
Find out where your ideal customer spends their time. Where are the people who need and want what you sell?
Then learn how best to connect with them. This involves marketing. Develop a solid content marketing strategy.
Don’t leave lead generation to chance. Make a plan.
3. Qualify your leads
You don’t want to waste valuable time on a lead that’s not going anywhere. Your sales process should help you determine if a lead is actually a potential buyer.
This part of the process might include a series of questions to get answers to. You might ask your leads about their goals, challenges, needs, budget and timeline.
4. Convert leads into customers
Lead conversion involves presenting your product and service, handling objections, and finally, closing the sale.
Educate your sales team on how to effectively present the benefits of your product. Teach them how to handle common objections. A solid understanding of this part of the process will equip your salespeople to close more sales.
5. Onboarding & retention
With UCaaS sales, the initial sale is only the beginning. Your goal is to keep your customer long term.
Be sure your onboarding process is simple and smooth for the customer. Then find ways to nurture your relationship with them for increased customer satisfaction. This can lead to referrals, too.
4 Tips for a Quicker Sales Process
It’s easy to complicate your sales process. Here are a few tips to help you keep it simple.
- Avoid offering discounts. They add complexity by creating unique deals. It can be argued that discounts also show prospects that you’re not confident enough in your product to charge them full price.
- Shorten your sales cycle. Time is money. The faster you can close a sale, the more profitable it is. Do this by shortening demo times, for example.
- Address concerns and take action steps immediately. Help your prospect take the next step right away rather than scheduling a bunch of follow-ups.
- Ask your prospect what it will take to get the deal. Find out what’s standing in the way and address it.
How to Optimize Your Sales Process
The key to an optimized sales process is analysis and measurement. By evaluating what worked and what didn’t, you can make effective changes to improve your performance.
Without a sales process, it’s difficult to pinpoint where the weak points of your process lie.
Find ways to measure the effectiveness of each stage in your process. Here are some ideas:
- Target Market – Are the leads you’re generating aligned with your ideal customer profile? If not, maybe you need to clarify your target market and better communicate it with your team.
- Lead Generation – How many lead connections are your salespeople making in a day/week/month? How many of those leads convert to sales? Which methods of lead generation produce the most sales? Is your marketing aligned with your sales presentation?
- Lead Qualification – How many leads are becoming customers? Where are the most qualified leads coming from? Your salespeople can make the best use of their time by conducting an effective sales discovery exercise. What does that look like for your business?
- Lead Conversion – Where are you losing your leads? If it seems your numbers drop after a demo, for example, maybe it’s time to improve your demo presentations.
- Onboarding & Retention – How long are you keeping your customers? At what point do they tend to drop off?
Additionally, you might want to track the cost of making a sale. Each stage has a cost. Find out where it’s best to invest.
The length of making a sale matters, too. Again, time is money. What stage takes the longest? How can you shorten it?
Measuring your sales process requires tools that allow you to track each stage in some way. But don’t forget about the most powerful tool: Ask your customers.
You can ask your customers questions at each stage of your process to learn where you can make improvements. This will tell you directly what worked and what didn’t. Let your customers educate you.
Support for Your UCaaS Sales Team
At UnitedCloud, supporting our partners’ sales team is a key part of what we do. We provide our cloud phone resellers with a full suite of integrated tools – including a comprehensive library of custom-branded print marketing assets – to help you through the entire UCaaS sales process.
Find out more about our Partner Program to boost your business.
