Sales as a Feedback Channel for Product Managers

The role of sales in product development is critical. Product managers must have a thorough understanding of how their products are sold in order to be successful.

What is the definition of a sales cycle?

A sales cycle is a sequence of activities or stages that happen when a product is sold. Product managers should have a good knowledge of the sales process in order to assist the sales team. And at the same time be able to take the on-ground feedback and bake it in their product roadmaps (and prioritize basis their RoI). There are seven steps involved in the sales cycle:

• Recognising the prospects and capturing the leads

This comes first in any sales process, and sales associates must be well trained on the company’s products so that they could easily identify the potential customer who might genuinely need the product. Reaching out to the new prospects can be obtained by conducting market research, running marketing emails campaigns, or by conducting trade exhibitions, and not forgetting to monitor your company website.

• Qualifying of a lead

This is the stage where you have to evaluate the client’s requirements and mindset as precisely as possible in order to qualify for a sale. Answers to some questions might help you achieve this as given below:-

• • Are the prospect’s requirements and the product offerings a good match?
  • Is the customer wanting to buy a solution in a reasonable amount of time?
  • Is the individual who expressed an interest in the product genuinely seeking a solution, and does he have funds and the authority to purchase it?

Once the sales reps have got answers to the above-mentioned questions, they can move on to the next sales cycle.

• Explore and discover leads

In order to close a sale, the sales professionals gather information about the prospects to come to the core of the below points:-

• • The prospect’s pain areas 

We can say a buyer is more likely to buy your product if it matches their requirements. That means if your product relieves the pain they have been facing in absence of your product or service.

• • The hierarchy or decision-makers of the buyer’s company

It is important to clearly know who the buying decision-makers are in your customer's organization in order to sell your product. These important people are the only ones who are going to finance the purchase.

• Tune the buyer to find a solution with help of your product

In this cycle, the sales representative will provide the demo of the product to the customer either online or by planning a visit and try their best to fill the gaps of customer needs with help of your product. By being part of such demo will give you access to real-time feedback from buyer directly and give you idea of whats happening on the ground.

• Have a session on customers doubts and concerns

Once the customer has got tuned in for the product or the service, they will definitely have some doubts and some concerns with respect to the product, and it is an unavoidable situation, with almost every enthusiastic buyer who wants to buy your product.

They might raise questions like — why is the contract too limited? Can you change these product parameters? and so on. The only solution is to listen to them patiently and tell them that you are aware of them. You may now rethink the proposal and once done it's time to make a sale.

• Post-sale customer support and upsell

Every business has a customer support team, be it a presale or a post-sale. So, once you have made a successful sale your job is only considered complete once you have looped in a customer service agent in order to get buyer’s post-sale queries answered.

• Ask for references

You got it right! This might be one of the most important parameters in your sales cycle. Sometimes your complete revenue (at a company level) depends on the number of referrals you have got as it might just double your customer base. This is when you declare your sales cycle is closed!!

What is the definition of a complex sale?

Most of the B2B enterprise systems come under a “complex sale” category. Such a type of sale may take around 8 to 18 months to complete 1 sales cycle because many people are involved in the enterprise-level purchase. They are known as “buying committee” and it can be challenging to sell to such committees as every person has their own agenda.

The funds for such complex sales are set aside in the organization and are generally released after a series of approvals. Finally, there comes a long time between “expressing an interest” and making a purchase decision.

Who is the purchase champion in your buyer’s company?

Determine who influences the buying decisions in your buyer’s organization. He is someone who understands the problems that his company has and believes in finding the solution, with the product or service you are offering. He fulfills his duty by ensuring that the product he is buying has the correct price and terms and conditions. The greater influence this champion has in his organization the better it is for you to accomplish a sale. 

Sales team should possess strong interpersonal skills

Salesteam might need to sometimes deal with many stakeholders from the buyer's organization such as the decision-makers and the purchasing representatives. Every person has their own opinions and objectives, which can be contradictory at times. The sales representative might have to deal with all of them with full determination very carefully and the better the interpersonal skills are, the better it will be to influence the decision-making process in order to buy their products.

Relationships are everything

Customers are more likely to buy from people they know and trust. The bigger the purchase risk is, the more trust between the prospect and the sales representative is required. When the stakes are higher, it’s more about trust and credibility than it is about features. Sales reps should possess product knowledge sufficient enough to gain the customer’s trust.

Customers might seem curious but that doesn’t mean they are interested

Buyers are always curious to know more and more about the product that comes into the market but don't you get fooled that they will definitely buy it. Most of the customers don’t care about how your product functions, as long as it is centered towards their benefits or advantages. If your product doesn't invade your customer’s privacy and cause security issues or if it doesn’t cross any red lines, such as opening firewall ports, then your product is good to go with the customer. Ensure that your overall sales strategy and training materials are customer-centric.

Sales reps lack vision, but they do have compensation schemes

Sales reps’ behavior is influenced by their compensation programs. The pay plan is the company’s method of saying to representatives, “This is what we would like you to do.” Salespeople will sell in order to increase their earnings. It’s a mistake to rely on other methods to encourage them to sell, such as dazzling new business materials, unless your employee’s incentive plan is in line with your goals.

After all only “Buyer’s signature matters on the product contract” by the end of the sales cycle

Product managers must grasp that the “real decision is taken when the prospect signs on the dotted line and not when he claims that he wants the product to be a certain way, such as any kind of software modification.” 

In order to complete a contract, sales agents may approach you and seek adjustments to the product. There are two things to keep in mind:-

1. Before the consumer signs the contract, be very cautious about extending your resources to them. Regardless of how important the customer is, no resources should be spent on the product for the customer before the deal closes. The promise of a salesperson that the customer is going to sign? or that we’ve reached an agreement? You should be unfazed by this. Many things can go wrong at the last minute, and they frequently do. The word of a salesperson is worthless.
2. It’s a mistake to design a software product for a single customer if you’re a software vendor. The product should target a market sector rather than a single buyer. Product quality that will benefit you in the customer’s market segment is one thing; customizing it for them is quite another. Custom work is permissible as long as it is completed outside of the R&D department and falls under Professional Services such as using a product-specific API or development tools that don’t alter the primary product. Obviously, any extra work performed by the professional services department should be paid for by the customer.

The sale isn’t complete for the company until the customer has been implemented into your product by the end of the sales cycle and is able to suggest a few others. It’s not about making quick money, but rather about gaining market share in the long run. An acquisition that does not increase market share is a waste of resources for the company.

The win-loss analysis

The company’s continued success depends on its ability to analyze its wins and losses. In any kind of sales business, the marketing department and the product managers are in charge of this process. The goal of a win/loss analysis is to figure out what went wrong throughout the sales process and how to improve your chances of closing the next deal.

You need to keep looking for opportunities for the development of your marketing strategies to the customers and keep improving the tools, methods, and features of your product or service.It is necessary to examine all sales cycles. Sales staff are sometimes hesitant to declare a loss, particularly if it occurs early in the sales cycle. Make a special effort to locate prospects who were lost early in the sales cycle.

It’s critical to remember that the “Win” element of the win/loss analysis is crucial. It’s just as vital to learning from account “wins” as it is to learn from account “losses.” Make it obvious to your sales team what the analysis or the findings will be used for. The sales team will be more motivated to assist you if you can demonstrate a change in product, pricing, or other factors as a result of a previous survey.

The price of selling

Enterprise items are costly to sell. The cost of lead generation marketing strategies is exorbitant. From webcasts and mailings, generating a lead can cost you around $20 to $100, and from trade shows, it might cost you thousands of dollars. 

If you consider the total time spent by a salesperson in talking to a customer or traveling to meet him for a product demo can cost you between $2,000 and $5,000.

According to current studies, sending a B2B representative into the field costs you around $2,000 per day. If you add in a software engineer? Add more than $2,000 to the total. Considering hiring a product manager? Add $2,000 to the total. Then there’s the compensation for the salesperson and so on. In the end, fully-loaded sales representatives might cost a corporation up to $200,000–$250,000 per year or more.

Summary

In order to maintain a successful sales cycle- and improve the product, the product managers must have a clear understanding of the company’s product and services along with the nature of the work sales representatives do. PMs should have a proper plan and workarounds which they can implement every month with improvements. And update their sales force such that they could bring fruitful results and benefit the organization.