How to Clarify your Sales Model?

A sales model describes how a business sells goods and services. For your company’s operations to succeed, your staff must fully understand your sales model.

The sales model of your organization must be clarified to your staff, especially the sales team, in a way they can understand. That way, your sales reps can sell better and speed up your sales cycle.

In this post, you will learn what a sales model is, why it’s necessary, and how it differs from a sales process. In addition, you will learn the types of sales models and how to decide which sales model is right for you.

What is a sales model?

A Sales model is a general framework that defines how goods and services are sold within a sales organization. You can choose different sales models to run your organization’s activities. A sales methodology varies from one sales organization to the other.

Before setting a framework for your sales model, you need to consider the type of product you sell, the industry your organization belongs to, your revenue generation method, and the general customers’ traits.

What is the difference between a sales model and a sales process?
Although the two concepts share a close relationship (as mentioned earlier), they differ significantly. In a nutshell, a sales process is usually introduced after the sales model is established.

A Sales model involves the lead generation approach to selling, while a sales process involves all sales activities you establish to make a sale. It will help if you establish the sales model as a primary need before drawing the process to make the sales becoming a reality.

Why do you need a sales model?

The best way to invest in your sales strategy is to have a business sales model. The cost of reaching customers differs depending on the sales model adopted. Some sales models require a high level of investment, while some require a low budget.

A sales model gives a vivid description of how a sales organization approaches its customers when selling. It would determine the level of effort the sales representatives would invest into selling company goods and services.

Depending on an organization’s sales model, sales reps may need to be on the lookout for customers themselves. On the other hand, the system may accommodate a sales strategy where customers would come and request goods and services at the company’s physical location.

Types of sales models

Depending on the structural procedure of your company and the approach to selling, here are different sales models you may likely want to consider for your sales organization.

The inbound sales

This sales model generates leads through content marketing, digital advertising, and the company website. This sales strategy does not require much effort from sales reps or managers as the lead is generated online.

In this sales model type, you can transform potential customers into leads after you make them fill a contact form in your company’s sales funnel via your official website or sales funnel. Here, excellent customer service is required as your sales representatives will have to follow up with the customers through the contacts registered on the Google form.

Outbound sales

This sales model generates leads through cold calling, email marketing, social media, etc. Unlike inbound sales, where customers come through the company’s sales funnel, your sales reps and managers are expected to chase leads and convert them into customers. This model also requires a high level of professional customer service from the sales rep.

Account-based selling

This model is also known as a hyper-segmented sales strategy. This type of sales model is a common strategy in B2B business.

It is a sales strategy where the selling of goods and services is designed for a specific or narrow segment of the targeted audience. Out of the targeted audience, only the sellers with good purchasing power are considered for sales and marketing. Since it is a B2B sales model, this is specifically designed for businesses, not consumers.

Self-Service sales

This type of sales model involves an automated sales journey whereby new businesses try as much as possible to make their products extremely affordable to their customers. Ideally, you should lower the price to around $1-$1000, depending on the product you sell.
Once the consumers purchase the goods or services and derive the expected value, you can retain them by selling them at the normal price in the subsequent sales.

The ultimate checklist for choosing and implementing a sales model

Now that you’re familiar with the sales model types, it is time to understand how to identify the sales model ideal for your sales organization.

To achieve this, consider the following ideas:

#1. Enhance your sales strategy

You must clearly understand the strategies of your organization’s sales operations and find a way to accelerate them. You should understand the products you sell, your targeted market, and the processes of selling to customers.

As a result of understanding all these requirements, you are in a better position to choose the sales model that works best for your business.

#2. Empower your team’s success

As you have learned, the sales model majorly deals with sales team-customers relationships; thus, you need a rigorous training plan and coaching to hone the customer service skills of your sales team.

This training starts with the onboarding schedule of the sales team. With this training series, your sales model is more likely to align with quality customer service rendered by your sales team.

#3. Exploit your impacts

It would be best if you maximize your operations impact. It is done by taking advantage of your market’s influence. You can do this by improving the quality of your products or services, professionalism, sales strategy, etc.

#4. Build your buyer’s journey

The buyer’s journey is an important segment of the sales process. You must set up a definite journey through which customers pass in making sales. It would give you a sense of direction in choosing and applying the right sales process to your sales model for better sales results.

#5. Define your buyer personas

It will help to determine how your sales funnel is filled with leads. By this, you will have a full understanding of the status of your prospective buyers. That way, you can identify the best sales model to apply to your sales organization.

Conclusion
Many sales managers still confuse a sales model with a sales process in the business landscape. With this article, the difference between the two concepts is now clear. In addition, the types of sales models are highlighted and briefly discussed. You can now choose the sales model that best describes how you sell and take inspiration from the post on how to execute your ideal sales model to improve the operational efficiency of your sales team.

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