How to Build A Sales Process That Lands Deals Every Time

To see the sales process in action, let’s take a look at how home manufacturer HomesRUs finds customers and closes deals efficiently.

Background: Construction company HomesRUs launched in 2020, with a simple goal: to sell affordable homes in the Chicagoland area to young families. Their homes typically take three months to build, and early estimates show they will cost between $200,000 and $500,000.

With construction on their first homes underway, HomesRUs onboards an eager young rep, Emily, to start selling. Unfortunately, there’s no sales process in place and Emily doesn’t know much about the company. Emily has experience selling, however, so starts building out the process she needs to land her first sales.

Company and product research: On her first day, Emily meets with the construction lead and the CFO. She asks specific questions about how the homes are designed, what materials are used in the building process, where the homes will be built, and how the company determines initial pricing. She learns that one of the company’s key differentiators is its American-made materials.

Prospect research: With a better understanding of the company and its product, Emily then sits down to map out what she knows about her ideal prospect. She wants to target young families, and given mortgage rates, aims for those with a household income of about $100,000. She also reaches out to a couple of local real estate agents to ask about their client base — specifically, what they look for in a new home, what their challenges are, and where they typically look for homes.

Prospecting: Emily now knows enough to start looking for prospects. She joins some local real estate community groups, real estate-related Reddit threads, and LinkedIn groups used by her target buyer. She also plans a few real estate “get to know you” events at local clothing and home goods stores where she knows her ideal buyer likes to shop.

Qualification and discovery: With a few prospects in hand from searches and events, Emily reaches out. She starts by offering free packets of information on the local real estate market and the home-buying process — must-have information for new homeowners. She then asks for a quick call to talk about what her prospects are looking for and how she can help. She learns some of them are targeting homes at a much lower price point, so removes them from her prospecting list.

Sales call: For her best-fit prospects, Emily suggests meeting in person to tour one of the model homes and talk through features, price, availability, and timing. To make the home more alluring, she makes sure it’s staged with freshly baked cookies in the kitchen (chocolate chip, of course). After several successful walk-throughs, only one of her prospects is keen to move ahead right away. The others have some concerns about price and ask for more time to think about the opportunity.

Follow up: A day after her home tours, Emily follows up with each one of her best-fit prospects to let them know what the next steps are, including home inspection and the loan application. For those who were on the fence about a purchase, she lets them know she’ll follow up in a few months to see how they feel about moving ahead.

Close: Lucky for Emily, her most engaged prospect agrees to buy. Yay! She sets up the home inspection and helps the customer file all of the paperwork for the loan and purchase. As a thank you, she sends the buyer a gift basket filled with goodies for their new home.

Nurture: Emily sends the new homeowners an email a few weeks after the sale to check in. She makes sure the home meets their expectations and they haven’t seen any design or structural issues. She also checks to ensure all the final steps of the sale — loan paperwork, and so on — were wrapped up without issue. When she hears how happy the customer is, she asks for a referral, offering a $1,000 incentive for every new customer they bring to HomesRUs.

Not every sales process will look the one Emily and HomesRUs use, of course, but the basic flow is the same. Make sure you have ample information to find the right buyer, then deliver value throughout the process to make the close easy.

Research is key to successful sales. When done correctly, it allows you to speak confidently about what you’re selling and what problems it solves. When done poorly — or not at all — prospects lose confidence in your product and business.

Take the time to understand both what you’re selling and your target audience before you ever make a sales call. Not only will you avoid embarrassing fumbles, but you’ll be able to address unique problems and value propositions in your prospect communications.

Many reps think a qualifying call is sufficient background to pick out the best prospects on their list. In most cases, however, this call is very high level and doesn’t adequately paint the picture of a prospect’s needs.

Barnes calls this out as a common issue with new reps and recommends a separate call for discovery. “Take the time to hear about [your prospects’] pain points in-depth. Only when you fully understand these pain points can you offer a solution.”

Many eager salespeople are so focused on quotas and commissions they forget the qualifying and discovery calls and launch straight into the sales pitch. The result is often a dead end — the unvetted prospect has little interest, insufficient budget, or is not empowered to make buying decisions.

Take the time to learn about your prospect’s alignment with your products before a sales call and you’ll dramatically increase your chances of closing a deal.

It’s common for reps to lead a sales call touting product features. The problem is, prospects aren’t looking for features. They’re looking for solutions and value.

As Executive Sales Coach Jay Abraham advises, “Sell the benefit, not the company or the product. People buy results, not features.”

Laser-focused on closing deals, reps can come across as pushy. Nobody wants to make a buying decision under pressure.

Don’t think of your prospect as a potential client. Think of them as a friend. Listen to their problems with empathy. It builds trust and loyalty, which make a purchase decision easier.

Constant talking is often cited as the number-one mistake salespeople make. It alienates prospects and scuttles once-promising deals. In fact, many studies have demonstrated the negative impact of talking more than listening during sales calls. The takeaway is the same: Reps who consistently close deals listen more than they talk.

The golden ratio is hard to pin down, but many experts recommend a 60/40 split in favor of listening. This gives reps enough time to share value-based insights while making sure the prospect is heard.

There are countless potential objections to a sale: cost, bad timing, insufficient need, lack of product functionality, and so on. While these will vary depending on the prospect, they’re often easy to anticipate. Unfortunately, many reps struggle to close sales due to common objections they don’t know how to overcome.

The best solution is to map out all likely prospect objections before you make your pitch. Then, use Barnes’ “3 Fs Formula” along with your product and prospect research to prepare empathetic and impactful responses.

In the era of virtual selling, sales leader and consultant Larry Long Jr. notes reps struggle to keep calls short enough to retain prospects’ attention. The result, he says, is poor engagement and waning product interest.

Fortunately, the solution is easy: Keep your calls (in-person or virtual) to 30 minutes max. This forces you to avoid tangents and focus on sales-critical information.

Building a sales process isn’t a “one and done” effort. According to longtime consultant and sales coach Scott Leese, you should revisit your process every six months to ensure there are no bottlenecks, inefficiencies, or dated guidance. A lot of this work is the responsibility of sales managers or sales operations leads, but reps should feel empowered to provide feedback on goal metrics, target buyer personas, their tech stack, and possible process bottlenecks.

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