{"id":2248,"date":"2025-01-20T20:03:57","date_gmt":"2025-01-20T20:03:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/justsalestalk.com\/?p=2248"},"modified":"2025-01-27T21:47:09","modified_gmt":"2025-01-27T21:47:09","slug":"defining-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/justsalestalk.com\/?p=2248","title":{"rendered":"Defining the Role of a Sales Professional"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Several weeks ago I was networking with an entrepreneur and to no surprise we started talking about sales. \u00a0This co-founder came from a non-sales background and wanted to better understand sales as her company was going to be ready to start selling their product shortly.\u00a0 Her experiences with sales professionals as a buyer had not always had great outcomes and she was a little unsure how to think about her company\u2019s culture as it pertained to sales and how best to acquire early customers in a B2B market.\u00a0 So, we talked a little about the role of sales and the process.\u00a0 I thought it might be useful to define the sales role and introduce the sales process in a post, so here goes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Whether you are a street vendor hawking hot dogs outside a ballpark or a B2B account executive helping organizations adopt multi-million-dollar ERP solutions, a sales professional&#8217;s goal is to solve problems for their customers. To do that, you have to be able to;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Understand the problem your potential customer has.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Demonstrate how your products will provide the most beneficial outcome. (including how you are providing value above and beyond what your competitors can deliver)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Provide leadership in a confidence inspiring manner manner that enables your customer to move forward with your solution. (if you believe your solution and team are able to deliver the desired outcome)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>While the hotdog vendors path to success might seem less mysterious than a very expensive ERP provider, at a high level, the same basic process outlined below can be used to acquire satisfied customers in either market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Sales Process<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Lead<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Qualify Lead<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Presentation and or Demonstration<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Quote<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Close<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>While the steps in the process listed above appear straightforward, success can be illusive without training and focusing on developing the traits needed for success in a sales role. In following posts I\u2019ll expand on the sales process and the skills needed for both early-stage B2B companies as well as organizations that are ready to scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If your companies sales goals are not meeting expectations and you want to change that, contact me at Jim@justsalestalk.com to schedule time for a phone call or zoom meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Several weeks ago I was networking with an entrepreneur and to no surprise we started talking about sales. \u00a0This co-founder came from a non-sales background and wanted to better understand sales as her company was going to be ready to start selling their product shortly.\u00a0 Her experiences with sales professionals as a buyer had not always had great outcomes and she was a little unsure how to think about her company\u2019s culture as it pertained to sales and how best to acquire early customers in a B2B market.\u00a0 So, we talked a little about the role of sales and the <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/justsalestalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2248"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/justsalestalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/justsalestalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justsalestalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justsalestalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2248"}],"version-history":[{"count":42,"href":"https:\/\/justsalestalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2330,"href":"https:\/\/justsalestalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2248\/revisions\/2330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/justsalestalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justsalestalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justsalestalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}