5 Distinct Stages Of The B2B Sales Process

Most sales training talks a lot about how salespeople should learn to sell.

Although there is nothing wrong with this approach, it misses out on a single important truth. Many sales training programs forget to highlight that it's not just important for us to know how salespeople should sell.

More importantly, don't you think it's even more important we understand how our customers buy?

Salespeople must bridge the gap in order to become effective at selling.

When we understand how our customers buy, we can be more effective in selling to them. Sometimes, salespeople can be inflexible because they stick to the process no matter where the customer is in the buying process.

Let's say the buyers have already evaluated their options, and the buyer is just here to negotiate. In that case, it would be better to meet the customers’ needs instead of following the process blindly.

Here’s another example: let's say the customer has already decided that he wants to buy a Dell laptop. All he wants to do is now to negotiate with the salesperson. Can you lower the cost for the Dell laptop? For that customer, you don't spend time trying to convince him why the Dell laptop is a good laptop to buy because it's about the pricing right now.

Therefore, it's very important for us to understand where our customers are in the buying process. This ensures that we will be able to change our approach when pitching to them. This approach requires flexibility.

Now let's take a look at what the buying process is all about. There might be a slight difference between B2B and B2C sales, but the differences are minimal in both.

5 KEY STAGES IN THE B2B SALES PROCESS

Typically, every buying process goes through a process called the customer’s opportunity life cycle. I call this the five As and this is uniquely part of the ADÆPT™ sales system.

The 5A ADÆPT™ buying process in the opportunity life cycle.

B2B Sales Process Stage 1: Awareness

The first step of the buying process is usually this phase awareness. The customers must first be aware they have a problem. Something needs to change.

If the customer is not even aware of the problem, he or she is not going to come to you. Let's say a patient is sick but he doesn't even know. He wouldn't even go and see a doctor because he's not aware of the problem that he has.

It’s exactly the same thing in sales.

If there is no awareness, your job is to bring up the awareness of this person because there's no point talking about how good the products are before that. The person must first be aware of the seriousness of the problem they’re facing now.

The stage of awareness ends when the customer has recognised the need to change. Here is all about helping the customers to recognise the need to change. If the customers are not even aware of the need to change, then you can forget about moving on to talking about the products.

What happens here in the stage of awareness?

Most of the time, something must have happened on the outside. These are what I call three external goals.

For example, think about this pandemic.

The pandemic has caused the whole world to shut down. People can’t travel and there are a lot more restrictions. However, this forces companies into making a change because they realise that the conventional way of selling no longer applies.

Now, salespeople will need a new set of skills to be able to thrive in this new economy. This is a perfect example of a trigger. However, triggers can also come from government policies, for example, the US and China trade war.

Imagine if the US bans phones that are made in China from being sold in the US. This will affect how to run a business and the management has to make the necessary adjustments. Another trigger could be a new competitor. A competitor might come up with a much better product, and the company needs to change to keep up.

There are actually many triggers, and the discovery of the trigger happens in the awareness phase.

But sometimes, customers may be slow to realise the need for change. As a salesperson, you need to understand which buying stage they are in right now. If the customer has not clearly seen the urgency to make changes, your role as a salesperson is to come in and to show them.

“Mr. Customer, because of what your competitors are doing, you're going to be behind the competition if you're not going to make any adjustments.”

Or consider this trigger as well:

“Because of COVID-19, how we do sales has changed. If your salespeople are not well equipped, they will be left in the dust.”

This is typically where you would ask yourself this question: what will potentially cause your prospects to be keen to make a change? And what would cause them to want to look into the product or service you offer?

B2B Sales Process Stage 2: Analysis

After awareness comes, we move into the next stage which we term as the stage of analysis. Now that the buyer is aware of the issue, the customer will start to analyze what can be done.

When corporate customers are buying, this could be a much longer process after awareness. This is where they will do things such as looking into business objectives, and might do a feasibility study.

Customers will start to look into their business objectives. Every year, a company will definitely have an objective or theme they want.

Based on that theme, they will examine what is currently happening around them – the environment, the competition, what they are doing. From that point, they ask if there is anything they need to do to still achieve the business objective.

For example, their business objective could be to increase their market share by 20%, but their competitors are coming up with better prices.

This is where they look into business objectives and decide if it’s really feasible for them to go ahead with that objective. All this happens in the analysis phase. When we talk about analysis, there are different kinds of feasibility studies they need to do.

At this point, the customer is clearly aware of the problem.

In fact, most salespeople typically talk to customers only when the customer tells them their needs. For example, they might inquire about sales training. Here’s the good thing: they already know they need sales training.

But here’s the bad thing: you might not have the first mover advantage because they might be speaking with your competitors as well.

This is what B2B clients always do. They will have to examine the cost and see if it really makes sense for them to purchase the product or service. For example, let's say they want to engage me to run sales training for them, but let's say my sales training is going to cost them $10,000.

They know it's important to equip our people to be better in sales, but they might be asking if it would be cheaper to do it themselves. Can the same result still be achieved if we do it ourselves instead of hiring external trainers?

Sometimes they might even be looking into technical ability. In the case of sales training, this is not so much about the cost they can pay, but whether I have the expertise to train their salespeople.

If I'm selling something, is this product right for the company’s business objectives? Is it technically feasible or not? Does it really match what we need?

B2B Sales Process Stage 3: Assessment

When they’re done with the analysis, the buyer moves into the assessment phase. In the assessment phase, the analysis is done and the project is good to go. The project is feasible. They want to go ahead and see what can be done now.

This is where that tender will take place. The company or corporate tender asks for a proposal to see what your company can do. A lot of negotiation around cost and related issues happens under this phase.

B2B Sales Process Stage 4: Action

Now, this is where you finally move to action. This is where every salesperson wants to move their customer towards. The purchase will be done here and the project will roll out.

B2B Sales Process Stage 5: Appraisal

Now, some salespeople would think they’re done once they've got the customer to sign the contract. Nothing is further from the truth. Most people miss this very important last thing, which is the. Why is it so important for us to have the appraisal?

Very often, there's a high likelihood of buyer's remorse when a customer first buys from us. In order to prevent the buyer from having regrets, we want to provide excellent follow-up service so the buyer feels they have made the right decision to invest in our product.

Of course, this will also help you set the stage for getting referrals in future, further adding to your pipeline.