Inbound Selling

Just like marketing, sales processes are different depending on how the prospect reached you.

IDENTIFY — Strangers > Leads: Identifying the right business opportunities from the start can be the difference between a thriving business and a failing one. It also helps salespeople create a predictable, scalable sales funnel.
CONNECT — Leads > Qualified Leads: Legacy salespeople focus their prospecting efforts on cold emails and voicemails. These types of cold outreach highlight the same generic elevator pitch and entice the buyer with a discount or promotional. Inbound salespeople focus on nurturing the relationship. (legacy: hunters; inbound: farmers)
EXPLORE — Qualified Leads > Opportunities: In the “Explore” stage of the Inbound Sales Methodology, you need to guide an exploratory conversation so that you’re in control, but your prospect feels like they are being empowered to.
ADVISE — Opportunities > Customers: Inbound salespeople advise prospects on why their offering is uniquely positioned to address the buyer’s context. By sticking to a generic script, legacy salespeople fail to represent their strategy.

A repeatable set of steps the sales team takes with a prospect to move them from early stage to a closed customer.

Stages are the buyer’s process, not the seller’s steps
Each stage is self-explanatory and easy to understand
As the stages advance, meaningful progress is made toward a purchase decision.
There are identifiable differences between each stage, and there are objective exit criteria for both the buyer and the seller
Some amount of flexibility in order based on the buyer’s needs?
Based on and driven by data