Hello from salespeople, this module is entitled baseline selling. Now baseline selling is the name of the sales process that we use. It was developed a number of years ago by one of the best salespeople and best sales trainers that I know. And that's fella by the name of David curl. And it's very simple process, you do not have to know a lot about baseball. In fact, if you hate baseball, all you really you could read, you could just talk about steps 123 and four.

But, you know, it's a nice little mnemonic to use as we go through the sales process. Okay, you'll notice that the picture of the baseball diamond here, we know we start out at home At home plate. And you'll notice the first base line is, is labeled suspect. So you know, you might get a list of prospects or the yellow pages or as the marketing department gives them to you, and they might tell you their prospects but actually Calling suspects because we suspect at some point, they may become a prospect. So we pick up the phone, and we call them and we get them on the phone and we use our best cold calling strategy. Or maybe we refer to them and we, we call them up and you know, we we since we were introduced, it becomes much easier, but we spent about 10 1520 minutes on the phone with them.

They are interested in what we have, and they agree to meet with us to set aside some time now, these days a lot of meetings take place on the phone or with WebEx or some other internet or Skype or something like that some kind of conferencing, utility, but whatever it is, as long as they schedule time to meet with us, then it counts and we would say now say that we're on first base and we wouldn't they this suspect has now graduated to a prospect Okay, the job Once you're on first base, when you're at that first meeting, your job is now to get to second base and second base is defined by being a qualified prospect. We want to take that prospect and qualify them. Now it's important to note that this the prospect needs to qualify. And I believe that we can do this qualification on the first call, no matter how long of a sales cycle you have, whether it's a one call close, or a two year sales cycle, you can get it done in the first call, you're in one call close that has to be done in the first call.

But even if you're in a long cycle, complex sale, the vast majority of this this qualification can be done on that first call. It might take a second call maybe once in a while, a third call, but usually you can get it done in the first couple of calls. Now, there's five elements that define a qualified prospect. The first thing is that they need to have a compelling reason to move forward. Not just they're interested, not just it seems logical that they should buy it But they have a compelling reason to move forward. Now look, just because they don't have it doesn't mean they need it.

Just because they need it doesn't mean they're going to buy it just because they're going to buy it doesn't mean they're going to buy it from you. So in another module, we will go into great detail about how to how to how to uncover what this compelling reason is and what the elements of a compelling reason are. The second thing we need to know is, you know, if they have enough money to buy the product or service that we are selling. The third thing we need is to understand what their decision process is, what are all the steps, it takes from here to, you know, a close deal. Look, if you're in a year and a half process, you may not be able to get each and every possible little step that's going to happen along the way. But you should get the major milestones and the major players that are going to be involved on this very first call.

The The fourth thing you're going to need is you need to get them to focus on you as opposed to you just be Want to find people bidding on this project. So we need to get them focused on us. Now look, when you're introduced to them, it's much easier than if you're making a cold call. But if you cold call them at the right time and you call the person at the right level, you know, you, it is very possible to get them, in fact, more than likely that you'll get them to focus on you. The fifth thing we need to develop is a relationship. Now, this doesn't mean that once I get the other four, I can start working on a relationship.

But what then the relationship is developed from the very first word you say to the prospect, you know, throughout the entire selling process. But by the end of that first call, we should have developed at least started the process of developing that relationship. I have a sort of a test to determine whether or not you have accomplished that on that call. You know, oftentimes something briefing a salesperson and I say, you know what, Fred, you need to go back and ask this prospect this other question, you missed a couple things and if they say to me, but but Dan would would would pretend Should I used to call them back. What that tells me is that Fred did not develop a relationship with that customer, that prospect because if they had developed a relationship, he would be able to pick up the phone and call. If he if he hasn't developed that relationship, you're not really anything more than just a vendor, right?

And you're not going to get very good information, you're just going to get the information you could read in a request for proposal. Okay, so now we're on second base, which means we have a qualified opportunity, it is now okay to spend corporate time and resources to pursue this project. And it's okay to spend your own personal time and resources to pursue this project. Time goes by one call closing might be a half an hour and in a you know, long cycle complex sale to the government for major, you know, millions of dollars, it might take a year and a half, two years or more to close this deal. But eventually we'll make it over to third base and when we get to third base, what that means is that they are closable Okay, it's time There's there's one right time to close you try to close too early, you look too pushy.

You try to close too late you're you're gonna look disinterested and you miss the opportunity. So there's one right time there's no guessing about what this time is the prospect will tell you it's now okay to write a proposal. But before you write the proposal, there's one very important thing you have to do and that is thing makes sure that you get a commitment that upon delivery of the proposal, they will make a decision, okay, of some sort. And we go into great detail this and and other other modules. But But I just want to point it out here that before we go on, write a proposal and deliver, we should have some sort of a commitment, they're gonna make some sort of a decision, it might be a decision to just put it into the process or to kick it out right now. It could be a decision to give you the order.

So it's anywhere in between there. You know, once we've delivered the proposal, and we've been once we've gotten the commission To the to get a decision when upon delivery the proposal, we then write the proposal and deliver it and then we would close at that at that delivery point close either for the order or for the next step of the process because sometimes there's quite a number of steps after we deliver the deliver the proposal, especially when you're selling selling to the government. For each one of them getting the commandment closing writing the proposal, there are modules that explain those in great detail. Okay, so that's the sales process. It's you know, you start with somebody that you don't know and they don't know, they don't know you, you make contact, establish a level of interest they they invite you into talk at some length about about you about their need and your and your product.

Doing that conversation, you should qualify that prospect and understand that they have a compelling reason they have enough money that you understand where they fit the decision process. And what the entire decision processes, they are focused on you and you have develop a relationship with that, with that prospect. Time goes by. If they become closable, you get a commitment to the, you know that it's now time to write a proposal, you're going to get a commitment that they're going to make some sort of a decision at the, at the pump delivery of the proposal. You write the proposal to meet the needs that they have, and deliver it close. And that's it.

Okay. This is a simplified explanation of what the what the process is. And each one of those steps that I've discussed, there are modules that go into great detail about each one of them.