This morning, Angel Garrorena, a consultant specialized in sales, brought the Lean Sales methodology to “Road to Doing Business”. The session focused mainly on sharing tips and advice on strategic sales planning.
The online conference on the second day of the “Road to Doing Business” was entirely dedicated to a crucial phase of the business: the strategic sales process. This subject was addressed as part of the 5th edition of Doing Business, which results from a partnership between ScaleUp Porto and UPTEC. Angel Garrorena, the guest, is a European reference in the Lean Sales methodology, consultant and experienced entrepreneur.
The guest started by setting this mindset: “Customers don’t buy products, they buy benefits”. This is the baseline to research and plan business meetings and the sales process.
“We need to take a qualitative approach to learning about our customers, rather than a quantitative approach. This translates into the need to present a clear, creative, appealing and effective speech, which can only be possible if we have an in-depth knowledge of our costumer”, said Angel Garrorena.
For Angel, the startup sales managers are “a new type of salespeople, permanently happy with their work and with their sales proposal”.
According to Angel Garrorena, all sales processes should “ideally” go through seven distinct phases: learning about the opportunities; goal planning; build trust; validate needs; demonstrate solutions; interact; close business.
“These phases correspond to different moments in the sales process, and must be taken into account. Initially, an opening should be created to guarantee the availability and trust of the customer. Then we must discover the needs and expectations, which should be preceded by a presentation of the benefits of the product or service we sell. Finally, if we are confident in the value of our proposal, we can – and should – try to close the deal”, advised the guest.
Before moving on, it is important to clarify who is the decision maker of our client “and in the universe of startups this clarity of positions is never easy”. “Remember that a conversation with a person in charge of an innovation department in a large company is not necessarily a conversation with a general director of the same company”.
Angel Garrorena left six tips to be implemented in the sales processes: “think and plan, prepare a series of open questions, listen actively, demonstrate the benefits of your proposal, interact as much as possible, learn to wait, close deals and commit to the client ”.
You can have access to a set of bibliographic references and tools to plan the sales process, as well as the full presentation here.
“Road to Doing Business” continues this Wednesday, in a session dedicated to the theme “Pitch – Communication and Expression”, guided by Daniel Pinheiro, mentor at UPTEC. This session will be exclusive for startups registered in Doing Business.
