October 11-15
Dear students, for this weekly forum we will discuss about: SALES PROCESS
You must answer one or both questions with a response of at least 200 words and using at least one reference in APA style.
A) What do you think is harder to retain or to bring new customers? Provide arguments and a clear example.
B) Which stages of the sales process do you consider can be more difficult to manage? How can you prepare more in order to have a successful procedure?
Remember that our deadline is Friday, October 15th before 11:59 pm. :)
PUT YOUR NAME AND LAST NAME IN YOUR ANSWER.
Best regards!
Sales is one of the most important things that we have to consider when having a business; Customers form a large part of it and in most cases it is more difficult to get customers since they do not yet know your product or service that you offer and you have to search your portfolio of potential customers or also require surveys or a market study To get prospects, on the contrary, retaining the client is easier because they already know your product, you know what they need and in what things you can improve so that that client does not require another business, it is also important to consider observing the abandonment rate and measure the months with the most sales or if your service requires a subscription (monthly, yearly, weekly). A clear example is when you are starting a clothing business in a new city and it is not a recognized brand, on the other hand when you already have a customer niche it is easier for them to be faithful to your brand.
ResponderBorrarTo keep customers it is important to constantly improve the quality of work in the business, listen to their needs, recognize mistakes and address the customer closely, to get new customers the ideal is to use marketing strategically, offer discounts, find people who meet interests linked to what you sell and generate a link with customers.
Amy Gallo. (2014). The Value of Keeping the Right Customers. October 14, 2021, de harvard business review Website: https://hbr.org/2014/10/the-value-of-keeping-the-right-customers
VALERIA GARCIA
Customers are a huge asset to your business, so it’s crucial to maintain a strong relationship with your past and existing clients so they stay loyal.
ResponderBorrarThere’s an opportunity here to focus more on existing customers, rather than chasing down new ones. Switching up your strategy will help you get more value from your marketing budget and waste less time pursuing every potential lead you can find, whether or not they’re a good fit for your business.
• One customer experience agency found loyal customers are 5x as likely to repurchase, 5x as likely to forgive, 4x as likely to refer, and 7x as likely to try a new offering.
• U.S. companies lose $136.8 billion per year due to avoidable consumer switching.
• American Express found 33% of customers will consider switching companies after just one instance of poor customer service.
I believe these two aspects are very important, but they can also be a struggle, depending on the goals you have. I do consider that businesses sometimes forget how necessary it is to continue nurturing the relationship they have with their past costumers because sometimes they only focus on getting more and more, spending money and time without thinking that they can also lose people that are essential to their success and growth of their business.
Landis, T. L. (2021, 20 abril). Customer Retention Marketing vs. Customer Acquisition Marketing.
OutboundEngine. Recuperado 14 de octubre de 2021, de
https://www.outboundengine.com/blog/customer-retention-marketing-vs-customer-
acquisition-marketing/
Valeria Hidalgo
From my point of view and according to the research I have done, I think it is more complicated to bring new customers. First of all, when you already have regular customers it is very easy to retain them, since they are already there so that implies that they already trust your product or service. Retaining them is not so complicated because you already know what they are looking for, what their needs are, you already have a certain profile. On the other hand, if you want to attract new customers, this will require more work, effort and dedication because the person you want to attract has never used or consumed your product or service, so they do not have absolute confidence that it will be of good quality. In addition to the information I found, acquiring a new customer can cost five times more than retaining an existing customer. Increasing customer retention by 5% can increase profits from 25-95%. The success rate of selling to a customer you already have is 60-70%, while the success rate of selling to a new customer is 5-20%. When you want to capture the attention of new customers, you have to invest time and money to apply marketing strategies that will capture their attention. However, with regular customers who are already retained, you don't have to invest as much, since they themselves are aware of the company's new launches.
ResponderBorrarNow, as for the stages of the sale process, I consider that there are some that are more complicated to perform than others. The first stage is the first approach. The first approach can be quite a challenge since a good approach is crucial for sales success, it is the one that will identify you as an annoying salesperson and will make the potential customer be on guard, or will identify you as a helpful salesperson with something of value to offer. The challenge here is to be strategic, you have to look at who you are approaching and how you are approaching them, as some people already have someone who is currently solving their needs or they may be very busy, so their time is very limited. It is important to try to make appointments, otherwise you have to find the perfect opportunity to make the approach. The other stage that I think can be complicated is the demonstration stage. Many times we have the idea of something and it is very easy to talk about it and even write about it, however, when it comes to turn it into something real it can be difficult. In this stage the key factor is to validate what you are promising with a real action and many times this is not achieved. That is why it is of utmost importance to sell an idea of something that you are sure you can demonstrate with real things.
Finally, the third stage that I think can be a challenge is the negotiation stage. This is the moment when you define whether you are going to close the deal or not and it is where you will receive all the feedback from the other person.
References
S. (2018, September 6). The 7 Steps of the Sales Process. Steady Sales. Retrieved October 15, 2021, from https://www.steadysales.com/the-7-steps-of-the-sales-process/
Landis, T. (2021, April 20). Customer Retention Marketing vs. Customer Acquisition Marketing. OutboundEngine. Retrieved October 15, 2021, from https://www.outboundengine.com/blog/customer-retention-marketing-vs-customer-acquisition-marketing/
Catalina Salmon
Luis Eduardo Diaz Valle
ResponderBorrarIn my opinión, regular customers are the most important thing to your business, so it’s crucial to maintain a strong relationship with them so they stay loyal. Many small businesses spend most of their marketing budget on finding new customers instead of nurturing the ones they already have. The data shows us that retaining customers is just as important as, if not more important than, acquiring new ones.
There’s an opportunity here to focus more on existing customers, rather than chasing down new ones. Switching up your strategy will help you get more value from your marketing budget and waste less time pursuing every potential lead you can find, whether or not they’re a good fit for your business.
By simply staying in touch using content marketing, email marketing, and social media marketing, you can see success in multiple ways:
1. Staying in touch with your current customer base.
2. Reminding customers of upcoming events and seasonal tips.
3. Maintaining a professional appearance all the way to the inbox and beyond.
4. Taking advantage of opportunities to reach out to clients you have not talked to in years.
5. Getting more referrals sent your way.
I think that it is harder to retain customers, since we know feedback is an ability which most enterprises don’t really work on in a consistent way, it can be a red flag to this business.
ResponderBorrarThese days, getting lots of users to subscribe to your enterprise, or a product doesn’t take much, but we know that this is not enough to sale a business and sustain it.
This is why attracting people is easier, it just tales good marketing skills, people can click and visit your website, just because they saw and ad and they felt interested.
If this new subscribe likes your product, it is easier for them to talk about it, and maybe encourage more people to take a look at it, making the attraction easier.
Even though we don’t know if they will stay or not, your product or business gets around more and more people. Staying as a regular client is not always something that you can ensure, making this harder.
I am saying this because we are always revolutionizing, there are a lot different products and a lot of competence in the market, and sometimes, what most enterprises or websites lack of, is customer feedback, which can be one of the many reasons why retaining clients can be difficult.
Shah, H. (2017, 2 diciembre). Acquisition is Easy. Retention is Hard. Product Habits. https://producthabits.com/acquisition-is-easy-retention-is-hard/
-Maria Joaquina Estrada
For this weekly forum, I'm going to talk about some stages of the sales process that I consider can be more difficult to manage.
ResponderBorrarFirst, let us have a little review. According to Zrema Plaksij, the sales process is a set of repeatable steps that a salesperson takes to take a prospective buyer from the early stage of awareness to a closed sale. In other words is a predetermined, defined sequence of steps taken to turn a potential lead into a customer. There are benefits of this, for example, a more cohesive team, a better starting point for initiatives, get better data to identify your strengths and weaknesses and hone in on where to test new initiatives, better collaboration across teams, etc.
Now, there are nine stages or steps of the sales process:
1) Planning, think before acting. Have deep knowledge of your products and potential clients.
2) The first approach, try to get an appointment or approach.
3) Presentation, have graphics and information, all this on a presentation for your future client. Also, be prepared for questions they might do to you.
4) Demonstration, validate your product or service with a demo or video so they can validate your credibility.
5) Negotiation, you might have a discussion, rejection, or agreement.
6) Closure, both parties will close the deal or set a further session to continue. Something important is to have a written format in case something is missing.
7) Post-sales service, follow the deal of your client, have nice gesture with them and know if the product was good enough.
8) Consumer analysis, analyze how your sales are in the short, medium, and long term.
9) Continuous improvement, continue providing potential actions and strategies for better results.
I think that the two more difficult stages are the first approach because maybe the person or group you are dealing with already has another potential buyer or associate, and the last stage called continuous improvement because you and your team will have to continue thinking and innovating new ideas, most of it will have to be original ideas.
Karyme Gastelum
References
Zarema Plaksij. (2021). Sales Process: a Roadmap to better Sales Performance in 2021. 2021, de SupperOffice Sitio web: https://www.superoffice.com/blog/sales-process/
Este comentario ha sido eliminado por el autor.
ResponderBorrarI think that getting new customers is more difficult than to retain the customers that you already have. According getting new customers is from five to twenty-five times more expensive than retaining an existing one because you just have to keep the ones that you have happy, and you don´t have to spend time and resources finding other ones.
ResponderBorrarThe probability of selling to a new customer is only 5% to 20% while the probability of selling to an existing customer is 60% to70%.
65% of a company’s business comes from existing customers, and loyal customers spend 67% more than new ones.
And to answer the second question, I would say that the most difficult stage would be the first approach because the customer will not always be willing to interact with the salesman for many reasons, sometimes it can be that they don’t have time, or they find it irritating, they know what they are looking for, so they don’t need any kind of help, etc. And when they do interact the salesman needs to be prepared and know how to be able to help them, how to speak to them, to be patient, etc.
And this interaction can directly affect the business in a positive or negative way, this is a factor that might make the customers want to come back and buy or no. 89% of see customer experience as a key factor in driving customer loyalty and retention.
I believe that the persons can be trained and given motivation and confidence by the same business so that with practice they manage to make the first approach correctly and effective.
References:
Kiniulis, M. (2021, June 10). Customer Acquisition vs. Customer Retention: What Data Says? MARKINBLOG. Retrieved October 15, 2021, from https://www.markinblog.com/customer-loyalty-retention-statistics/
The Value of Keeping the Right Customers. (2014, November 5). Harvard Business Review. Retrieved October 15, 2021, from https://hbr.org/2014/10/the-value-of-keeping-the-right-customers
Marianne Meimaroglou
In my opinion, I believe that it is more difficult to get an employee than to keep it because you have to do several processes so that it can enter the company and start working on the other side, having an employee already in your prey, it is easier to always keep it and when he has the necessary benefits that he needs and that he is a person who complies with the rules of the company and is good at what he does. But this can vary because different situations can arise in which keeping an employee is very difficult, either because he is not good at what he has to do and he will have to be withdrawn from his job.
ResponderBorrarFor me, the step that I see as the most difficult would be the First Approach because this is when you meet the client and you have to start to know what they need in order to sell them a need and this is a step that takes a lot of work due to because if this step does not work it is useless because you will no longer be able to proceed to the others because this is the step that I consider most difficult because you are doing something new.
Christopher Campos. (2021). Sales process and comercial scope. 2021, de Prepa Anahuac Merida Sitio web: https://sway.office.com/GvGXH3mV86gjvsS0?ref=Link
A) I think is harder to bring new customers because the costs of bringing new customers is up to seven times more than to retain an old one. Depending on the scope of your business and industry, you may spend 7x more to acquire a new client. A returning client already trusts your brand and likes your products. Therefore, you only need a little marketing effort to get them on board again.
ResponderBorrarAlso, loyal customers spend 67% more than new ones. Your existing customer base already accounts for most of your sales. These returning customers are also more likely to spend more on your products than a new prospect. A new customer will consider your company or business venture risky and will not commit to spending much. A returning customer, on the other hand, gets to build a relationship with your brand. This relationship culminates in trust, and customers are likely to spend 67% more than new customers.
Finally, retention and acquisition are two of the essential strategies for generating sales. Although most companies agree that it would be cheaper to retain existing customers, many of them are still focused on acquisition rather than retention. But there was a decrease in the number of companies that focused on the acquisition, it remained the dominant strategy for most companies.
Sebastián Guzmán Aizpuru
Kiniulis, M. (2021, 10 June). Customer Acquisition vs. Customer Retention: What Data Says? MARKINBLOG. https://www.markinblog.com/customer-loyalty-retention-statistics/
What do you think is harder to retain or to bring new customers? Provide arguments and a clear example.
ResponderBorrarDepending on which study you believe, and what industry you’re in, acquiring a new customer is anywhere from five to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one. It makes sense: you don’t have to spend time and resources going out and finding a new client — you just have to keep the one you have happy. If you’re not convinced that retaining customers is so valuable, consider research done by Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company
Which stages of the sales process do you consider can be more difficult to manage?
“I think that there are two areas of sales which have got harder and harder nowadays, the first being buyer fatigue towards cold outreach.”
“I think that, as salespeople, we are at a point where we struggle to connect with cold opportunities due to legal regulations like the GDPR, but also general fatigue towards email. People ignore email, email drops into Spam, and (more interestingly) every salesperson is using the same templated sequences and cadences for their outreach. How do we solve this issue
How can you prepare more in order to have a successful procedure?
To succeed in business today, you need to be flexible and have good planning and organizational skills. Many people start a business thinking that they’ll turn on their computers or open their doors and start making money, only to find that making money in a business is much more difficult than they thought.
Seabury, C. (2021, October 13). 9 tips for growing a successful business. Investopedia. Retrieved October 16, 2021, from https://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/08/make-money-in-business.asp.
OÜ, P. I. / P. (n.d.). Ask the experts: What's the hardest part of selling? Pipedrive. Retrieved October 16, 2021, from https://www.pipedrive.com/en/blog/hardest-part-selling.
Manuel Diaz
Thierry Labrousse
ResponderBorrarB)
For me it has to be overcoming Objections. After presentation and demonstration, when customers are asked to place order, they are reluctant to buy and raise objection. Customers give importance to well-established brands, show apathy, impatience, reluctance to participate in the talk etc. Customer may raise objection with regard to price, delivery schedule; product or company characteristics, etc. Salesperson handles such objections skillfully by clarifying their objections and convinces the customer to make purchase.
There are certain objections which can be anticipated and their answers formulated before the sales interview takes place. There are other objections which cannot be anticipated because they are usually related to the procedures of a particular business.
Also i find very difficult closing the sale
After handling objections and convincing customers to buy the product, the salesperson requests the customer to place order. The salesperson assists the buyer to place order.
This step is the climax of the selling process in which the salesman asks the prospect to buy the product or products. “He who wins the last battle wins the war” is truly applicable to a salesman foreclosing in the test, of every salesman. Inadequate preparation, poor impression, failure in meeting objections or wrong approach on the part of the salesman may come in his way.
https://www.economicsdiscussion.net/marketing-2/personal-selling-process/31782
In a business, customers are a fundamental part of its structure and without them, they wouldn't work at all. It is for this reason that we study things like the sales process and the commercial score, which is divided into convenient stages we can follow but to get things right with a customer 2 key steps are taken into account, 'Demonstration' and 'Negotiation'. A demonstration of the product or service is necessary for meeting the customers' criteria, which first and foremost is that it works, so bring a good demo as if the thing you're presenting doesn't live up to what you said about it it can truly harm your reputation not only with that specific customer but with that whole market, this can be seen through demonstration fails even big companies are at risk for so beware that fact and check your products and in the case of a live presentation, prove many or a few beforehand. With negotiation, you get feedback from the previous stage but success isn't guaranteed, that is why it's called "negotiation", so you can expect discussion, agreement, or at worse but plausible and realistic, rejection. You need to be ready for all situations, in the discussion you can convince the customer through a pricing deal or offer, credit, and additional benefits. With that covered, you'll have a good understanding of what you need to reinforce and what you need to be doing less, however, an element is still left to analyze and that is, the customer itself. Much is discussed regarding which is harder: to retain or to bring in new customers. And to this, I answer that bringing in new customers is more difficult. Through studies, we can see that it costs 5 times more to bring in new customers than it is to retain them, even though it has a higher success rate of 60 to 70 percent when retaining a customer you can't rely just on them and more if you want to expand your business. It is harder because that 60-70 goes to a 5 to 20 success rate, you have already convinced old customers if they like what you offered or not, which was the stages of the sale process we talked about, but you need to do the same for new ones.
ResponderBorrarEmiliano Bañuelos Rojas
Landis, T. (2021). Customer Retention Marketing vs. Customer Acquisition Marketing. OutboundEngine. https://www.outboundengine.com/blog/customer-retention-marketing-vs-customer-acquisition-marketing/#:%7E:text=Acquiring%20a%20new%20customer%20can,customer%20is%205%2D20%25.
LUCIA RIBAS ALCOCER
ResponderBorrarI think it is more difficult to have loyal customers who keep buying a service or a product than to gain new customers. Although winning customers is something that a company needs to survive the competition in a market and to continue, we can say that maintaining loyal customers is just as important and many companies sometimes overlook that detail and it can be the difference in which a business may or may not continue. Getting new customers can be done thanks to advertising but keeping customers consists of more steps like seeing reviews and evolving or improving to keep up with the competition and meet customer needs so that we can give them a reason to be loyal. Each improvement or change to the product must go through the entire sales process once more so that it can go on the market, which is why I consider it more difficult.
Of the 9 stages of the sales process that is most difficult or complicated for me is "The first approach", since the rest of the process is to see the results and reviews of the product or service and improve, it is much more difficult for me to create a product from scratch that will improve one that has already been approved by the public. And I put this step and not the "Planning" because creating ideas is not always the simplest but it is more difficult to put it into practice or put it to work than just thinking about it.
Chelsea Woodland “Build & Maintain Customer Loyalty” (Consulted 15/10/2021) Found in https://global.hitachi-solutions.com/blog/customer-loyalty-solutions
Mariana Ramírez Cámara 3D
ResponderBorrarI think it is more complicated to retain a customer once they enter the establishment. Getting a customer to enter your business is easier because you have to sell them the idea that when they enter the business they will have a great experience, but once they enter the establishment you have to deliver what you promised. You have to meet all the customer's expectations, you have to provide great service, sell quality products and most importantly you have to make your customer want to be in that business. If you can make your customer feel comfortable and happy in your business, you can say that you already have an assured sale.
I think that the most difficult stages of the sales process are the presentation and the demonstration. The presentation of the product is the most important and complicated since what is presented will be the first thing the customer will see, that is why I consider it to be the most complicated since its presentation must be too good to get the customer interested in the product. The other stage that I consider difficult to manage is the demonstration, since here you will show the customer the product in more detail and it is here when the customer will analyze it and see if it is worth buying the product or not. It is also important to make your customer believe in the product, only then he will be willing to buy it.
Altschuler, M. (2021, 13 julio). 8 Steps to Building a Consistently Winning Sales Process. Sales Hacker. Recuperado 15 de octubre de 2021, de https://www.saleshacker.com/sales-process/
Rodrigo Menéndez Gaber
ResponderBorrarBusiness Workshop
15/10/21
3°A
Sale process
What is harder? To maintain or gain new costumers? What’s more important? And of course, which option is worthier?
Well this is a question that isn’t easy to answer, because maintaining and gaining new costumers are two of the most important parts of a business, but for sure I think gaining costumers is harder, but at the same time maintaing them is something more important, but why?
Well the first point why this is a better option is because maintaining costumers is cheaper than gaining new ones, this because you don’t need to invest on marketing, of course you need to pay attention to the costumer and there’s a reason why there’s a frase that says “the client is always right”, this isn’t that true but at the same time yes, because maybe this person isn’t going to be always right but the company should find a solution for the costumer to be happy and for the company to not loose, this’s really important, because this will leave with a good review of his experience with you and not only he will possibly buy again, algo that he will make other people buy again.
For other side is harder to gain new costumers because isn’t only telling them to buy to you, it’s gaining their trust from cero and making them to believe in you and your services.
M. (s. f.). ¿Por qué retener clientes es más importante que obtener nuevos clientes? Micro tech. Recuperado 15 de octubre de 2021, de https://www.microtech.es/blog/por-qu%C3%A9-retener-clientes-es-m%C3%A1s-importante-que-obtener-nuevos-clientes
f you pour water into a jug with a hole in the bottom, it’s only a matter of time until all of the water leaks out. Even if you are able to continuously pour more water into the jug, you will still lose a significant amount of your water through that hole.
ResponderBorrarThis is an important analogy to keep in mind for your sales and marketing strategy. Most of the time sales people and marketing teams are bombarded with demands for “more”; more opportunities in the pipeline, more customers, and more valuable deals. While “more” is definitely good for business, sales leaders and executives must also measure how well they are doing with existing customers to ensure that the customers they’ve already acquired don’t “leak out of the bottom”. There is a lot of value in retaining customers, and it’s much easier to retain your existing customers than it is to gain new ones. Here’s the proof.
Your existing customers already understand why they need your product and what sets it apart from competitors. Their entire team is aligned about the need for your product, and they have budget to allocate to it. That’s why the probability of selling to an existing customer is 60% -70%, while the probability of selling a new customer is 5% - 20%. If you’re not focusing on selling to your existing customers, you are making your job
in my opinion, existing customers are your biggest source of revenue and your greatest advocates. Focus on pleasing your existing customers by making product improvements, providing great service, and listening to their requests, and you’ll be successful at retaining them for years to come.
Patricio Martinez
https://www.cpsa.com/resources/articles/how-much-easier-is-it-to-retain-a-client-than-gain-a-new-one
People often say that if you make it five years in business, you’ve beat the odds. What they don’t often share with you are the things that happen in those first five years that contribute to the high number of people whose businesses don’t make it.
ResponderBorrarFor me the hardest step is starting. Garth wrong the courage to quit what your doing whether it’s a job or studying and starting a full time business. Of course you can also start by doing part time but you will probably need to dedicate extensive bourse to your business and it can overwork you. Whether or not you have a partner, it can be lonely. Your hours will become nontraditional, you may be working out of your home or in a small office, and you will focus all your attention on work. None of these factors make for a great social life early on. Realize that this stage is temporary and try to make time for people who have been there before. They can demonstrate that it gets better and help you take your mind off work.
There is also the problem about partners. Just because you are “best friends” or have “opposite skill sets” doesn’t mean you’ll make ideal business partners. (I work with my twin brother, which needs its own guide book!) At the end of the day, treat a business partnership with the respect you’d give a romantic partnership. Also consider a “pre-nup.” This should be an operating agreement (get a life insurance policy too so you can buy each other out if a fatality occurs). Above all, be cautious before you commit to a business partner. You don’t want to take valuable time, energy and money away from the business to break up your partnership later.
This is mainly stuff that happens during your first months of your business but the hardest thing during these time is Unless you have a trust fund, a huge savings account, or a wealthy partner, chances are high that you’ll be scraping by for a while. In the long run, this will help you make savvy financial decisions. But while you’re in it, it won’t be easy. Every decision begins to look like it’s colored by a financial lens. You’ll realize that you might not be able to go to dinner with your friends, take vacations or go shopping. You may even cancel your gym membership and magazine subscriptions (I did). This is all a great training ground for when you do have money — hopefully you’ll remember these tough times and be careful with your earnings.
Andres Zentella
Sarah John
https://businesscollective.com/the-20-hardest-things-about-starting-a-business/index.html
I think that acquiring a new customer is harder than retaining an existing one. According to Outbound Engine on an article written by Taylor Landis on April 20 from the current year, she said that acquiring new customers may cost 5 times than maintaining the old ones. And that is because of 5 points, which are the following:
ResponderBorrar1. Staying in touch with your current customer base.
2. Reminding customers of upcoming events and seasonal tips.
3. Maintaining a professional appearance all the way to the inbox and beyond.
4. Taking advantage of opportunities to reach out to clients you have not talked to in years.
5. Getting more referrals sent your way.
These points are based on the following stats.
+ Increasing customer retention by 5% can increase profits from 25-95%.
+ The success rate of selling to a customer you already have is 60-70%, while the success rate of
selling to a new customer is 5-20%.
+ One customer experience agency found loyal customers are 5x as likely to repurchase, 5x as
likely to forgive, 4x as likely to refer, and 7x as likely to try a new offering.
U.S. companies lose $136.8 billion per year due to avoidable consumer switching.
+ American Express found 33% of customers will consider switching companies after just one
instance of poor customer service.
Daniel Chavez Morales
Landis, T. (2021, 20 abril). Customer Retention Marketing vs. Customer Acquisition Marketing. OutboundEngine. Recuperado 15 de octubre de 2021, de
https://www.outboundengine.com/blog/customer-retention-marketing-vs-customer-acquisition- marketing/