Want to become the next sales trailblazer? Are you looking for a better way to capture, engage, and ultimately close more deals? If so, you need to hear this from us.
I have developed a four-step method—Discovery, Educate, Associate, and Lead (DEAL)—to help you effectively close more deals. Whether you’re working with an in-house team or a distributed team of remote sales reps, this step-by-step strategy can help streamline your sales process.
From understanding what Discovery means to building up client interest through an education-driven sales mindset, this article will show you exactly how to DEAL with your clients better and close more deals. Let’s get started!
Introduction to the Discovery, Educate, Associate, and Lead (DEAL) Method
This four-step framework helps you better understand customer needs, develop valuable solutions and strengthen customer relationships.
Let’s start by breaking down each of the DEAL steps:
- Discovery – Discovering customer needs is key to meeting customer expectations, building trust, and closing the deal. Spend time researching your target market – their industry, trends, competitors, and other relevant topics – to gain insight into how you can provide value to customers, and to see potential pain points where you can offer your services.
- Educate – Once you’ve identified customer needs, communicate how your company can fulfill them through engaging platforms and presentation materials that align with the customer’s goals. Educating customers requires more than simply describing features. You have to paint a clear picture of how those features will enhance their current business processes and lead them to success.
- Associate – To build relationships with potential clients, make sure you associate yourself with the product or service you are selling. Use storytelling throughout conversations about the product by emphasizing its capabilities in a memorable way that showcases your expertise in the space. The aim is to associate potential customers with feelings of trustworthiness towards your company as well as high levels of respect for yourself as an individual representative.
- Lead – Closing deals require leadership on both sides; be prepared to take an active role in leading conversations toward a conclusion while inviting collaboration from the client rather than mandating decisions upon them. When presenting solutions or proposals to clients, be sure to emphasize how they will add value and how it aligns with their processes.
Assess Your Current Sales Process
As a sales professional, your job is to ensure that deals are closed efficiently and quickly. To do this, you need to take a closer look at your current sales process and identify where it falls short. This means asking yourself some tough questions: Is my discovery process effective? Am I providing enough education on the product or service? Am I adequately leading my prospects through the process?
Take an honest assessment of your sales process and make adjustments as needed. Maybe you need to fine-tune the content of your pitches or add an extra step of research before reaching out to potential clients. It’s okay to ask for help; a fresh perspective can provide invaluable insight into improving your sales process.
At the end of the day, having a structured approach is key—but it’s also important to remember that every deal is different. Be flexible and adjust as needed; don’t be afraid to innovate if you feel it will benefit your prospects and help close more deals successfully.
Discovery Phase: Gather Client Information
Once you start your outreach to potential customers, you need to begin the process of gathering qualified leads. The discovery phase is focused on doing just that.
Qualified leads are people who match your ideal customer profile (ICP). They care about what you have to offer, they have the ability to purchase it, and they’re interested in learning more.
In the discovery phase, it’s all about getting familiar with those who might be interested in your product or service and organizing the information into a centralized hub. Here are a few ways you can do that:
- Rather than focusing solely on closing deals, build relationships with potential customers instead. Connect on social media or join relevant forums to connect with them and gain their trust. This will help you understand their needs better, so you can create more targeted strategies for your efforts.
- Collect essential information such as contact details and purchase history from prospects in order to organize them into specific buyer personas. This data helps you create more personalized messages for each lead, increasing the chances of them becoming paying customers in due time.
It’s important to remember that this is an ongoing process—start small and keep building up your list of qualified leads over time using these strategies.
Educate Phase: Build Trust With Customers
The Educate phase of the DEAL method is all about building trust with your customers. It’s about showing them that you understand their pain points and how your product can help solve those points.
In order to do this effectively, you should start by getting to know your customer and their needs. This means asking questions to get an understanding of their current situation, and also researching them if possible. Once you know exactly what they want and need, you’ll be ready to start educating them about your product or service.
Here are a few things you can do in the Educate phase:
- Provide helpful content – Content marketing plays a key role in helping customers make informed decisions. Whether it’s video tutorials, blog posts, or webinars, informative content can make a major difference in the buying process.
- Use case studies – Showcasing real-life examples of how other customers have benefited from using your product can help create a sense of trust between you and potential customers.
- Offer special discounts – Offering discounts or limited-time offers can be an effective way to encourage leads to take action sooner than later. It’s also a great way to show potential customers that they’re getting a good deal when they purchase from you.
By educating your customers through content, case studies, and even discounts, you’ll be able to build relationships of trust that are essential for closing sales deals faster.
Associate Phase: Highlight the Value of Your Services
Now it’s time to show your prospects how your product or service will solve their challenge.
This is the associate phase, and it’s where you’ll have to do some of the most effective sales work. You have to create a connection between your product and the prospect’s need in order to close more deals.
Some of the best strategies include:
- Explaining features in terms of benefits that are relevant to your prospects.
- Showing hard data or case studies so they can see how your product performs in real-life situations.
- Asking questions that allow prospects to engage with you and figure out their own answers about your product or service.
- Offering incentives like discounts and freebies so they’re more likely to purchase from you in the end.
- Offering limited-time specials or bonuses that create a sense of urgency for them to take action now instead of later on down the line when they forget about you entirely!
Lead Phase: Make the Sale and Maintain Relationships
Once you’ve done the groundwork with the Discovery, Educate, and Associate methods, it’s time to move on to the Lead phase. In this phase, you’ll actually be closing deals and building long-term relationships.
The Lead phase is when you’re ready to make your pitch to close sales for your product or service. But before you jump in and ask for a sale, here are a few tips:
Be Prepared
Be prepared by familiarizing yourself with any objections potential customers may have—have answers ready. You should also be knowledgeable about competitive offers and have good knowledge of current market trends. Knowing how to effectively address customer questions will put you in a better position to close the sale.
Understand Your Customer’s Needs
Having a thorough understanding of customer needs is important for closing a sale. Ideally, you should know the problems your customer has and how your product or service can help solve them. This knowledge helps build your customers’ trust in you and what you have to offer.
Follow Up
Once you’ve made the sale, follow up with your customers to ensure they’re satisfied with their purchase and maintain these relationships over time. This means being proactive about addressing potential issues before they arise, and also keeping up with changing customer needs through surveys or feedback systems such as Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys. Doing this will build loyalty among existing customers and bring in more leads over time!
You’re All Set!
With the DEAL method, you can refine your sales strategy, build trust with potential customers, and close more deals. You’ll be in a better position to provide the right solutions and make sure your prospects fully understand the value you offer. By developing a deeper understanding of their needs and goals, you can create a compelling narrative to lead prospects toward a purchase.
Ultimately, this is a proactive approach that allows you to merge your expertise and experience with the needs of your prospects, resulting in higher close rates and more satisfied customers. To keep up with the DEAL method in full swing, we suggest taking it a notch higher by implementing efficient business tools like Ringbot.With Ringbot, you will never miss a lead again. The tool also has options to automate better and curated replies and keep them safe in an inventory. You’ll never miss out on a client process again! Keep track of your business goals using Ringbot. Try it for free today!