Sales is the process through which somebody who could be a customer becomes a customer.
Let's unpack that. I'll capitalize the relevant words in parts of that definition.
Sales is a PROCESS …
That means there is a beginning, a middle and an end. And most of the time there are multiple steps in between. In broad strokes your process looks like this
Beginning - you know who you're trying to reach and you reach out to them. "Reaching out" could mean anything from putting up a sign outside your hot dog stand to a complicated email drip campaign starting with a series of expensive influencer videos.
Middle - They respond and you respond to their response. This dance goes on for a while.
End - They buy and become a customer.
Looks simple. However, you (the seller) are not entirely in control of the process. You must adapt your process to the way the buyer likes to buy. This is called the buyer's journey. Again in broad strokes, the buyer goes through four stages on their journey.
Clueless - I don't mean they're stupid, just that your company and what you sell is not on their radar. They aren't paying attention.
Curious - Something has piqued their interest and they're starting to pay attention. Maybe it’s something you did or maybe it’s something that happened to them.
Serious - They are ready to buy and looking for specifics: a vendor, a proposal, a deal.
Sold - They buy and become a customer.
With simple sales (like the candy you weren't thinking about till you got to the checkout line at the grocery store) these four stages happen almost instantaneously. With complex sales like buying a car or in many B2B engagements, each of these stages has multiple sub-stages and prospects may move forward and back and forward again before a deal is closed.
In B2B sales, steps in the buyer’s journey may be things like Requests for Proposals (RFPs), demos, and committee meetings. In large B2C sales, discussion with a spouse and getting a loan are often steps in the journey.
You should design your sales process to perform the right actions based on the stage the buyer is at and what they need to move to the next stage. When you track progress in a CRM, it should have stages customized to the way your customers buy.
…through which SOMEBODY
Sales are made to a person (or multiple people). Even if you think you sell to companies, or universities, or governments, or other organizations, there is at least one person behind the decision to make a purchase; often more than one. That person, or those people, have a buying process (the journey we talked about above) but more importantly they have a desire. No one buys anything they don't want to buy. The desire may have very little to do with what you think you're selling.
Their primary desire may be to please their boss, or to not displease their boss. There used to be a saying that no one got fired for buying IBM - even if it wasn't the most cutting edge technology or the best price. Customers may want dependability or longevity or status or fashion. They may not care about any of that and just want a bargain.
The point is that customers define quality as they see fit. The more you know about what they want, the easier it will be to engage them in your sales process. This is particularly powerful at the front of the process - with your marketing message.
… who COULD become a customer
This is the definition of your market. You can't sell to everyone. Before you start to develop a sales process, you must be able to describe the market you're going after in terms that are relevant to their buying process and your selling capabilities. And if you do that properly, you’ll also be defining who you’re not selling to.
You might have several different markets made up of people who buy for different reasons and in different ways; even when you're selling the same thing. You'll need different sales processes for each. For example, a company that makes a product and sells it in a brick and mortal retail store has a different process from selling that same product online. And another process if they sell wholesale to other retailers.
If you can sell the same thing to different people using the same sales process then the distinction isn’t a relevant way to bisect your market. For example, you may be targeting college educated women. But if the same process works for women without a college degree, or to men, then that demographic distinction is not relevant to you.
That said, you should define your market as narrowly as possible, not as broadly. This makes it easier for you to engage the right people in your process in the right way. Don't worry about the people you'll miss when you do this. Once you're successful you can always expand into adjacent markets.
… becomes a CUSTOMER!
Maybe I should have ended that heading with a dollar sign not an exclamation point.
What constitutes a sale in your business? You'd be surprised at how many companies have multiple definitions within the same company. One person says the sale is made when they get an email from the customer OK’ing the deal. Another person says it's not a sale till the PO comes through. Still another says it's a sale when the invoice is cut and some reports don't count the sale till the check clears.
This can be a discrepancy of several days or even weeks. And it can result in muddled reporting. It's imperative that internally you have a consistent definition of when a sale has occurred. This marks the end of your sales process and the start of some other processes (fulfillment, billing, etc.)
Action Items
Define which customers you're going after.
Learn their reasons to buy and their buying process.
Define your sales process to match their buyer's journey. The beginning stages are generally in the category of marketing and the later stages properly called sales or closing.
Describe objectively how you'll know which stage a buyer is at and what you'll do at each stage.
Sales is the process through which somebody who could be a customer becomes a customer.