Powering the Sales Funnel to Commercialize Your Innovations

As I start this latest “New Heights” article, I must pause to thank the 575 LinkedIn members who are following Ascend Commercial Solutions. Ascend has been gaining over 100 followers per month since we started in September 2022. This is considered a strong start according to several social media experts. I am humbled and honored to receive the trust of our followers and look forward to earning continued growth over the months to come. 

Several clients have requested Ascend to help them solve this dilemma: their company has introduced significant innovations, but these are not being effectively commercialized by their sales team. They point to the sales team not driving awareness of the innovation, or slow progress towards customer evaluation. How can they engage with more customers and more effectively sell the benefits of their innovations? 

My response is to activate the Sales Funnel! A vibrant Sales Funnel is the growth engine for the business, building Awareness of innovations with current and prospect customers and moving them through the several stages to Purchase and Referrals. While most consultants end their Sales Funnel with Purchase, at Ascend Commercial Solutions we coach our clients to drive past Purchase and earn Referrals from their satisfied customers.

As a good friend reminds me, some things may be simple…but they are not easy.  The Sales Funnel may be a simple concept, but effectively applying it to accelerate growth is not easy. The actual steps in your Sales Funnel need to match precisely with your Sales Process. Building Awareness of your innovation will always start the Sales Funnel and Referrals will always be the ultimate outcome. But in between, the steps and duration of your Sales Funnel and the success ratios between each step may vary based on what you are selling, the complexity of the evaluation, and the length of the sales cycle. 

While the Sales Funnel is the growth engine, the Intuitive Selling Process™ is the fuel that powers customers through the Sales Funnel. It’s the Intuitive Selling Process™ with its selling tools designed to Align value drivers with decision makers, co-create and Close a mutually beneficial agreement, and then faithfully Execute this agreement. When you Execute with excellence, you earn the Referrals that drive further Awareness – a self-perpetuating cycle! 

I relearned how critical a vibrant Sales Funnel is as I launched Ascend Commercial Solutions. For many of us in Sales, we slide into a role where customers are already buying the product and potential customers are evaluating for purchase. For Ascend Commercial Solutions, the Sales Funnel was empty. Ascend was a new launch looking to commercialize its innovations – the Intuitive Selling Process™, Coaching to Win! ™, and Sales Director Coaching sessions. Fortunately, my personal network was quite robust and provided multiple referrals to build awareness. By effectively applying the tools of the Intuitive Selling Process™ I was able to accelerate client movement through the Sales Funnel.  Today, the Ascend Sales Funnel is alive with clients at Purchase, multiple prospect accounts progressing toward Purchase, and Referrals helping to build further Awareness.

If you would like to learn how you can: 

• Align your Sales Funnel and your Sales Process to increase sales productivity and quicken customer conversion through the steps from Awareness to Referral. 
• Fuel your Sales Funnel with the Intuitive Sales Process™ to accelerate commercializing your innovations and foster raving fans that provide Referrals.
• Learn more about Coaching to Win!™, Sales Director Coaching sessions, and more Ascend Commercial Solutions innovations.

Feel free to sign up for a no-obligation 30-minute review of your challenges and possible actions we may take to overcome them by pressing the “Get Started” button on LinkedIn or “Let’s Talk!” button on the AscendCommercialSolutions.com website. 

Happy Selling!

George  

Ascend Commercial Solutions brings our expertise in Market Development, Sales Management, and Customer Engagement to overcome your barriers to growth. Our structured approach is tailored to your specific company objectives and the challenges you face. The improvements to your business and organization will stand the test of time.