What is the most important stage in the sales process? A question that I get asked all the time. The answer is actually simple; can you build a structure with no foundation? You certainly cannot! What is the foundation of a sales transaction? It is finding the right prospect, and then starting a dialogue with him to convince him that his current status (status quo) is worse than what he can be if he buys our products and services.

1. Which stage of the sales cycle is the most important?
A question that I get asked all the time. The answer is actually simple; can you build a structure
with no foundation? You certainly cannot!
What is the foundation of a sales transaction? It is finding the right prospect, and then starting
a dialogue with him to convince him that his current status (status quo) is worse than what he
can be if he buys our products and services.
In this series of articles, I will use Richardson sales process. Richardson is one of the leaders in
consultative selling methodologies. It acknowledges “information overload” reality that
changed the buyers’ behavior for good.
Stage 1: Target & Qualify
Step 1: Identify your most productive source of leads
The following section discusses the available sources of leads; both face to face, and online. You
should know where do your leads come from, and how to add more credible sources of leads. It
shows also the “credibility vs. cost” of some of the sources. We will start with the following
table that lists all sources of leads.
You should put a percentage against each source that you already use, then add the numbers to
get a total of face to face sources AND online ones. Then add both numbers to get the f=grand
total, which should amount to 100%. You should also take note of those sources that you are
not utilizing, because this could be the hidden treasure under your nose (particularly LinkedIn).
Face to Face % Online %
Inheritance (hand-over) Social Media
Networking Webinar
Speaking Phone/Video Calls
Meetings Blogs
Print Publications Online Publications
Target Mail Direct Mail
Cold Calls Search Ads
Print Advertising Online Ads
Associations & Trade Shows Online Conferences
Total X % Y %
Grand Total
Grand Total (X% + Y%) should be 100%

2. This table shows the cost of sources of leads plotted against the credibility to the prospect. You
may observe the following:
- The most effective and least cost source is “word of mouth”
- The least effective and least impact is the online compiled lists.
- The rest are scattered across the chart.
As a homeowrk, I want you to plot all the sources of leads mentioned in the first table of this article and
come up with a chart of your own.
In this article we discussed the first step of the first stage on consultative selling methodology.
The first step is “identify your most productive source of leads”. In the next article we will
continue our discussion about the rest of the steps.
Ashraf Osman
Cairo, 2016