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THE BASICS
1. SET THE PRIORITY IN YOUR SALE
At its heart, SalesDISK© is the review of the four key areas of the sale, referred to as segments - DEVELOP, IDENTIFY, SERVICE and KNOWLEDGE - the initials of these segments forming the acronym DISK.
DEVELOP - Development of open opportunities
IDENTIFY - Finding customers
SERVICE - Post order actions
KNOWLEDGE - What do people need to know?
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The segments do not flow in order, it’s not a process, you do not start with DEVELOP and then end with KNOWLEDGE - they are completely isolated, distinct characteristics of the sale and need to be assessed in isolation.
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These segments are not normally equal and they need reviewing to establish what is important within your specific sale.
DEVELOP
IDENTIFY
KNOWLEDGE
SERVICE
DEVELOP
IDENTIFY
KNOWLEDGE
SERVICE
2. REVIEW THE TACTICS
Each segment has tactics used to complete the sale and these form the outer subsegments of the SalesDISK©.
Depending on your situation some may be considered complex or simple. For example, configuring and quoting could be a multi-day exercise or a price sticker on a website.
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DEVELOP
DEVELOP
IDENTIFY
KNOWLEDGE
SERVICE
Listening &
Positioning
Understanding and developing customer’s needs. Positioning your product as a solution to those needs
Configuring &
Quoting
Selecting the product(s) and providing formal pricing and any additional information required to proceed through purchasing
Demonstrating Capability
The act of proving that what you are offering works and that the prospect will be able to use it
Deal Making &
Closing
Creating the comfort within the prospect to close the deal
Opposite we see the subsegments for the DEVELOP
segment, like all segments it is made up of four tasks or tactics.
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Subsegments are optional, you can simply choose not to deploy them as a tactic - for example maybe you decide prospecting is simply not required within the sale or you choose not to provide installations.
Finally, they are not equal to each other; quoting is not as important as demonstrating for example.
3. ASSIGN RESPONSIBILTY
With the priority for the segments and subsegments, the next job is to assign who is to do the task. For example who owns the demonstration of capability, the salesperson, an applications/product specialist, marketing?
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With all the information captured you can visualise the sale. Opposite we see a SalesDISK© for a salesperson in a business focused on using sales to drive new customer acquisition. 50% of the priority is IDENTIFY and the salesperson owns 75% of the segment.
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SalesDISK© can be used to show the responsibilities of other departments or resources.
Opposite we see a SalesDISK© where marketing owns half the IDENTIFY segment, possibly using direct marketing or internal sales to drive customer acquisition.
We also see the support team owning the majority of the SERVICE segment, however we see the reminder that the salesperson can never really escape owning some of the after sales tasks.