Coach’s Sales Funnel

In week three of class, we gave a whole class period to the Grove City football coach to talk about sales. It surprised me that he was so experienced with sales, and I didn’t know that he had a history with sales. Even the way he presented to us I thought was excellent because he was very energetic, smiling, talking loud and passionately, and moving and jumping around the room. That alone was keeping us into the conversation and highlighted his awareness as pitching skills as a salesman. Coach provided a sales funnel for us and at the top of the funnel was Pre-Call Analysis. A Pre-Call Analysis is basically just trying to gather information and doing research on whoever you are trying to sell to, in order to develop a strategy. The second layer in the sales funnel was the need analysis. This layer is best done by asking open ended questions and then just listening. When you listen to what the client says, you can takeaway valuable information. Find what the client needs or is looking for… or maybe even what problem the client is having, but just listen to their answers through open ended questions. The third layer to the sales funnel was need awareness. Need awareness is similar and connected to the second layer in the sales funnel, need analysis. Need awareness is more specific than need analysis. Continue to ask open ended questions to the client, especially questions that are related to what you found relative to the need analysis. The first 3 layers of the sales funnel are similar because the one who is selling should primarily be asking open ended questions and then listening and gathering more information. The information they gather will lead them to the last level in the sales funnel which is need solution. At this point, you know what to say and what the client’s need is and what they are looking for, it is basically the closing of a sale. That was the sales funnel that coach spoke of, and I was surprised by his expertise and appreciated his knowledge related to sales.