Has your favorite team ever made it to the championship game? If so, you know that those players got there through off-season training, weekly practices, and a whole season of improving their game plan. You also know that no team goes into a championship battle without a serious strategic game plan. Well, the sales world is a high-stakes environment, too, one in which you can’t just expect to pick a prospect at random and sell them something without any preparation.

That’s exactly what presales is: a series of processes and strategies that pave the way for a successful sale. Let’s examine how this critical element of any successful sales plan, from what it entails to how you can make it work for you as easily and efficiently as possible.

Presales Definition and Activities

The term “presales” encompasses all the work your team does to nurture prospects into the sales process. It isn’t the sales process itself, though. Think of pre-sales as the activities that draw prospects to the lip of your sales funnel. As the prospects move further down the sales funnel, your sales processes take over. But without all the first-stage work to capture those ideal prospects in the first place, you simply don’t have a reliable system for cultivating those sales. In short, presales activities make sales possible.

What kinds of activities are we talking about? The first steps you take will involve detailed research of your customer base and marketplace. You’ll use your wealth of accumulated customer data to create a buyer person, an imaginary picture of your ideal customer. This gives you a precise target to aim at in your sales efforts. At the same time you’ll examine your competition’s activities to see what they’re doing to court that same audience and how effectively they’re doing it.

The next presales phase involves direct contact with your prospective buyers. In these contacts, you try to understand the customers’ needs, wishes, pain points, and other factor that either encourage or discourage them from purchasing.

Now your presales team is ready to take all this information and create a sales presentation custom-tailored to appeal to your prospects. At the same time, they can work with your prospects on creating a request for proposal (RFP) that positions your products or services as the obvious solution.

The Many Benefits of Presales

Presales is all about streamlining and optimizing the sales journey, which allows your team to do more selling and less barking up the wrong tree. Let’s look at some of the key benefits you can enjoy when you implement a strong presales system.

More precise targeting – instead of wasting time on prospects who simply won’t buy, presales activities such as the creation of buyer persona permit you to qualify your leads more accurately.

Better use of your salespeople – Sales reps have enough work to do without struggling through tons of initial research. Give this work to your presales team, and your sales team can spend more time, focus, and energy on their job — selling.

More responsive customers – The more precisely you can aim your sales message at specific pain points and aspirations, the more readily your customers will choose you over your competitors.

How to Maximize Your Presales Success

Now that you can see how presales works and what it can do to boost sales, you’re probably wondering how you can use this essential technique to the fullest. First of all, keep in mind that presales requires an organized team, with each member dedicated to specific functions. A presales team includes several important players, from sales development representatives and solutions engineers to subject matter experts and market/customer analysts. This team not only handles its own interdepartmental work; it also coordinates as needed with your sales, marketing, product development, and other departments.

As in any business pursuit, success in presales depends on following some best practices. These best practices include:

• Focusing on listening to prospects’ needs and wishes (instead of your sales spiel).

• Taking your time researching your customer base as completely as possible to boost your presale team’s value.

• Always using your presales team’s data to keep your sales team as thoroughly prepared as possible for every demo, presentation, and client meeting.

• Setting clear, realistic goals, milestones, and timelines for your presales activities in relation to the final sale.

• Monitoring and measuring your sales performance by examining CRM data from your presales team.

Salesforce CRM for Your Presales

If you’re looking for a uniquely powerful, full-featured CRM platform to help your achieve your presales objectives, look no further than Salesforce. This all-in-one sales/service/marketing/commercial platform leverages state-of-the-art Einstein AI to help you make smarter decisions, increase your productivity, and generally grow your business. It’s the perfect presales tool for manufacturers as well as retailers, health and wellness providers, financial services, and more.

Simplify It With CLOUDSTREET

As you can see, Salesforce can play a vital role in optimizing your presales and other business functions — but only if your team members can get up and running on it quickly and easily. While Salesforce has always done its best to make its product logical and user-friendly, the system can seem complex and intimidating for those who aren’t used to having so many features at their fingertips. But don’t fret, because you can streamline your Salesforce onboarding and operations even as Salesforce streamlines your presales — by relying on CLOUDSTREET as your Salesforce solutions provider.

CLOUDSTREET can serve as your source for Salesforce services. We’ve had great success implementing online B2B stores for the manufacturing IT services, and consumer goods sectors. Our Premier and Premier+ Success Plans include two levels of Accelerator packages that offer one-to-one guidance and coaching, ensuring that you get the most out of Salesforce. In addition to helping you streamline your presales processes, CLOUDSTREET also provides a custom portal to help boost sales from your existing customers. Contact us today to learn more or schedule a meeting.