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In simple terms, “sales” refers to all activities involved in selling a product or service to a consumer or business — but it means so much more in practice.

I know from my experience running my own photography business that a lot of effort goes into successfully closing a deal — from sourcing prospects, to building relationships, and providing customers with solutions.

In this article, I’ll dig into types of sales, common sales terms, and sales methodologies to help you solve for the customer and increase revenue.

Table of Contents

• What is sales?
• Types of Sales
• Common Sales Terms
• Types of Sales Methodologies
• Learn the Art of Sales

Since selling is the point of business, companies staff entire departments with employees whose purpose is to sell their products and services. The basic process consists of salespeople reaching out to contacts who might be interested in purchasing what they’re selling — prospects that demonstrate interest through actions like visiting the company website or interacting with the company on social media.

The goal is to reach out to leads who have shown interest in or fit the description of the company’s target customer. The idea here is to provide them with a solution that results in a purchase of their product or service.

While many sales teams are held to monthly quotas and benchmarks for converting leads and closing deals, I’ve discovered that the secret to success and the real goal of sales is solving for the customer.

Marketing and Sales

In order to find leads who are likely to convert to customers, most businesses have marketing departments to make their offerings known. The campaigns and efforts of the marketing organization are some of the best ways to generate qualified leads for sales.

While marketing and sales use different processes, both business functions impact lead generation and revenue.

So, how do sales teams sell? I’ll go over the most common types of sales.

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1. Inside Sales

When sales teams engage with their prospects and customers remotely, often from an office alongside their team members, they follow an inside sales approach. This means they are selling from within their company. Organizations that use an inside sales approach often tend to have leaner, more automated processes and structured hours.

SaaS, ecommerce, tech, and B2B businesses frequently use the inside sales model.

Inside Sales in Action:

From phone service to internet to TV, AT&T provides products and services for just about any consumer and business. While ATT is a DTC company, I think they’re a great example of inside sales.

The company’s inside sales reps contact leads and prospects to complete the traditional sales process — uncovering the customers’ needs, matching them with the right solution, and closing the deal. They might use a to keep track of customer interactions and sales won.

2. Outside Sales

Outside sales are — you guessed it — the opposite of inside sales. Instead of staying in the offices, these salespeople broker face-to-face deals with their prospects. This implies that they are selling from outside their company — traditionally through door-to-door or field sales. These teams tend not to have strictly regimented processes, allowing freedom and flexibility for reps to develop and implement their own sales strategies.

Businesses that sell expensive physical products to other businesses often use outside sales teams since it is important for prospects to actually see and understand the product before making a purchase decision.

Outside Sales in Action:

As a leader in medical technology (among other things), J&J employs the skill set of experienced sales reps to match their products with medical professionals and institutions.

Medical devices sales reps spend the majority of their time traveling — but once they reach their destinations, they meet with medical professionals and administrators who make decisions about what to purchase. They have to be experts in their products to not only demonstrate how it is used but to train the medical professionals who will be using the tech for their patients.

In addition to traveling to prospective customers, they might attend conferences, trade shows, and events where these decision-makers might be in order to network and build relationships before it’s time to make a sale.

3. B2B Sales

B2B stands for “business-to-business” and describes companies that sell products and services to other businesses instead of individual consumers.

While B2B businesses can have inside or outside sales teams, all B2B sales tend to have a higher ticket value and more complex terms because the goods sold to other businesses typically play an essential role in how the buyer’s business operates.

Within the realm of B2B, sellers can primarily support SMBs (small to medium businesses) or enterprise customers.

B2B Sales in Action:

is a sales enablement platform that helps sales reps build relationships with buyers. I think it’s a straightforward example of a B2B company: It’s a business that helps other businesses sell better. Its sales reps work with other sales team managers to promote the benefits of the GetAccept products and create long-term clients that generate revenue for the business over time.

4. B2C Sales

Unlike B2B sales, B2C (or business-to-consumer) sales revolve around transactions between a company and its individual consumers. These deals tend to be of lower price value and complexity than B2B sales and can involve multiple deals with a variety of customers.

We all engage in B2C on a regular basis — everytime we go to the grocery store or the mall, all the subscriptions we have, online shopping, and personal services are all examples of B2C in action.

B2C Sales in Action:

Moving companies, for example, rely on B2C sales to connect directly with the consumer who uses their services. uPack uses digital ads to source leads, which their B2C sales team turns into customers.

I appreciate their simple but effective sales process. The company gets customers interested in their services by offering them a free quote on their move. Then, the B2C sales reps get to work enticing the prospective customer to choose their moving service over the competition because of lower prices and faster moves.

5. Business Development Sales

Business development is an essential part of the sales process for many B2B companies, especially if they have a complex sales cycle. The business development reps (BDRs) are responsible for top of the funnel activities like researching prospects, creating educational material about their offering, and reaching out to cold leads. If the prospects they contact are interested, they’ll typically pass them along to the sales team to negotiate and close the deal.

Though business development doesn’t account for an entire sales transaction, it’s an important aspect of the sales function for many companies.

Source

Business Development Sales in Action:

BDRs at Slack are responsible for the pipeline within enterprise accounts. They drive outreach to several stakeholders at the companies where they work. People in these roles are expected to be product experts and build demand for the Slack product.

6. Agency Sales

This type of sales involves generating and converting new leads to sign onto service packages from an agency. The is between one and three months, with high-value or complex cycles taking six months or more. Most agencies bring on one to three new clients each month.

In the agency sales space, clients are typically sign based on either of these models:

• Project. For agencies that sign clients by project, they primarily focus on bringing in new business, selling service packages to new clients as their current projects wrap up.
• Retainer. With a retainer model, agencies can engage with clients on an ongoing basis, which allows for predictable recurring income and less dependence on bringing in a steady stream of new customers.

Agency Sales in Action:

The UMG team of brothers started their creative agency using agency sales — selling one-off projects like business plans and ongoing website services to businesses in South Carolina. Now, the business has grown to multi-million dollar heights with several loyal clients on retainer. As you can see, it’s possible to employ both project and retainer models simultaneously.

7. Consultative Sales

Consultative selling is a style of selling that focuses on building trust with the customer to understand their needs before recommending a specific product or service.

With consultative selling, sales reps focus on building a relationship with the buyer and leading the sale with how the offering will benefit the individual customer, instead of solely focusing on the features of the product to make the sale. In my opinion, consultative selling can (and should) be part of all sales models so the customer feels understood.

Consultative Sales in Action:

I think consultative sales is especially effective for complex and high value sales, like shopping around for a mortgage lender. A lot of variables can influence a home buyer’s decision to choose one lender over the other, especially in the current market. The truth is, those variables are cold, hard numbers.

Consultative sales works for mortgage lenders because they can bring a human aspect to the home loan process. Legacy Home Loans does exactly this, even measuring success “one smile at a time.”

8. Ecommerce Sales

Does your company sell products exclusively online? Is your customer able to research your product, determine whether they want to buy it, and make their purchase online, all without needing to engage with someone from your company? If so, you’re following an ecommerce or online sales model.

While this type of selling is more hands-off than other types, it can work well for lean companies who can’t staff a full sales department, or for companies who offer products that can be effectively sold through targeted digital marketing.

This model has grown exponentially over the past five years in the B2C space, hitting and accounting for 22.7% of all retail sales. It is the for Millennials and Gen Z.

Ecommerce Sales in Action:

Worldwide ecommerce sales in 2020, and Kissed By A Bee received a share of that growth. This company provides herbal remedies and beauty products completely online. While it does provide live customer service, most of its marketing and sales efforts take place completely online.

9. Direct Sales

With a direct selling model, individuals are able to sell directly to consumers outside of a traditional retail environment. With this method, sellers conduct the sale one-on-one with their customers, often earning a commission.

This form of selling is commonly used by network marketing representatives and real estate professionals.

Direct Sales in Action:

I had a brief stunt in direct sales, selling beauty and skincare products from Mary Kay. Customers can’t buy Mary Kay products from any store; they can only buy them from Independent Beauty Consultants.

As a consultant, I helped my clients find the right products for their skin type, complexion, and the look they wanted. I then purchased the products wholesale from Mary Kay and sold them at retail.

10. Account Based Sales

Businesses that have large enterprise accounts with several points of contact look to account based sales to serve these customers. These types of sales tend to be highly customized for each customer. Unlike business development sales, account based sales teams don’t hand off their opportunities to a sales development rep to close.

Instead, the opportunity stays within the account based team to serve that customer from lead to opportunity and all the way through to customer success. I think the benefit of account based sales is that the sales team gets to build a relationship with the enterprise over a longer period of time which results in a higher lifetime value (LTV).

Account Based Sales in Action:

I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to buy my soda directly from the bottling warehouse. Like many other food and beverage companies, PepsiCo does business with retailers of all sizes, locations, and types to get its products to consumers.

To manage all of this, the company takes an account based approach to sales and account management. Key Account Managers (KAM) are responsible for managing these relationships before, during, and after the sale.

They’re responsible for achieving profitable sales targets for large retail stores like Walmart and Target. KAMs ensure that the demand from the account matches what the sales team has forecasted for the account so that consumers never find a store that’s out of Mountain Dew.

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• Prospecting Strategy
• Budget
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Common Sales Terms

Here are some of the common terms that are associated with sales and selling.

1. Salesperson

A salesperson is an individual who performs all the activities associated with selling a product or a service. Synonyms for salesperson include sales associate, seller, sales agent, and sales rep or representative.

2. Lead

A lead is any person who has shown some interest in your company, product, or service. These are people or companies at the very top of your sales funnel who are not yet ready to discuss a sale.

3. Prospect

A prospect is a lead who has good chances of converting into a customer. Not only have they shown consistent interest in your offering, but they also fit your ideal customer profile (ICP). The salesperson uses prospecting techniques like making warm calls, email outreach, and social selling to connect with prospects. If the prospect is interested in the product or service, the sales rep can apply different sales closing strategies to turn the prospect into a customer.

4. Sales Qualified Lead

A sales qualified lead (SQL) is a prospect who’s ready to have detailed conversations with sales about solutions, pricing, and deals. They are someone who has purchasing power.

5. Deal

A deal represents the product or service you'd like to sell and the price associated with it. Deals have multiple stages, which can vary depending on the business, its processes, products, and industry, and deal performance can be tracked using a CRM. Salespeople can put together deal plans to make the selling process easier for the prospect and the sales rep.

6. Sales Funnel

A sales funnel describes the path your prospects take to become customers — in other words, the customer journey with your company. The funnel shape is a good depiction because you tend to have lots of leads at the top who drop off as they determine they’re not interested in your solution or that it won’t solve their pain points. Those who continue down the funnel end up as your customers.

Source

7. Sales Pipeline

The sales pipeline describes all the steps in your sales process. It gives salespeople a visual representation of where prospects are in the sales cycle, often described as the “deal stage.” These are the prospects your sales team is actually in contact with.

According to the , one of the top priorities of sales organizations in the U.S. is simplifying complex seller roles to speed along the deals in their sales pipelines.

8. Sales Plan

The sales plan outlines the goals, objectives, and strategies for a sales organization. It includes details about target customers, market conditions, revenue targets, pricing, team structure, and more. It also lays out the tactics the sales teams will use to achieve their goals.

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• Target Market
• Prospecting Strategy
• Budget
• Goals

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Types of Sales Methodologies

In my opinion, a sales process is key to running a successful sales organization. Here are some of the top sales methodologies businesses use.

Solution Selling

These days, have done their research before getting in contact with sales. They know their problem and have researched possible solutions.

Solution selling acknowledges this reality, so the salesperson leads the conversation with the benefits that a custom solution will give the prospect. In my opinion, the point is not so much to sell the what of your product but how it can meet and exceed the prospect’s needs.

Inbound Selling

With this sales method, salespeople act as a consultants. They meet the prospects where they are and solve for prospects’ pain points. The idea is not to sell for the sake of selling but to sell to the right people who are already looking for the solution you offer. I find this method pairs perfectly with consultative sales.

SPIN Selling

SPIN selling is used to describe the four types of questions salespeople should ask their clients:

• Situation
• Problem
• Implication
• Need-Payoff

The questions identify the prospect’s pain points and help the salesperson build rapport with the buyer. After a strong relationship is in place, then selling can proceed.

NEAT Selling

This is a framework that’s used to qualify leads. NEAT stands for:

• Needs
• Economic Impact
• Access to Authority
• Compelling Event

I think it’s crucial that leads are qualified before you try selling them something they don’t need. Because if they actually don’t need (or can’t afford) what you offer, you don’t want to sell to them either.

Conceptual Selling

Conceptual selling is a method where salespeople uncover the prospect’s concept of their product and seek to understand the prospect’s decision process. The idea is you sell the concept of your solution, not the solution itself. I think this especially applies to luxury items.

SNAP Selling

SNAP selling is an acronym for:

• Keep it Simple
• be iNvaluable
• always Align
• raise Priorities

By following this strategy, salespeople are honest with their prospects, provide helpful information, and show how their solution aligns with the goals and priorities of prospects.

The Challenger Sale

The follows a teach-tailor-take control process. Salespeople:

• Teach the prospect.
• Tailor their communications.
• Take control of the sale.

I think it’s a balanced approach to understanding your prospect while moving the sale along.

The Sandler System

This system prioritizes building mutual trust between the sales rep and prospect. The salesperson acts as an advisor and asks questions to identify the prospect’s challenges to see if their offering is a good fit. I appreciate that it changes the dynamic from seller-trying-to-persuade-buyer to both honestly seeing if they are a good fit for each other.

Customer Centric Selling

With this method, the salesperson focuses on communicating with the key decision-makers in the sale and finding solutions to address their pain points or challenges. Using this method, sales reps focus on building relationships with prospects, understanding customer needs, goals, and priorities, and tailoring a solution that will provide long-term value.

MEDDIC

Like NEAT, MEDDIC is a method for qualifying leads. It stands for:

• Metrics
• Economic buyer
• Decision criteria
• Decision process
• Identify pain
• Champion

The salesperson asks questions about these topics to help determine if the prospect is a good fit and, if so, to move them forward in the sales process.

Learn the Art of Sales

The primary goals of sales are to create custom solutions for their prospects and generate revenue for the business. But there are many ways to go about reaching these goals.

Whether you’re looking for growth opportunities within sales or you’re joining the field for the first time, I hope this quick guide to sales has provided you with a basic understanding of the types of sales you can do and how they work within the entire business.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in April 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Free Sales Plan Template

Outline your company's sales strategy in one simple, coherent sales plan.

• Target Market
• Prospecting Strategy
• Budget
• Goals

Get Your Free Template

Download Free

All fields are required.

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.