Nowadays, every information can be availed online, so before contacting someone in the sales team, buyers do a lot of online research, which certainly help them to shop products and services, therefore the buying cycle today is gradually directed by them not you. However, a study conducted by Acquity Group revealed that still 95% of corporate buyers, in the buying process call for the assistance of sales. This suggests that both sales and marketing teams must put joint efforts to drive decision making. Therefore, if your marketing team is putting all its efforts to generate inbound Sales Leads, sales team must help the customer buy.

Always remember that both marketing and sales team work day and night to attract leads, if no sales get closed that indicates they have failed to collaborate, this is also sure to increase the frustration level of the management.

According to marketing expert Mark Kilens, there are six principles which provide the basic outline of the consultative sales methodology. Check out the list below:

1. Do research:
Postcards are quite inexpensive to print and mail than other forms of direct mail .Therefore, you can utilize postcards for your direct mail marketing, which does not have to be expensive to be effective. According to the U.S. Postal Service, postcards are the mail format most probable to be read. Moreover, it does not take much time to read the postcards, within seconds a prospect can understand what you are trying to offer by glancing at it. Therefore, try to effectively communicate with your readers through postcards by including the image and the header on one side and the body copy on the other side. Try testing out this formula and check out how your postcard test works against email.

2. Inquire:
Even after compiling all the information's about the lead, you must let the lead to volunteer the information themselves. Therefore, you must ask them open- ended questions that start with the words Who, What, Where, How, Why, and When. Likewise, you must not ask questions starting with words like Do, Are, and Can, as this can lead to yes or no answers, which you may like to avoid.

3. Pay attention:
Being an active listener can definitely make you a great salesperson. If you are listening actively to your clients you can definitely be ready to respond and repeat what they said and understand each other better. Likewise, you must also document each and every detail that the lead tells you so that the details can help you to qualify or close the Sales Lead later.

4. Teach:
While actively listening to your lead you need to respond to what they say and this is a great opportunity to teach them. However, while teaching you must help your lead to overcome their problems and put up a plan to accomplish their goals rather than only teaching them about your product or service.

5. Qualify:
It is always better to identify a lead that is not a correct fit for your product or service as soon as possible. Because if you keep on trying to close unqualified leads, it will surely hurt them and you in the future. Therefore, spend more time and give more attention to the qualified leads.

6. Close:
Qualified leads have a budget and have the authority to authorize the purchase, therefore it is quite easy to close your qualified leads. You must close the lead in such a manner so that it appears natural to both you and the lead.

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