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The Courtship Sales System, Part 2: The Stages in a Sales Relationship

There are multiple stages in a sales relationship and recognizing each of the stages is important to developing this relationship.

At first, you’re with a person you hardly know at all.  It is just like dating, but in sales, in this stage of the relationship, we refer to the ‘other’as a suspect.

As you work them through the AIDA formula (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) and you’ve met with them and talked with them a bit, they become a prospect.  At this point, you are a little closer in the courtship process.

After they’ve been through the AIDA formula, they become a customer.  They try all of your products and goods and give you a chance.  Now, you’ve got a customer.

It’s now that the selling really begins.  You want to broaden and expand your relationship. When they start to do regular business with you, we call them a client.

Eventually, after you’ve dealt with someone and fulfilled their needs on a regular basis, it’s almost like a marriage really.  They become a confidant.  Whenever they need something in your particular area, they come to you for the answers long before they go out there and search for another sales person.

So the whole idea with using the AIDA formula in the courtship sales process is to move people from suspects to prospects to customers to clients to confidants.

Remember, you will sell as you are.  You see as you are and you will sell as you are.  You’ve got to listen and dare to care.

Most of all you have to have enthusiasm.  The last four letters of the word enthusiasm are i-a-s-m and that means “I am sold myself”.  People buy with passion.  People buy with emotion.  Be yourself and get out there.