Selling software face-to-face, usually in a B2B sales setting, is a complex process. Having a good sales template for the process can both improve your results and lower your stress, allowing you to perform in a more natural, powerful way. Here's a high level introduction of an effective sales process.

Break the pattern - Keep prospects from falling into a standard sales defensive posture. Try to initiate all conversations with something that cannot be interpreted as sales talk. Avoid prolonged ritual pleasantries, at least to start. There's no formula for this, just do your best to avoid sounding like a sales person.

Get agreement for today's step and the next - State your agenda for the meeting, ask if they have an agenda, get their agreement on how long it should take and that they will commit to the time. Get agreement on the possible outcomes of the meeting, and what the next steps would be if the meeting is successful. Do all this fairly quickly.

Discover the pain - This may be your most difficult task. Your job is not to talk, but to get them to talk. You want them to tell why you they would consider buying something. "What problems are you having? Why is that a problem? And what problem does that cause? Why does anyone care about that problem? What's the business impact? What's the personal impact? Do you care enough about the problem to do something about it in the very near future?" Also ask what they've tried to do in the past to fix the problem and why it didn't work.

Some prospects will push you to just tell them about your product. Learn to avoid that at this stage. If they press you, try something like, "typically our customers come to us for three reasons... Do any of those sound familiar to you?" ...back to their problems.

Discover the budget - Most sales people find this step uncomfortable. But it needs to be done and it needs to be done early. (Usually after some overview discussion of pain points.) Here are a couple techniques (besides simply asking if they have a budget):

Ask if they have any idea how much their problem is costing them. "Has anyone quantified it? Is there a way to quantify it? What work or purchases could be eliminated? How many mistakes can be prevented? How many more sales can be made?"

Another technique is to give them a trial balloon range: "We find that customers with your particular needs end up spending somewhere from (lowball number) to (highball number). Is that a range that makes sense to you?" "Where do you see yourself fitting into that range?"

Discover the process - This comes down to the who, how, when and where of the prospect's decision making process.

If there is a single decision maker, you want to do your pain and budget discovery with that person if at all possible. If the purchasing process has been assigned to a subordinate you can try to arrange joint meetings. Your ultimate presentation will depend heavily on how well you've done your pain and budget discovery, so it's critical to get the best information possible before that presentation.

If the decision is by committee you need to try to arrange for input from other committee members beforehand through various communications you put together - in cooperation with your assigned point of contact. Get as much information as possible about the pain and budget perspective of each person.

A key part of qualifying the prospect is the timing of their decision, so you need to get their commitment as to when they will be ready to make a decision. In the end, you want to present your solution to the final decision maker(s) if at all possible. Do not leave it someone else to present your solution, they will not do it nearly as well.

This is a high level overview of the steps leading up to presenting your software solution. Again, up through this point the prospect should do almost all of the talking. Your talking should only be focused on getting them to talk 1) to make sure this is a good prospect for you and 2) to give you the information you need to create a great proposal. If you successfully execute the discovery process then the actual proposal process will be far more effective.

Sales is a largely intuitive process, but using a framework can make a salesperson more successful. Of the many methods devised for selling, one of the simplest and most reliable to follow is the 5 P's of persuasion. This method is more commonly used by copywriters (and known as the 4 P's), but it is also easily adapted to personal selling. There is also a very useful fifth P that should be added to that mix (pain).

Promise - Begin by making a big promise. Not an outlandish promise, but a wonderful promise that is guaranteed to grab the attention of anyone who is a realistic prospect. If someone is not a realistic prospect, ignore them. The purpose of the promise is to get attention. It should be framed in terms of a problem that will be solved for them, or a benefit that will be gained, for example, "Reduce your customer support costs by 30%, the easy way."

Pain - As is often said, people decide emotionally and justify rationally. The purpose of bringing in pain is to evoke the negative emotional feelings the prospect currently has that your product will cure. There are few motivators as powerful as the prospect of ending pain. Remind the prospect of their current pain, for example, "What's worse than an angry customer? A backlog of angry customers."

Picture - Paint the picture of how life will be better when the promise has been fulfilled. The purpose of painting the picture is to bring more life to the promise to reveal its full value. Don't assume your prospects will be able to imagine all the ways that life will be better - you need to help them. Paint the picture by evoking visual and emotional benefits, for example, "Imagine printing a list of thank you notes from customers you supported - and then giving it to your boss!"

Proof - If you've done a reasonable job of going through the previous P's, the prospect should be getting interested by now. The natural progression of a person's thinking when they hear of something good is that they will start to wonder if it's for real. The purpose of proof is to answer that for them by proving you can indeed deliver on your promise. There is nothing more effective for doing this than customer testimonials - with full names, titles and company names. If at all possible get these. The next most effective forms of proof are certifications of different kinds - the more specific to the problem the better. Certification in a particular technology, or certification as a business partner of a prominent company are good. Another form of proof for individuals is to be a published author or speaker. A different form of proof is to reveal information about your product that proves it fulfills your promise - this is one of the roles of demos or screenshots.

usP - Unique selling proposition. By this point, once you've gone through the other P's, and the prospect is now reasonably convinced you can deliver your promise, the next question in their mind is whether you are the best solution available to them. The purpose of explaining your USP is to answer that for them by explaining what makes you and your solution unique, why that's important, and why they need look no further. A part of your USP might be, "Our customer support software was developed after consultation with psychologists about optimizing the feelings of customers needing support." You are trying to give them some rational reasons to support their emotional desire to buy from you.

Sometimes as sales people we can get in a rut, or we can be without a rudder when approaching a new prospect. Using these 5 P's will always give you a reliable approach that creates a smooth process to closing more sales.