The sales process · Proposal and follow-up
A free sample with no date attached to it is a gift, and it gets treated like one.
A site visit, a demonstration or a sample is the step where a buyer stops taking your word for it. The visit measures what the job will involve. The demo shows the product doing the thing it is bought for. The sample goes to somebody who can actually place an order.
Scope, fee, reporting and term are agreed in writing after we have read your brief and spoken to you.
In one paragraph
A site visit, a demonstration or a sample is the step where a buyer stops taking your word for it. The visit measures what the job will involve. The demo shows the product doing the thing it is bought for. The sample goes to somebody who can actually place an order.
Picture a site visit that takes the whole morning. The salesperson is shown the floor, drinks tea with the manager, admires the new shed, and comes back saying it looks straightforward. Nobody measured the door. The lorry cannot get in, and the crane that has to be arranged was never in the price.
This is the step where the buyer stops taking your word for it and you stop taking his. The discovery meeting gave you what he said. A visit, a demonstration or a sample gives you what is true. It is routine in manufacturing, interiors, clinics and equipment, and it decides whether the quotation that follows is accurate or somebody else's problem later.
A sample given with no next date on it is a gift. The buyer is grateful, the piece goes in a drawer, and the quotation in the next step has nothing behind it.
Where this sits
Stage 7 of 10, proposal and follow-up. The meeting where you find out what they need, the quotation you send, and the chasing that decides most of it.
- The stage before
- Sales qualification
- The stage after
- Sales closure
If you want this done for you
Four hundred samples went out on Sunday and nobody wrote down a single name.
The work
What this step is actually like.
“A visit measures, it does not admire”
Go with a tape, a torch and a list. The door width and the turning space for a lorry. The floor level, and whether there is a ramp or three steps. The power supply, and whether it is single phase. The lift, its size, and whether it works. Photograph everything with the tape in the frame, because the person who prices the job was not standing there.
“Who pays for the sample”
Decide this once, in writing, instead of deal by deal in the moment. A small piece to prove a finish can go free. Anything that costs real material goes against a written request from the buyer, and it can be charged and then adjusted against the first order. Free is not the problem. Free with nobody's name against it is.
“Demonstrating to somebody who cannot buy”
The operator loves the machine. The operator has never signed a purchase order in his life. A demonstration to the wrong audience produces a warm afternoon and no movement, and a second one is hard to get. Ask who will be there before you load the van, and say plainly that you need the person who approves the spend in the room.
“Every sample leaves with a date”
Before it goes out of the door, three things are agreed: who will test it, what they are testing it against, and when you will ring for the result. Say the date aloud and put it in a message the same day. A sample with no test and no date is not in your pipeline, whatever your sheet says.
What we do
What you end up with.
The artefacts this step produces, what each one is for, and how you know it is finished.
A site visit checklist per job type
One side of paper for each kind of job you take on, carrying every measurement that has ever caused trouble on a previous order. A fabricator in Peenya quoting a mezzanine floor needs different rows from an interiors firm. An hour to write each one, then a new row every time delivery is surprised.
Result: Each new site starts from what the last one got wrong.
The sample register
Date out, company, the person who took it, what it is being tested against, the date they promised, the result, and what became of the enquiry.
Result: You can say what your samples cost and what they brought back.
A written sample policy
Who can approve a free piece, how many go to one company, what gets charged, and what has to come to the owner. Agreed with whoever runs the workshop, because the material comes out of their stock.
Result: Nobody decides about free material while a buyer waits on the phone.
The demonstration plan
What you will show, in what order, and the one thing they must see working. Plus what you do when the machine refuses to start: photographs and a video of the same model running at a customer site.
Result: A failed demo becomes a postponed demo instead of a lost enquiry.
Where this fits
Three pieces of sales work, in this order.
This work sits inside sales process design, at stage 4, presentation and proposal. The audit comes before it, and sales management keeps it running.
Step 1
Sales audit
Find where deals are being lost and what to fix first.
Start here if you cannot say where orders are lost.
Step 2 · you are here
Sales process design
One written way to sell, from first enquiry to repeat order.
Start here if every salesperson sells differently.
Step 3
Sales management
A target, a review routine and someone who owns the number.
Start here if the team has targets and no routine.
FAQ
Questions owners ask before they call.
Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.
Should we ever give a sample free?
The buyer wants a sample before he will discuss quantity.
We sell a service. There is nothing to demonstrate.
How do we know this step is being done properly?
How much does it cost?
How long is the contract?
How soon will we see results?
Who will actually do the work?
What do you need from us?
What if we are not happy with the work?
Where to go next
The work that carries this step further.
The rest of proposal and follow-up
Or read the whole sales process in order.
Your next practical step
Tell us what you are trying to grow, and we will read it before we call.
Eight short steps, mostly taps. Skip anything you would rather answer on the call.