The pre-sales process begins when the initial contact is made with the prospect.

A salesperson is responsible for networking and initiating contact with prospects, setting up customer meetings, and sending proposals. And most importantly, a salesperson is responsible for closing the sale. Salespeople will usually have a personal quota they have to meet every month.

Ideally, the pre-sales process and the sales cycle should work together. The pre-sales process helps you as you begin moving through every step of the sales cycle: 

1. Lead qualification - use sales technology and customer insights to build profiles of ideal clients and their patterns of behavior to identify opportunities that are most likely to close 
2. Customer discovery - find out exactly what the customer is looking for and what their unique challenges are. This information is crucial for the sales team to understand how best to position their product or service solution and develop a proposal that best addresses the customer’s problem 
3. Product demo - give demo of solutions which closely match their needs
4. Proposal prep & approval - draft a proposal outlining the customer’s primary pain points and a tailored solution 
5. Implementation -  after the deal is closed, pre-sales works with the sales team to ensure successful implementation of the proposal and manage customer needs throughout the ongoing relationship 
6. Follow-up -  pre-sales continues to work behind the scenes to follow up with the customer and identify future opportunities for growth, improving client satisfaction and increasing retention