The sales process has taken on almost mythical status, with consultants and presenters around the world promising that they alone have the best trick for consistently closing sales. While their hacks and tips may be helpful, success starts with a solid foundation—in this case, the five-step sales process.

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What is the 5-step sales process?

The five-step sales process is a simple, linear approach to selling. The first step of the sales process begins with initiating contact with the client and the last step of the sales process ends after a salesperson closes the deal. While different salespeople and different products may necessitate a more detailed or uniquely tailored process, the five-step sales process provides a strong foundation to work with. Once you’ve mastered the process, it will be much easier to adapt your sales approach.

Using a five-point sales process takes the guesswork out of sales. If you have a defined process, you never have to worry about what to do next. And you’ll be able to easily adjust your methods if you notice that your sales process consistently stalls at the same step.

What are the 5 steps of the sales process?

You can always customize the steps as necessary, but begin with these five key points of the sales process:

1. Approach the client

What is the first step in the sales process? The nature of the approach varies according to your sales method—for example, you’ll never so much as see your client in phone sales, whereas you’ll want a firm handshake ready for in-person sales—but this first step is all about building a relationship.

Begin by introducing yourself and explaining why you’re contacting them. You might remind them that they indicated interest at a conference you both attended or note that someone else referred them to you. This explanation puts you both on the same page.

Use this first step to make a good first impression. Look for opportunities to connect with the client, such as discovering a mutual interest. Be positive and genuine as you initiate conversation. You want the client to feel comfortable talking with you as you enter the second step.

2. Discover client needs

The client should do most of the talking in this step. You should ask questions that will help you understand them, but ensure you spend your time listening rather than thinking of what you’ll say next.

Use questions that encourage the client to talk about the problem they’re having that your product can solve, but don’t bring up the product yet. Try to get them to talk about their motivation for fixing the problem, other solutions they might have tried, or concerns they have about potential solutions.

You should also ask questions that will help you anticipate objections. Do they have a budget? Are there other constraints you should know about?

Ask follow-up questions as needed to clarify. At the end of this step, check for understanding. Tell the client what you understand their needs to be and ask for verification. If you’re on the same page, then proceed to the next step. Otherwise, continue asking questions until you understand.

Lucidchart can help you visualize and easily verify the information that a potential client has given you. For example, McClain Smith from the Lucid sales team used Lucidchart when he sold video interviewing software. He diagrammed the client’s current interview process as they explained it—and the client could immediately see he understood. Then McClain created a new diagram to show how the process might work if the client purchased the software.

Product manager interviewers at many leading tech companies are famous for asking challenging and unpredictable questions.

How would you design a new car? How would you bring that car to market? What metrics would you use to measure a successful launch?

These types of questions can be very intimidating. My natural reaction used to be one of panic: I don’t know how to design a car! What does “design” even mean? Isn’t this a software product management role? Why am I being asked this question?

Case questions are meant to measure your ability to structure problems and think critically — demonstrating that a logical thought process is more important than your final answer.

Cases typically take fifteen to forty-five minutes and often include challenging follow ups. Some companies use real problems that they are currently solving, others may ask seemingly unrelated questions (e.g. design a garage door). These questions may seem odd, but they are testing your thought process over domain knowledge.

5 Steps to Answering Every Product Manager Question

I approach the answer to every PM interview question with the following five steps.

Step 1: Determine is this a case question?

Case questions require a different approach than typical behavioral questions, so finding out what type of question you’re dealing with is an important first step.

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Not sure if a question is meant to be a case? Ask the interviewer.

How much time were you planning on spending on this question? I want to be conscious of our time.

If it’s a case, they’ll usually say that it is the central question or that most of the interview will focus on this subject. As a rule of thumb, anything five minutes or more can be treated as a case — just be sure to shorten your framework based on time constraints.

Step 2: Whiteboard everything

As soon as you know it’s a case question, get up and write notes on the whiteboard (use a sheet of paper if there isn’t a whiteboard).

Writing on the whiteboard allows you to connect ideas spatially while helping your interviewer follow your thought process. Dedicate some time to practicing using the whiteboard, but don’t worry about your spelling or drawing skills.

Three notes on white-boarding:

1. Write down the question and its key points (I tend to forget these 20 minutes in)
2. Number your framework (see image) — this allows you to connect each step clearly
3. Use different colors to highlight ideas you like or critical points

Step 3: Ask clarifying questions

The purpose of asking clarifying questions is two-fold. These questions can help you:

1. Understand the problem you are supposed to solve
2. Buy time to think about how to attack the case

Your clarifying questions will vary based on the case so I won’t list too many.

Examples of clarifying questions:

• Why are we doing X?
• Who is this for? Why would they use it?
• Who am I in this situation? Google PM? New startup?

Don’t ask more than two or three clarifying questions. Interviewers want to see that you can make decisions based on logical assumptions, so be prepared to answer your own questions (interviewer: “who do you think we should build for?”).

Step 4: Mentally categorize the question

What kind of question is this? Product design? Metrics? Go-to-market? Strategy?

As you ask clarifying questions, you should be determining the case type so that you can align it to an appropriate framework. I separate PM cases into product and business questions.

Product Cases:

1. Design X (for Y): Design a new car (for commuters)
2. Product Sense: Tell me about a product you like. Why do you like it?
3. Metrics for X: What metrics are the most important for Uber?
4. Improve X: Improve Alexa’s response accuracy
5. Launch X: Launch Apple Pay in India

Business Cases:

1. Estimate X: How many miles can an autonomous vehicle drive in a 24 hour shift?
2. Troubleshoot X: Netflix viewership in New York deceased by 15%. Why?
3. Monetize X: How would you monetize WhatsApp?
4. New Product or Market Entry: What new market should Amazon enter?
5. You are CEO of X: What would you do if you were the CEO of Lyft?

Some companies (Google) will also ask technical questions about system design or algorithms. I recommend this Github. Fair warning, if you don’t have a CS background (I don’t), the amount of information here may seem overwhelming. If you’re short on time, skim it for core concepts like SQL vs. No SQL or caching.

Step 5: Apply or design a framework

At this point, you have a clear idea of the problem and the type of question. It’s time to apply an existing framework or create one ad-hoc.

For frameworks, Cracking the PM Interview (McDowell & Bavaro) and Decode and Conquer (Lewis C. Lin) provide some great examples and are well worth a read. Leave a comment on this article if you are interested in a separate post on the frameworks I used.

Pretty much every framework should start with the goal. Don’t worry about writing the perfect goal; use it to clearly define assumptions upfront so you can reference the goal later in your case.

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