Evaluating whether the customers need your product or service and can afford it is known as qualifying. In this stage, you find potential customers and determine whether they have a need for your product or service-and whether they can afford what you offer. The first of the seven steps in the sales process is prospecting.

What are the seven steps of the sales process according to most sales masters? The following steps provide a good outline for what you should be doing to find potential customers, close the sale, and retain your clients for repeat business and referrals in the future. As the old adage goes, “Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist.” Once you’ve mastered the seven steps of the sales process you might learn in a business class or sales seminar, then you can break the rules where necessary to create a sales process that, like a rogue cop in a bad TV show, doesn’t follow procedure but gets results.