Sales Process, Sales training, cold calling, prospecting, sales qualifying, lead conversions

Optimizing Sales Process to Drive Revenue

		by Kraig Kleeman Publisher / Chairman Our research is conclusive... Our analysts have observed thousands of sales presentations, activities, and tasks across hundreds of professional sales organizations within the information technology industry. Our research is conclusive: Many organizations make the mistake of deploying sales professionals independent from establishing a sound sales process that has been properly vetted, tested, and optimized for excellence. This occurrence is to the detriment of enterprise efficacy. This paper is the first in a series that will address a variety of vital issues analyzing the topics of sales process and lead development. The research behind this paper is heavily analyzed and grouped by information technology related product types, and associated types of selling processes that ought to be employed, versus what are actually employed. This paper deals with metrics and outcomes, not particularly prescribed vendor models or modalities. We will discuss average to below average practices (laggards) with compared to best practices (leaders) in the realm of sales process and sales cycle effectiveness: Numbers of formal sales calls and elapsed time from first contact to agreement execution will be thoroughly reviewed. At the conclusion of this paper, we will provide a checklist for analyzing sales process healthfulness in the context of information technology selling, and the varied product areas that are commonly being sold in today’s marketplace. Architecting a cancerous model for selling The overriding philosophy for adopting optimized standards for a strong sales process lies in a deeper understanding and appropriate definition of the various product disciplines being offered. More precisely, there are efficiency standards for sales cycle models that are commensurate with sale price, product complexity, the inclusion or omission of professional services, and title of target that holds budgetary responsibility. The size of the department or enterprise that is being targeted is also a critical measurement. Few executive management teams understand this basic concept. And fewer still incorporate this truth into the architectural design of their sales process. Many executive teams recruit, train and deploy large field organizations without having standardized on a proven model that, when fed with appropriate lead development and lead cultivation processes, will flourish through a successful “feeding of the machine”. To the detriment of enterprise efficiency, many technology sales organizations are either under-nourished from a lead cultivation / lead development perspective, or they are mis-developed from a sales process perspective. Large, acquisitive organizations with multiple product offerings that vary greatly by product type are particularly vulnerable as they often attempt to standardize on one selling process company-wide. Just as one shoe does not fit all people’s feet, one over-riding sales process cannot fit all product / solution disciplines within a growing, acquisitive organization that markets a diverse portfolio of products. Root causes / deficiencies The deficiencies are sometimes the result of executive incompetence. Other times it’s the result of mediocre line managers who execute poorly. Still other times it’s the result of hiring deficient personnel. But more times than not, it’s the direct result of deploying an untested / poorly architected sales process that is misaligned with practical tasks that will produce desired outcomes. This article discusses the importance of developing a credible, programmatic selling transformational effort, with special emphasis on architecting sales process so as to match product / solution type. A medical analogy is relevant: Most of the skin’s upper layers (epidermis) consist of what is referred to in the medical community as squamous cells. More than 700,000 new cases of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) are diagnosed every year. That makes it the second most common skin cancer (after basal cell carcinoma). It is a proven, medical fact that untreated, chronic skin infections or inflammations can and often do de-generate into squamous cell carcinoma. It goes without saying that early detection for any serious health related issue significantly increases proper diagnosis and treatment, especially cancer. Our research is clear: Poor systems for lead development and / or lead cultivation are rampantly undetected and untreated in the information technology industry. What’s more, poor methodologies for sales process are also rampantly undetected and untreated. When left untreated, this condition becomes chronic and results in measurable productivity loss that ultimately impacts enterprise efficacy. It’s time for a metaphorically penetrating question: Does your sales organization have the equivalent of cancer. Do you know if it does? Can you professionally diagnose your own organization? Further, if cancer is detected, do you have the knowledge to treat your team’s cancerous condition? Sales process and transaction type Subscription based, cloud-computing offerings with short-term contracts that tend to achieve high renewal rates is very different than an enterprise-class, on-premises product sale that incorporates the need to coalesce a clear consensus from multiple stakeholders. Wrongly, most sellers allow the target buyer to dictate the length of the sales cycle, versus adopting a well planned, pro-active process that gives the seller influence and near-control over next steps, timeframes, and all action tasks for deal advancement that will lead to closure. Teams are not trained to draw “swift conclusions”. As such, un-cleansed sales pipelines lead to poor sales forecasting. This poverty in sales forecasting in turn leads to poverty in cash forecasting and cash management along with a variety of other negative cascading actions that adversely affect enterprise performance. The table below identifies product types, related characteristics, and the average length of sales cycle elapsed time, benchmarking laggards from leaders.		Kraig Kleeman Blaire Group Publisher
	Structured Activity Always Generates Revenue Structured activity when coupled with the right technique and the right systems for accountability and measurement will always lead to revenue. Though not comprehensive, below is our “top ten list” of critical competency checklist truths that, when applied properly, leads to a realignment of sales strategy, process, technique, and tracking analytics which consistently boosts sales pipelines along with revenue production. 1. Cold Calling Methodology Sales teams must be equipped with a strict, well-developed set of principles that provides vital direction for cold-calling, tele-prospecting, and business development related activities. This can only be accomplished by de-constructing existing messaging and reconstituting it into a language of persuasion. Further, it imposes milestone-based, best practices on sales process to insure quick deal discovery, quick deal advancement, and optimized deal closing. Areas for review and analysis include, but are not limited to the following: Live observation of sales team members cold calling live target buyers Analysis of target list procurement & cleansing methods Analysis of trailing and future 12-month marketing campaign, lead generation tasks Weighted, quantitative assessment of product-centric messaging versus metrics / outcomes-centric messaging 2. Message Optimization In order for this methodology to be properly constructed, your management team ought to supply a third party expert consulting team with a list with approximately fifty (50) of your target buyers. The expert consulting team will call your live targets and craft an optimized / tested message consistent with the principles for persuasion. 3. Lead with Research, not Product It is a fact that target buyers will not respond favorably toward unsolicited sales calls. It is also a fact that executive buyers do express interest in attending short research briefings where the topics are relevant to their professional mandates. A knowledgeable expert, third party consulting team can support you build your customized research-briefing presentations that are relevant to your target buyers’ professional mandates. It is vital that these presentations incorporate metrics and outcomes, not features and benefits. These presentations cannot be a product demonstration or value proposition dialog to be effective. Rather, they are an amalgamation of third party, analyst research that is presented in condensed, summary format. Excellence in form, structure, agenda, talk-track, and techniques for all introductory presentations must be incorporated. When presented properly, the target buyer enters into a deep dialog that creates quick deal discovery and a deep level of qualification. This is the definitive approach for “getting in”. 4. Documentation Any fruitful implementation must contain libraries of educational materials. An online resource center that includes sample scripts, sample research-briefings, instructional white papers, “how to” manuals are vital for long-term success. 5. Essential Skills and Functions / Background Profile Many organizations simply have not created an optimized definition for recruiting top tier personnel. Job descriptions that clearly identify essential skills, functions and appropriate background profiles must be included and rigorously adhered to in the recruiting process to achieve best practices. 6. Compensation Review and Recommendations All too often compensation plans are incongruent with individual and corporate goals. As an example, when a demand generation professional is sanctioned with a compensation plan that is weighted too heavily on bookings versus lead development activity accomplishments, the turnover rate is high for that position. It is vital that demand generation professionals are compensated for producing successful activities / outcomes that are within their span of control. 7. People Management / People Coaching / People Review There are a number of areas that must be carefully analyzed and reviewed for any inside sales or demand generation team. Below are examples: Gift mix review: weighted, quantitative assessment that leads to a Recommend or No Recommend status Headcount Balancing based upon clearly defined success indicators that justifies a strategic rationale for each deployed FTE. This rationale governs headcount increases or decreases as necessary Ride-Along Management: Inside sales managers are not metrics babysitters. They are established to be coaches and stewards of people. Good managers produce good people, and good people produce good metric-based performance. Many organizations, sadly, have this concept in reverse. Standards for headset-to-headset training, i.e. ride-along management and development must be thoroughly instilled and any inside organization that is to fulfill its highest potential Good Day / Bad Day Daily Scorecard Assessment. With regards to inside sales professionals, and especially demand generation specialists, every day is either good or bad. There is no gray area. A clear set of daily metrics that incorporates tracking for activities such as call volume, appointments scheduled and retained, number of callbacks from voice mail messages left on target’s voice mail machines, and hyper-customized email responses must be clearly viewed, analyzed, and presented in a daily Good Day / Bad Day assessment format. Collective Good Day / Bad Day performance is reviewed weekly from manager to subordinate, and is publicly stack ranked monthly 8. Technology Issues / Recommendations Predictive Dialers have the potential to harm or boost productivity. There are standards for determining predictive dialer technology and its ultimate effect on any inside sales organization. These standards ought to be reviewed and adhered to rigorously by any team serious about building an inside sales organization. Tracking Analytics and CRM Dashboard Development: Tracking the right metrics is vital for any organization to flourish. Upon determining appropriate tracking metrics, it is equally vital that CRM dashboards be developed that allow “at a glance” views regarding key performance indicators. Lead Generation Technology Tools. List acquisition from third party vendors is, generally, yesterday’s approach for lead development. As an example, an analysis of one of the leading list vendors in the world, InfoUSA is sobering. Its entire database of 224 million names is 210 million b2c and only 14 million b2b, which means that 94% of its entire database, along with its list generating techniques is irrelevant to any b2b environment (see InfoUSA’s privacy statement at http://list.infousa.com/PrivacyPolicyInfo.htm). What’s more, by InfoUSA’s own admission, i.e. interviews from InfoUSA’s own employees state that their methodology of using tele-research touches only 11% of their entire database annually for cleansing (see http://www.stonetemple.com/articles/interview-pankaj-mathur.shtml and http://www.dialog.com/media/file531/transcript/). Best practices for list cleansing by any standards (see DMA research and list brokerage white papers) requires a thorough accuracy and scrubbing check for the entire list once each 6 – 12 months. Conclusion: InfoUSA is a beast that is beyond accuracy cleansing by any standard of best practices, especially when using tele-researchers to make calls and confirm data. They rely heavily on postal office updates, etc – which is almost entirely inapplicable to a b2b lead acquisition environment. There are web crawling tools that can harvest a litany of information including accurate email addresses, which will have a positive effect on any team’s ability to deliver meetings. 9. Email Content Review Few organizations realize the power of hyper-customized, hyper-personalized, hyper-localized emailing. Most organizations include value proposition language that is irrelevant and fraught with html produced graphics, etc. When executed properly libraries of individually deployed “hyper-personalized” email campaigns produces powerful outcomes. But it takes a significant commitment to change management to properly deploy best practices in this important area for garnering leads that will bolster sales pipelines. 10. Onsite Training and Certification All of the aforementioned is nothing more than theory without good leadership. Any project must start, continue, and end with constant and vital communication amongst key stakeholders. Actvities for educating workers through onsite training and development are on-going and vital for success. Introduction to the Over-arching Principles for Persuasion Best Practices for Call Structure and Call Script Development Standards for Managing Objections Overcoming Gate Keeper Reluctance How to Treat Voice Mail Greetings Structured Role Playing Clinic Time – Live Calling of Live Targets under the Supervision of Your Instructor One-on-one Certification Session Best Practices for Activity Tracking / Metrics The power of establishing Dates and Times Certain, Appropriating Deadlines, Invoking the Alternative Close Methodology Milestone Selling Development: Closing with Excellence by drawing Swift Conclusions through PURCHASE confrontation Process Requirements, People Approvals, Mutual Action Plans to satisfy buyer requirements “Last Look” Principles for Deal Closing Strategy and Pipeline Cleansing cancer can be expelled...! I, personally, am a cancer over-comer. More than 15 years ago I was personally diagnosed with squamous cell cancer on my larynx. At a minimum, the implications of this disease was a potentially occupational hazard for me, i.e. complete loss of my larynx which would spell disaster for my chosen career and way my basic personality expressions. Fortunately, I was blessed to receive amazing medical assistance from a brilliant man named Dr. Robert Bastian. Early detection meant aggressive intervention, according to my good and honorable expert consultant, Dr. Robert Bastian. My body reacted violently to the radiation treatment. The treatment itself, at times, seemed like it was going to kill me. I have never been so sick and bed ridden in my entire life. I went from a robust, weight-lifting 155 pounds to a feeble 117 pounds in a matter of weeks. The whole experience was hell on earth for me personally. But only for a little while. After the painful intervention, the healing process began for me, and ultimately, became complete. Dr. Bastian is a man of both extreme knowledge and unflappable faith. During my time of suffering he would encourage me to stand on certain principles of authentic, faith-filled thinking. Bible passages like “He wounded me because He loved me…” became a great source of inspiration and courage during that dreadful time. My now ex-wife was an absolute saint towards me at that time, she guided me through my darkest hours. I would like to close this white paper with a personal word of encouragement. If aspects of your sales process / model is cancerous, good leadership that assists with establishing painful but corrective surgery can radically change the health of your organization. At Blaire Group, we make it our goal to be like Dr. Bastian: we are willing to inflict pain “for a little while” so as to produce powerful outcomes. We are also willing to be like my now ex-wife, who provided guidance, support, and a nurturing heart along the way to offset the pain. 1 Blaire Group Research, Sales Process: Metrics & Trends 2 Blaire Group Research, Outcomes Based Selling 3 Skin Cancer Foundation, Squamous Cell Carcinoma, The Second Most Common Skin Cancer 4 Blaire Group Research: Measuring Sales Process: Leaders vs. Laggards 5 Blaire Group Research: Measuring Sales Process: Leaders vs. Laggards Register for a FREE Analyst Discussion entitled Optimizing Cold Calling to Drive Revenue Complete the form below to register

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