Posts Tagged Sales Strategy
The Correct Way to Define a Lead
Posted by Rick Pranitis in MARKETING on April 11, 2014
Too often, when marketing leaders sit down with their counterparts in sales to discuss lead definitions, the only factor considered is what sales wants. While this discussion is relevant and valuable, the result is typically one of two scenarios:
“Cream of the Crop” Leads. These leads may fulfill all the requirements of BANT (budget, authority, need, timeframe), but they are so expensive and difficult to generate that marketing exhausts its resources delivering a very low quantity. The ultimate result is a shallow pipeline.
“Do Nothing” Leads. When sales teams lack faith in the nurture process, they ask for demographic-specific leads and for immediate handoff without any marketing TLC. This tactic may be quicker on the front end, but it leads to low productivity, as sales must sift through a high quantity of very low quality leads that essentially necessitates cold calling everyone.
To avoid these scenarios and increase sales productivity, consider the following factors to help sales and marketing define and agree on lead quality:
Demand type. A shared understanding between marketing and sales of the type of demand being created significantly impacts the level to which leads can be qualified.
Sales structure, deal complexity and average selling price. Inside sales teams usually sell lower-priced products, therefore they can handle a higher quantity of lower-quality leads. Field reps target bigger, more complex deals and are rarely in the office, so a lower volume of higher-quality leads is more appropriate for them. Finally, reps who focus on large, named enterprise accounts aren’t necessarily looking for leads from marketing as much as they are looking for sales enablement.
Other lead sources. If marketing wants sales to value and follow up on the leads it delivers, it must have a clear understanding of other lead sources (e.g. partner referrals, customer referrals). This insight can guide marketing and sales to better define the quantity and quality of the leads marketing should deliver.
Time and cost. Everybody knows that highly qualified leads cost more and take longer to generate. Less obvious are the sales costs associated with leads that are qualified too deeply or not deeply enough. It’s best to establish the happy medium up front so you are optimizing productivity on either end.
What is possible. Too often, marketing agrees to deliver leads of a quantity and quality it can’t possibly produce. When defining lead quality, marketing commitments must reflect an honest assessment of what can actually be achieved.
By taking the time to consider the factors described above, sales and marketing leaders have a much better chance of defining lead quality/quantity goals that are appropriate and balanced. Keep in mind that at this stage we are looking for increased accuracy, not perfection.
This article was originally posted by Jay Gaines on the Sirius Decisions Blog, April 4, 2014
How to Cultivate and Harvest Your Leads Effectively
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on March 26, 2014
Businesses often set aside a large budget to generate leads. But they don’t follow up with enough eagerness, vigor or persistence. That’s lead waste, and it’s preventable.
Consider a farmer who has gone to the trouble of tilling his soil and planting, watering and fertilizing his crops, but come harvest time, neglects to pick the crops. After all that time, energy and money, the produce is dead on the vine.
No business owner wants to be that farmer, which is why it’s so important to eliminate lead waste. Evaluate your processes and sales strategies to ensure that not only are you harvesting new leads, but you’re also cultivating them in ways likely to convert them to sales and long-term customers.
The Causes of Lead Waste
You may be losing money and opportunities simply because there is no efficient system in place for following up on leads. Re-evaluating your processes could reveal ways to make more meaningful and lucrative connections with prospects.
Poor communication between departments can result in lost leads. For example, marketing teams are often expected to generate interested customers, while sales teams are expected to convert them. This multi-department process can cause miscommunication, accountability problems and finger-pointing — not to mention wasted budget dollars.
Leads need to be nurtured and encouraged to opt-in — not just by well-crafted automated emails. Phone calls or in-person meetings will provide you with far more information about where prospects stand on your offers, what their financial circumstances are, and what might be needed to convert them into paying customers.
Assessing Lead Waste
It’s smart to establish incentives for your sales team to go after shiny new leads, but don’t forget about existing contacts. Look at how you’re doing with customers you’ve already brought in. This can tell you a lot about where you’re falling short and likely losing money.
Simple reports from your customer relationship management system (CRM) can highlight lead waste in the following areas:
- Leads with no activity
- Leads with no activity in last X days
- Leads with no future activity set
- Lead inquiry date to first lead activity date
Another option is to run reports on the number of inquiries in the past month, the number of introductory meetings based on those inquiries, and the number of opportunities created. Use this information to develop a strategy for gaining traction on lapsed leads.
Preventing Lead Waste
Now that you’ve raked out lead waste, you can work on yielding more sales than before. Here are four ways to do so:
- Establish a clear process to assign, manage and track leads. Make sure there’s a backup plan for every process. Don’t let the system break if one person doesn’t follow up with a contact.
- Research industry metrics and set realistic goals for lead creation and conversion rates.
- Make sure sales and marketing are aligned and playing nicely. Streamline their communication processes and clean house when it needs to be done. If something doesn’t work, say so, and fix it. Avoid finger-pointing.
- Allow for an amnesty period during which everyone who committed a lead-related sin gets a do-over.
Slow Down and Smell the Revenue
Nobody’s suggesting you turn off the faucet for new leads in order to revisit existing leads; you need to do both. Consider splitting your teams in two:
- New/active leads team
- Older/reinvigorating leads team
This division of duty can lend focus to your sales team and ensure that every type of lead is being touched or revisited regularly. And if anyone’s ever suggested that nurturing email marketing is good enough, I can tell you firsthand that it’s not. Our company has made millions in revenue running inside sales campaigns behind failed email-only campaigns.
Before you tell your sales team to chase those new leads, stop and see what actually makes sense. Are you converting when you bring in leads? If not, why? When it comes to marketing, get your people in the habit of having live conversations with prospects. Follow-up based on accurate intelligence gets leads unstuck.
Most importantly, consult your books. The numbers will show how well you’re doing with leads. If the bottom line stinks, it’s time to rethink your approach.
This article was originally posted on the Sales & Marketing Management blog by Steve Hayes on March 13, 2014.
Three Pitfalls to Avoid When Developing an Account Strategy
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on January 8, 2014
The importance of selling strategically is an idea repeated time and time again – the larger and more complex the sale, the louder the advice. However, advising someone to sell strategically is somewhat like suggesting they “sell smart.” That’s great advice, but a little vague unless you can provide some specifics about the how to accomplish the goal.
Let’s start by examining some of the fundamentals for developing an account strategy – beginning with an actionable definition: An account strategy is a plan of action for getting to the right person, at the right time, with the right message.
When thinking about what it takes in a major account to formulate a winning sales strategy, a good starting point is remembering the buying environment is complex. Many decision-makers and influencers are involved, the needs and issues are multi-layered and the solution configuration and implementation management is likely to be complex and sophisticated.
In major accounts, one-size-does-not-fit-all is the cornerstone proposition for formulating a winning account strategy. There are no generic customers in major accounts. So there are no winning generic account strategies. Each customer is unique and each major account strategy must take that uniqueness into consideration.
Here are three pitfalls that will make a successful account strategy less likely.
Underestimating the importance of information is the first pitfall. Collecting, analyzing, and utilizing information about the customer is the starting point to develop any effective plan of action for getting to the right person, at the right time, with the right message. Getting that right requires the recognition that breadth comes before depth.
There is neither the need, nor the time to find out everything about everything all at once. It is however important to get a broad information base about the customer even before your sales process starts and to build upon it early in the sales cycle. This provides the foundation for formulating an initial strategy and provides guidance as to where and how to get in-depth information. The trap is getting a lot of information about the wrong things from the wrong people.
Confusing goals and strategy is the next pitfall. A list of goals is not a strategy. It is just a long list of things to do. A good account strategy focuses on a few pivotal goals and then delineates the challenges, resources, and actions necessary to achieve a favorable outcome – what needs to be done and how are you going to do it.
A correlated trap is substituting blue-sky ideas for pivotal goals using buzzwords like customer-centric that are just vague statement about some desired end state.
The third pitfall is assuming the future looks like the past. We live and sell in a time of “compressed history.” Changes driven by the global market and advances in manufacturing technologies make the past a bad predictor of the future. As a result competitive advantages that once lasted a long time now disappear quickly. In major accounts, if you want to prosper, assuming what worked in the past will work in the present is a risky premise.
To avoid these pitfalls, one overarching best practice should be remembered. In order to think and act effectively throughout the entire sales cycle, your sales strategy requires constant updating. Success cannot be achieved by filing out a form and periodically checking off key milestones. It requires understanding and reacting to the changes in the account and reviewing the responses to those changes with your sales management and the rest of the sales team on the account.
This article originally appeared in the Sales Training Connection blog on October 13, 2013.
How Great Sales People Respond to Price Objections
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on September 20, 2013
Lowering prices or throwing in add-ons is often not the best methods to respond to price objections. Although all sales involve negotiation, using these tactics overlooks the reasons behind most price objections which is, in the prospect’s eyes, the value is not quite at the level of the outlay required to obtain a deal. Great sales people use the three tactics below to respond to price objections without cutting into margins for their organizations or their own commissions.
Great sales people respond by looking for a cause behind the price objections
A great sales person who has spent enough time with a prospect to know he or she is committed to moving forward with a deal and has the support of his or her organization knows enough to suspect that price objections are really masking another reason for hesitating on signing a contract. Follow the lead of great sales people in dealing with these price objections and dive deeper into why a prospect may be raising price as a reason for not moving forward:
Ask the prospect whether the product or service as presently defined is what the prospect and his or her organization is looking for. This can help the prospect reflect on value for price and realize that the price shouldn’t be an objection.
Find out whether the prospect has the full support of other decision makers, or if there may be a key decision maker who is not convinced. When this is the case, you can arrange a meeting with the hold outs to overcome the price objections.
Ask whether the prospect has found similar value for money anywhere else. Price objections are sometimes the result of competitor offers, and knowing whether or not the prospect is working with one of your competitors can help you explain where your offerings differ and provide a better value.
Great Sales People Find Out Whether Price Objections May End the Deal
Once great sales people have explored all other avenues, if the price objections remain it is possible that the objection to price can cause the prospect to walk away from the negotiations without making a purchase. It’s crucial for great sales people to find out whether this is a possibility before the prospect begins to distance him or herself from the deal. Great sales people handle this by:
Asking whether it’s the price or the product/service which is causing the prospect concern. Occasionally prospects think of an additional feature or functionality that would be nice to have or even a must have at this late stage, and this may be easily solved.
Finding out whether it is the price or the terms that’s the real problem. Less established companies or those emerging from recent business combinations may need longer terms, which can be less expensive to negotiate than price.
Great Sales People Put Price Objections in a Different Perspective
Big ticket sales cause pressure for prospects, especially if a prospect is worried about how his or her organization will react to the changes that a product or service may introduce. In other cases, it’s only the number that a prospect is worried about. In either circumstance great sales people help prospects overcome price objections by putting the price in a different perspective relative to value using tactics like amortizing the price and creating timelines that compare the price against the potential gains in revenue or margin. Using a combination of all of the above tactics, great sales people are rarely stymied by price objections.
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You can’t sell if you don’t know how they buy
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on September 17, 2013
It is one of the most fundamental and important propositions in major account selling – you can’t sell if you don’t know how people buy. Ask any top performing salesperson and they will paint a comprehensive picture of the customer’s buying process. Ask an average performer and they will provide only a sketch.
Because of the foundational nature of this idea, it is always a good idea to pay attention when someone adds new insight about how customers buy. In a McKinsey article they asked a fundamental question – Is the buying cycle linear? Their short answer was – No!
According to a McKinsey & Co study, the traditional linear sales process – customers take in information; narrow down their choices; kick the tires, and submit the purchase order – is not really how customers buy. Rather, they talk about the Customer Decision Journey that is anything but linear.
The study found that more than 50% of marketing spend is misaligned because of a misunderstanding how customers make buying decisions – as they say that is a problem worth correcting. So let’s take a look at three steps a salesperson could take to start getting it right.
Stop assuming the buying process is a mirror image of your selling process.
Most companies have a five or six stage selling process beginning with stages like need recognition and ending with stages such as resolution of concerns and proposal submission. The processes are almost always linear in depiction.
The first problem, as the McKinsey authors pointed out, is the buying process is often not linear. Second, the customer may not start at the beginning of your sales process. For example, they may expect that you have a good understanding of their needs hence not want to go through an extended series of discovery conversations. Third, they may have placed additional emphasis on a stage like evaluation of options so they can engage more people and committees in the buying process. So you are stalled at Stage 3 and don’t even know why.
Don’t get there too late with too little.
In an HBR article Steve Martin reported on a win-loss analysis study. He found – “Approximately 30% of the time, the winner of the sales cycle was determined before the official selection process started. Another 45% of the time, customers had already made up their minds about whom they were going to buy from about halfway through the process.”
This means that 75% of the time customers make their final decision halfway through the selection process. Consequently you have to determine early on whether you are chasing a bad business opportunity. On the other hand, if it is the case where the race can still be won, you need to have a strong first half.
Stop assuming the present can be predicted from the past.
Today we are living and selling in a time of “compressed history.” Changes driven by the global market and advances in manufacturing technologies make the past a bad predictor of the future. Companies in many industries are going through transformational changes which are impacting their buying process and, in some cases, their basic business model.
As a result, competitive advantages that once lasted a long time now disappear quickly. What you need to do and how you do it during the sales process has to be adjusted and fine-tuned to the new reality. If you want to prosper – assuming what worked in the past will work in the present is a risky assumption.
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This article was originally posted to the Sales Training Connection by Richard Ruff on September 9, 2013.
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Four Big Mistakes in Managing your Sales Funnel
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on August 30, 2013
Many sales people are familiar with the concept of the “sales funnel,” with the idea that every sale starts with a large pool of prospects, which are eventually narrowed down by the various steps of the sales process (qualification, presentations, proposals, etc.) leading to a much smaller number of customers who actually decide to buy and close the deal.
A big part of success in managing sales leads is developing a better way to understand and manage your company’s sales funnel. Here are a few of the biggest mistakes that small business leaders tend to make in managing their sales funnels – and ideas on how you can get better results.
Mistake #1: Always asking for “more sales leads.” Many companies make the mistake of thinking that they can get better sales results just by constantly engaging in lead generation activities to “dump more leads into the funnel.” This is a costly and inefficient way of getting more sales, because it takes time, effort and investment to find more sales leads. Chances are good that your business can improve your sales results by doing a better job of managing the sales leads you already have, instead of constantly hunting for more and more sales leads.
Mistake #2: Focusing on CRM technology instead of your sales process. Many sales organizations make the mistake of investing in expensive customer relationship management (CRM) software but without a clear understanding of how they want to use the CRM software to improve their sales process. CRM technology can be a valuable tool, but it cannot replace a smart strategy for understanding and adjusting your sales activities to line up with your biggest priorities in your sales process. For example, you as a small business leader need to understand what is happening at every stage of your sales process. Are you failing to generate enough appointments during your initial contacts with new sales leads? Are your sales appointments failing to result in enough follow-up sales presentations? Where in the sales process are you having the most difficulty, and what can you do differently? These are the questions that CRM tools can help you answer, but you can’t rely solely on technology to do the hard work of identifying and fixing the problems.
Mistake #3: Not training your sales team. Sales training is not just for new hires. Sales people need motivation, coaching and a clear idea of what they’re selling and how to adjust to customers’ changing needs and expectations. You have to constantly keep your sales people up to date on the latest ideas and sales techniques. Help your sales team learn from each other and collaborate by sharing their experiences on what works and what doesn’t. Listen to your sales people during their sales calls and offer coaching and guidance on how to improve.
Mistake #4: Not measuring each stage of your sales funnel. Many sales organizations focus too much on their final deal closing ratios, and don’t pay enough attention to the conversion ratios that lead up to the final negotiations with the buyer. Take a look at all stages of your sales process and measure your success rate at each stage. For example, out of 100 sales leads, how many will agree to an initial appointment? How many of those appointments lead to a more extensive sales presentation? Where in your sales process are the biggest successes and the biggest opportunities to improve?
Managing your sales funnel needs to be part of an ongoing effort to see what is happening within your sales process and adjusting along the way. If you have a clear understanding of where your challenges are coming from, which parts of the process need to improve, and constantly coach your sales team to improve their efforts at each stage of your sales funnel, you will start to see a better result in the most important number of all – sales.
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Three Biggest Networking Mistakes Salespeople Make
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on August 26, 2013
Sales people often are natural networkers – after all, we tend to be “people persons” who love to meet new people, build relationships, and create conversations, both in “real life” and on social media. But many sales people, without realizing it, are making some big mistakes with their business networking.
Business networking is one of the sales person’s oldest tools. We use our network of relationships and contacts to get in touch with decision makers, get advice, and get connected with new opportunities. But if you’re making some of these networking mistakes, you might not be reaching your full potential as a sales professional.
Here are a few of the most common networking mistakes – and how to avoid them:
Mistake #1: Networking without a strategy. Building relationships is a long-term activity. You can’t just expect to run out and immediately find the contacts or opportunities you’re looking for without investing some time and effort. Just as you would develop a marketing plan or a sales strategy to land a big client, spend some time mapping out some short-term and long-term goals for your sales networking.
How to avoid: Spend some time asking (and answering) some “big questions” that can guide your networking activity. For example, who are you trying to meet? Which types of companies would you love to get connected with? Who do you already know who works at these companies or knows some of these higher-level people, and how can you strengthen your relationships with your existing circle of influence?
Mistake #2: Networking only to “get,” never to “give.” Too many sales people only look at networking as a way to get what they want. Too many sales people only network in order to get closer to a decision maker, or get their foot in the door at a company where they’re trying to make a sale, or to get in front of someone who might offer them a new job. This is the biggest networking mistake of all. If people feel that you are in it only for yourself, they will be reluctant to trust you or help you. Networking is a two-way street – and some of the most successful sales people are also the most generous with their time and with their contacts.
How to avoid: When networking, always look for opportunities to “give” more than you “get.” Examples of “giving” might be as simple as sharing a timely article about a prospect’s business or industry, or connecting a contact with an opportunity that is valuable to them (even if it is unrelated to your business). Your generosity might not always be rewarded immediately, but in the long run you will build a reputation as someone who can be trusted, and someone who is willing to help others and connect others with opportunities.
Mistake #3: Networking only with the “usual suspects.” Especially if you sell a complex B2B solution, it can be understandably tempting to spend most of your time focused on networking with people in your niche market. But if you spend all of your time connecting only with a small circle of people, you might miss out on opportunities that could come from connecting with people from other facets of your life.
How to avoid: Remember that everyone you know, and everyone they know, can potentially be a valuable contact for you. Take a look at all of your social circles – work, family, community activities, social organizations – and see how you can become more of a connector. Someone you know from church or from your kids’ school might have a friend or relative who works in a business that needs your help.
Networking is the constant, never-ending work of the sales professional. Sometimes networking feels like trying to navigate a maze – lots of blind corners and uncertainty and wrong turns. But at its best, networking is not a maze, it’s a safety net. One of the comforting truths about networking is that we are all supported by our own “safety nets” of contacts and all of their combined expertise, experience and relationships. If sales people can learn to network with planning and purpose (instead of just impulsively grasping around with no sense of direction), if sales people can learn to broaden their networks and connect other people within their networks (instead of only talking to the “usual suspects”), and if sales people can use networking as a way to deepen their relationships and build trust (rather than only trying to get what they need), networking will become a more purposeful and helpful tool – and a better way to operate as a sales professional.
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Eight Ways to Make People Believe What You Tell Them
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION on August 9, 2013
Credibility is one piece of the bedrock of trust. If people doubt what you say, all else is called into doubt, including competence and good intentions. If others don’t believe what you tell them, they won’t take your advice, they won’t buy from you, they won’t speak well of you, they won’t refer you o
n to others, and they will generally make it harder for you to deal with them.
Being believed is pretty important stuff. The most obvious way to be believed, most people would say, is to be right about what you’re saying. Unfortunately, being right and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee. First, people have to be willing to hear you. And no one likes a wise guy show-off – if all you’ve got is a right answer, you’ve not got much.
While each of these may sound simple, there are eight distinct things you can do to improve the odds that people believe what you say. Are you firing on all eight cylinders?
1. Tell the truth. This is the obvious first point, of course – but it’s amazing how the concept gets watered down. For starters, telling the truth is not the same as just not lying. It requires saying something; you can’t tell the truth if you don’t speak it.
2. Tell the whole truth. Don’t be cutesie and technical. Don’t allow people to draw erroneous conclusions based on what you left out. By telling the whole truth, you show people that you have nothing to hide. (Most politicians continually flunk this point).
3. Don’t over-context the truth. The most believable way to say something is to be direct about it. Don’t muddy the issue with adjectives, excuses, mitigating circumstances, your preferred spin, and the like. We believe people who state the facts, and let us uncover the context for ourselves.
4. Freely confess ignorance. If someone asks you a question you don’t know the answer to, say, “I don’t know.” It’s one of the most credible things you can say. After all, technical knowledge can always be looked up; personal courage and integrity are in far shorter supply.
5. First, listen. Nothing makes people pay attention to you more than your having paid attention to them first. They will also be more generous in their interpretation of what you say, because you have shown them the grace and respect of carefully listening to them first. Reciprocity is big with human beings.
6. It’s not the words, it’s the intent. You could say, in a monotone voice, “I really care about the work you folks are doing here.” And you would be doubted. Or, you could listen, animatedly, leaning in, raising your eyebrows and bestowing the gift of your attention, saying nothing more than, “wow.” And people would believe that you care.
7. Use commonsense anchors. Most of us in business rely on cognitive tools: data, deductive logic, and references. They are not nearly as persuasive as we think. Focus instead more on metaphors, analogies, shared experiences, stories, song lyrics, movies, famous quotations. People are more inclined to believe something if it’s familiar, if it fits, or makes sense, within their world view.
8. Use the language of the other person. If they say “customer,” don’t you say “client” and vice versa. If they don’t swear, don’t you dare. If they speak quietly one on one, adopt their style. That way, when you say something, they will not be distracted by your out-of-ordinary approach, and they will intuitively respect that you hear and understand them.
What’s not on this list? Several things, actually: Deductive logic, PowerPoint, Cool graphics, Spreadsheet backup, Testimonials and references, Qualifications and credentials.
It’s not that these factors aren’t important; they are. But they are frequently used as blunt instruments to qualify or reject. We’d all prefer to be rejected or disbelieved “for cause,” rather than for some feeling. And so we come up with rational reasons for saying no, and justifying yes. But the decision itself to believe you is far more likely driven by the more emotive factors listed above.
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This article was originally posted on The Trust Matters Blog by Charles H. Green on July 26, 2013.
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Three Keys for Building a Sales Pipeline
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on July 18, 2013
You know what a sales pipeline is and you know that you have one, but how do you build and manage that pipeline to take your sales to the next level? Building sales pipeline success depends on the sales pipeline’s effectiveness, strength, and results, the three keys to building sales pipeline value. Take the first step towards building sales pipeline success by focusing on and managing these three keys to the sales pipeline.
Building Sales Pipeline Effectiveness: Maximize Your CRM System
The customer relationship management system you are using is only as useful as the information you put in. In other words, if you are putting in outdated, incomplete, or otherwise unhelpful data, the CRM will not be able to help you succeed. Yet consistently and properly updated CRM systems are one of the keys to building sales pipeline effectiveness. Make sure that you are using CRM to maximize results by:
– Habitually and thoroughly updating the system with new leads, status on existing leads, and other information as it is acquired.
– Avoiding removal of leads unless those leads are out of business or have requested no further contact. Leads that are unqualified and may be qualified later, or have said no but may be more open in the future, should be flagged with the appropriate time horizon for follow up.
– Checking your CRM daily to guide your activities for prospecting, follow up, and scheduling, and updating your activities as you work.
Building Sales Pipeline Strength: Quality In, Quality Out
A large part of building sales pipeline strength – that is, ensuring that there are healthy numbers of leads, prospects, and closes in the pipeline at all times – rests on getting quality leads into your sales pipeline. Getting as many leads as possible may seem like the right idea, but you will probably find more success in maintaining and building sales pipeline strength if you focus on quality, rather than quantity, of leads. To do this, you can:
– Start qualifying leads before you even make first contact, so that the contact you make can build on information you already have rather than starting at the beginning when you reach a live prospect.
– Be realistic about prospects’ qualifications and readiness to buy. Over optimistic projections can harm your productivity and sales pipeline results.
– Create standard processes for how and when you qualify and prospect for a system that can deliver you reliable results, every time.
Building Sales Pipeline Results: Know What You Need to Do to Reach Your Targets
If you want to reach your sales targets for the month, the quarter, and the year, you need a roadmap to get there. It is not enough to rely on your ability to sell and a constant stream of incoming leads; you need to know how many of each type of lead, prospect, and customer you need to have in your pipeline to reach your sales goals. This is easy to accomplish if you have been tracking your sales and activities over past periods.
– Look at your quarterly performances and analyze how many leads you followed up on, how many of these were viable prospects, how many of these were presented, and how many of these closed.
– Calculate averages for how long converted leads took you to close from the day the lead was initially entered to the day the contract was signed, categorizing these in ranges according to the contribution each made to your targets.
– Use these numbers to determine how many new leads, calls, presentations, and closes you need to have in your pipeline every quarter to meet or beat your targets.
Building sales pipeline effectiveness, strength, and results depends on your ability and commitment to update and maintain your pipeline through various tracking activities. However, the time that you spend on these activities will pay you back with interest as your more targeted approach to selling using the sales pipeline yields results.
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This article was originally posted in the SalesForce Search Blog by Matt Cook on July 9, 2013.
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Do You Let Customers Set Prices?
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION, MARKETING on June 4, 2013
If you ask a group of product management and marketing leaders most, if not all, will say they carefully develop pricing according to a set business strategy, and their pricing is guided by three requirements: the needs of the buyer, the value the offering delivers and profitability. However many will fail to set strong pricing policies to ensure the fruits of the strategy are delivered. Without this policy, every transaction runs the risk of becoming an “exception,” and customers – not the organization – end up setting prices.
A strong pricing policy clearly spells out pricing, how it’s structured, and what metrics are used to value the offering. It indicates the criteria customers must meet to fit into each price band. It also explains policy (e.g. price protection, raw-material cost increases, etc.). Finally, it provides direction to the sales team on how to manage price objections.
To maintain the value of an organization’s products or services, a best-in-class policy provides a menu of tradeoffs salespeople may offer when negotiating with buyers. Say a company has a budget of $25,000 for software. Your proposal comes in at $32,000. Do you discount? No! Offer tradeoffs of service levels or usage access. That way, customers come to understand the pricing is not open to negotiation, but a solution can be reworked to fit the budget. Once customers are used to working with your organization in this way, they will no longer assume they can negotiate, and will better recognize the value of your offering.
Once you have built strong pricing policies, make sure you do two things: First, educate your sales force on the pricing strategy and policy, and provide them with tools (e.g. ROI models and case studies) to support the policy. Explain the tradeoffs they may offer customers, and role-play negotiating scenarios with them. Second, develop strong pricing policy enforcement at the regional level. How is this done? First, include regional marketing and sales teams when developing the policy, so they can stand behind it. Second, allow no exceptions. Reject all quotes which go against the policy. If field marketing and sales data indicate that the policy is not competitive, (then) consider revising the policy as well as the pricing.
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This article was originally posted to the Sirius Decisions Blog by Lisa Singer on April 24, 2013
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