Predictable Revenue: Turn Your Business Into A Sales Machine With The $100 Million Best Practices Of Salesforce.com

by Aaron Ross

there is an opportunity cost to marketing to poor-fit prospects. Responses from people who don’t fit your customer criteria will just end up wasting your time and cluttering your database.

Send outbound mass emails or mass voicemails to prospects that fit your Ideal Customer Profile. These emails should look as if they are a single email that came from a salesperson. They should be text-based, not fancy HTML (though you can use HTML templates that look like text).

The main goal of this stage is to generate just 5-10 new responses per day. Reps can’t handle more responses per day than that without dropping balls.

Do this: Work your responses and referrals to make contact with the right executives, and then “Sell The Dream” by helping them paint a vision of what kinds of solutions will solve their problems. Then connect your solution to their key business issue(s) and their dream.

It is vital that you have a simple and clear process to pass new leads smoothly from your dedicated prospectors to your quota-carrying Account Executives. Don’t let anyone drop the baton!

What is the most important exercise you MUST do to get better results from marketing and sales? Answer: Get clear on your Ideal Customer Profile, including how to describe them and what their core challenges are. You’ll need to revise it many times before you feel “clear” – this is not a one-time exercise. The Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) helps us maximize sales and marketing productivity by: Finding great prospects more easily through smart targeting; and, Disqualifying poor prospects more quickly.

You can learn these easily – just by asking! Whether by phone or by using an online survey tool like SurveyMonkey, ask prospects and clients questions such as: What are your greatest challenges? What keeps you up at night? What are your main frustrations? What are you afraid of? What’s most important to you? What do you spend money on? What do you really, really, REALLY want?

“Targeted” mass emails sounds like an oxymoron. Here’s how they’re targeted: filter your list carefully according to the specific kind of account or contact you want to touch. Examples of filters include: Vertical (retail, finance, high tech, etc) Revenue Geography/Territory Employee count Business model (B2B, B2C, agency) Last Contact Activity Date Last Account Activity Date Contact Title (CEO, Director of Marketing, etc.)

Guidelines for Writing Your Own Emails These are guidelines for writing emails to cold prospects to start a conversation. Once you begin communicating, you can shift towards longer emails with more content, but in the beginning: These emails should look as if they are a single email that came from a salesperson. They should be text-based, not fancy HTML. State simply and clearly why you are reaching out. Make the email easy to read and respond to on a mobile phone. Offer credibility (e.g., examples of customers). Ask just one simple-to-answer question (such as for a referral). And BE HONEST in all your communications, whether by phone or email.

Send the messages either before 9:00 a.m. or after 5:00 p.m., and avoid Mondays and Fridays. (Sundays are okay.)

Learn to love “out of office” replies – those emails have the names and contact information for more people to target, such as executive assistants whose job it is to help route you to the right person in the company!

The goal of every mass email should be to establish and close a prospect on a next step. That next step should be either one of two things—but NOT both: Who is the best point of contact for …?” (to get a referral); Or... When is the best day/time for a quick discussion around…?” (to set up a conversation with the prospect). For goal #1, getting a referral, the objective is to confirm the best point of contact for a first conversation and get referred to them. Then, you can email the new contact (to whom you are referred) directly while mentioning (or c.c.’ing) the individual who referred you. This shows the new contact that you aren’t making a cold call and you’ve already been engaged with someone from his or her team. Internal referrals create the highest likelihood of getting a response. For goal #2, setting up a call, the objective is to set up a quick time to see if there’s a high level fit between your company and the prospect’s company. This call should be focused entirely on their business – not your business. You should lead the conversation and ask open questions that encourage them to talk about their business – not your business. If you’re talking more than 30% of the time on prospecting or scoping calls, you need to ask more questions or just keep your mouth shut more. If someone responds with a negative, “Not interested”, find out why. Remember, “No” doesn’t matter until you hear it from the CEO or your ideal decision-maker. And even then when you get a No, yo...

Assuming you are talking with a prospect who is a good fit for your service, the goal of “Selling The Dream” is NOT to “sell.” It is, rather, (1) to help the prospect create a vision of a dream solution that will solve their problems; and then (2) to connect your product to their key business issue(s) and their dream solution.

There’s interest – but are they ready to take action? Are you connected with the people with power or influence? Is there real interest in a next step?

Outbound prospectors shouldn’t just throw over lots of crummy opportunities that go nowhere – it is better for them to pass fewer, better opportunities to your Account Executives.

Here are a series of sample questions you can customize and use in a Discovery Call. Realistically, in a first conversation, a prospector might just ask 3-4 of these questions. They are roughly in order, starting with more general business questions and leading to more specific qualification questions: How are your ______ teams/functions organized? How does your ______ process work today? What system(s) do these teams use for sales and lead management? How long has the system been in place? What are your challenges now? (After each answer, keep asking, “What else?”) Have you been looking at alternatives yet? Have you tried and failed with other solutions? Why? Where does fall on your priority list? What is higher? What would an ideal solution look like to you? How will your decision-making process work? Why did you buy the old system? Who made the decision to purchase it? What is the probability a project will occur this year [in the next six months]? Why do it now? (Or why wait until later?)

More Tips for a First Call Main objective: get them talking about their business and then listen!!

Scheduling via email is a huge time-waster. Always work to schedule your next step while you’re on the phone.

If the prospect is interested but isn’t ready, or they need to convince more people on the team, then turn your focus to developing your contact into a Champion, who can do the selling for you at the account.

Apart from the qualification criteria, in order to be compensated for a new opportunity, the Sales Development Rep must find opportunities which: Have at least a potential of 20+ users (to ensure the sales reps were looking for large enough opportunities); Have no fundamental “red flags” or deal-breakers; The Sales Development Rep clearly generated (no poaching from “inbound” leads or other SDRs).

There is an opportunity cost to small deals – they waste time and resources that could be spent looking for or working on larger ones.

Fundamentally, when the Sales Development Rep feels it is worth the Account Executive’s time, and that the Account Executive would want to engage this deal, they pass the opportunity over. There were three guidelines for this: Does the company fit our Ideal Client Profile? Are we speaking with someone with influence or power? Is there a clear interest in a next step, usually in the form of a scoping or discovery call with an Account Executive? The opportunity is created and passed to the Account Executive still as a “Stage 1: New Prospect” opportunity. Even when passed to the Account Executive, it is not upgraded yet, and the Sales Development Rep is not compensated for it yet – not until it is re-qualified by the Account Executive.

How to Pass an Opportunity Smoothly Best: Hot-transfer the lead to the salesperson. Okay: Schedule a time on the calendars of your sales rep and the new lead for a discovery call. Last option: Make an email introduction, c.c.’ing both the sales rep and the new lead, with each other’s contact information in the email.

New opportunities are not upgraded to “qualified” until after the Account Executive speaks with and re-qualifies them in their own phone call. Do not let the Sales Development Rep get credit until this happens; this is so critical to quality control! After the Account Executive speaks to the prospect on the phone and feels good about the same basic outbound qualification criteria (Can we solve their problem? Are we in touch with the decision-makers? Do they want a next step?), the Account Executive can upgrade the opportunity to “Stage 2: Qualified”. Now the Sales Development Rep can get credit and be compensated for it.

As soon as an opportunity is upgraded, check it to ensure all of the following: Was this truly an incremental outbound opportunity? Not an inbound lead from your website? Was it re-qualified by the Account Executive by phone? (Sometimes an Account Executive would “do a favor” for their Sales Development Rep and upgrade opportunities before they re-qualified – a big no-no). Did the Sales Development Rep and Account Executive enter notes into your Sales Force Automation system appropriately? If it doesn’t exist in your systems, it doesn’t exist — and reps can’t be compensated for it.

Even if a salesperson takes just five minutes, they can quickly generate a list of objectives for their calls: What Answers do you want to learn in the call? What Attitudes do you wish the prospect to feel? What Actions should occur after the call?

Below is a typical “flow” for a qualification call: Opening (“Did I catch you at a bad time?”) and Introduction Discuss prospect’s current business situation (authentic curiosity) Probe for prospect’s needs (and confirm understanding of the needs) Position solution to meet those specific needs Handle objections Next steps

Use more role-playing training and fewer scripts to teach them how to think on their feet and have more natural conversations.

I experimented quite a bit with different compensation structures at Salesforce.com. The best was the simplest, with just two components: A Base salary: $_____________ A Commission of $_____________(targeted to be about 50% of the base, or 1/3 of their total)

The commission is paid monthly. It is made up of two parts: 50% depends on a goal for the number of qualified opportunities generated this month. 50% is paid based on deals that close, such as a percentage of revenue. This structure balances short- and long-term goals.It incents Sales Development Reps to generate many opportunities now, while also encouraging them to focus on the size of deals and likelihood of closing.

In summary, the most effective days begin with prioritizing key goals for the day, then a morning of responding to leads (“important and urgent” work), and an afternoon of calls and preparation for the future (“important, not urgent” work).

“Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“May I ask how your sales teams/ marketing organization/ research efforts... are organized?”

“If you were me, how would you approach your organization?”

“Do you have your calendar handy?” Never schedule by email if you can help it. Get on the calendar (whether it’s for yourself or you’re setting an appointment up for someone else) right there while you’re on the phone!

Call low/email high: Rather than going directly to your target, call a lower-level person to learn – or email high to get referred down to the right person. Attitude: You’re a non-threatening researcher, not a pushy salesperson. Favorite Questions (useful by phone or email): (Phone only): “Did I catch you at a bad time?” “Who is the right person to talk to about ?” “May I ask how your _________ [team/process/function] [is structured/works] today?” “Would it be a waste of time to discuss _________ to see if we could help?” Think “bite-sized emails”: Keep it short and sweet! Assume emails are read on cell phones. Ask one (and only one) question per email… Keep it simple. If they aren’t interested, find out why: Is (whatever problem you solve) just not a priority? No budget? Organizational change has the place in chaos right now? Is it worth your time to dig more, or should you move on? This insight is important because you will learn if the blocks are objections to overcome, or what and when your next step should be. Don’t give up too easily! (with ideal prospects): With ideal prospects, don’t disqualify them until you get a “no” from the decision-maker (don’t take “no” from others, even other executives). If you sell to the VP Sales and feel the account is ideal, don’t assume that because the CIO says you’re wasting your time that you are. As Winston Churchill said, “Never, never, never, never give up!” (with ideal prospects). Always set up a next step What next step will b...

Selling the Predictable Revenue way is about “Selling To Success.” It’s about hiring and training salespeople who are totally committed to their company’s vision and values. It’s salespeople helping new prospects connect with that vision, and then helping these new customers succeed — and generating lots of revenue as a byproduct. These salespeople don’t close customers that aren’t a good long-term fit. They work with a team of other great salespeople, all helping each other improve and learn as a team. Compensation is important, but it’s not the most important thing.

“ABC Selling” skips two essential steps: creating a Success Plan before negotiating an agreement, and focusing on Ongoing Customer Success after the close.

When anyone gets paid to do something, and has managers breathing down their neck, it distorts behavior. Empathy with prospects is lost in the push to “Just close the deal!” Trusting, capable managers can help protect their salespeople from these distorting effects by focusing on doing the right thing; fear-driving managers exacerbate the problem.

Is the high pressure you’re applying today generating short-term results at the expense of long-term results or client/employee trust?

Success is not when your service is launched; it’s when your service successfully impacts the customer’s business, such as when your software is adopted (not just deployed).

Selling to success helps pull a prospect through a buying cycle by helping tie their goals and desires to your company’s ability to help achieve their goals.

One of the tricks in “selling to success” is to not care too much about the close. Caring too much about the close will cause you to give off subconscious signals to the customer that you really don’t care about their success, and that you care more about getting paid or getting your manager off your back. That’s the irony of stressing too much about the close itself: the stress can reduce the likelihood of it happening. The Close Becomes a Natural Step in Achieving the Vision If you and the customer create a joint vision around how your company will make them successful, and they believe you, then the close becomes just a logical step in the progression to achieve that dream. You can remove the artificiality of “closing,” and make it feel natural.

Two Steps to Help Your Team Sell to Success First: Include a SIMPLE “Success Plan” step before you close. This is a plan (almost a vision) that paints a picture of the basic steps beyond deployment to actual client success. It should include a definition of what success means to the client, a few key milestones, and some responsibilities of both your company and the client. This “plan” can literally be a half-dozen bullet points in an email, agreed on with the client. It should be simple enough that anyone can quickly grasp its essence and vision. Do not create a complex plan.