More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Aaron Ross
Read between
March 9 - March 11, 2017
Predictable Lead Generation, the most important thing for creating predictable revenue. A Sales Development Team that bridges the chasm between marketing and sales. Consistent Sales Systems, because without consistency you have no predictability.
In high-productivity sales organizations, salespeople do not cause customer acquisition growth, they fulfill it.
how much new (qualified) pipeline the company needs to generate per month? (This is the #2 most important metric to track, right after closed business.)
The biggest bottleneck in prospecting into companies that have more than a few executives isn’t getting to the decision maker/influencer/point person…it’s finding them in the first place!
The tipping point of the Cold Calling 2.0 process was born: sending mass emails to high level executives to ask for referrals to the best person in their organization for a first conversation.
Rather, track metrics such as qualification calls per dayor week, and qualified opportunities per month.
By emphasizing repeatability and consistency, the pipeline and revenue ramps generated by a new Sales Development Rep become very predictable, and the entire team’s results become highly sustainable.
You must carve out time to work on these "important but not urgent" priorities.
Salesforce.com was pioneering the concept of Software-as-a-Service, offering its products online and on-demand; SaaS had not yet become accepted by mainstream companies.
Spend serious time on identifying and clarifying your Ideal Customer Profile. Define what companies are the most similar to your top 5-10% of your customers, defined as the ones likeliest to purchase for the most revenue, and develop focused target lists based on these tight criteria.
Research rather than sell: When reps do call into cold accounts, rather than cold calls, make “research calls.”
Leverage your sales force automation (“SFA”) systems in every way possible.
Email response rates (usually 7-10%) What e-mails are companies responding to, and why Who is responding (title, position of authority) Number of Scoping Calls completed Who became a qualified opportunity, and why Refinements to the Ideal Customer Profile (which was revised many, many times)
The Market Response Reps become experts at efficiently qualifying inbound and marketing-generated leads, and the Sales Development team only prospects for incremental business at accounts that need to be pursued, where there is no active or pre-existing interest.
Here is the source your PREDICTABLE REVENUE comes from: predictable lead generation.
My advice: Put new reps through some kind of training program that has them working in other parts of your company first, talking to customers, before they go on active sale duty. This will make them much more effective salespeople and actually ramp them faster. Slow down to speed up!
Prospecting cycle length: Measure the time between a) when the prospect first responds to a campaign to b) when a quality opportunity is created or qualified (this means the quota-carrying Account Executive has re-qualified and accepted the opportunity that the prospector passed over). Incidentally, my rule of thumb is that it takes 2-4 weeks, on average, to qualify a new opportunity from an initial response.
Sales cycle length: I like to measure the time from a) when the opportunity was created or qualified to b) when it closed.
The simple most important thing you can do to make this program effective is to spend time getting clear on who your ideal customers are — both the kinds of accounts and the types of contacts in them.
Design it this way to keep it simple: when we hire a new employee, how can you educate them as quickly as possible about what kinds of companies they should be striving to work with, or avoid?
SurveyMonkey,
On any given day, the rep should send 50-100 targeted mass emails with a goal of having 5-10 responses per day (assuming about a 10% response rate).
Send the messages either before 9am or after 5pm, and avoid Mondays and Fridays. (Sundays are okay.)
If you are using emails, expect a 7-9%+ response rate (excluding bounces). This rate includes all responses: positive, negative and neutral.
Be methodical in how you handle responses! Response handling is critical to make sure no responses fall through the cracks.
Don’t ignore bounces—clean bad emails out of your database as they come in.
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 #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.
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 dream solution.
Challenge them as well. How serious are they about solving their challenges?:
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, it is so critical to quality control!
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?
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 and afternoon of calls and preparation for the future ("important, not urgent" work).
You’re there to walk them through an evaluation and buying process.
One of my favorite time management practices—one that works for any sales rep or CEO—is to map out three-to-five main goals for the coming day. I like doing it the night before.
For A Sales Team I encourage clients to generally set up their dashboards in a three column format, including: Left: Current month activity (amount of stuff going on). Center: current month results/deals. Right: Long-term results (year-to-date).
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.
creating a Success Plan before negotiating an agreement, and focusing on Ongoing Customer Success after the close.
Customers don't care at all whether you close the deal or not. They care about improving their business. It’s easy to forget this in the heat of a sales cycle.
Success is not when your service is launched; it's when your service is successfully impacting the customer's business, such as when your software is adopted (not just deployed).
The more clear the client's vision of their success, the more they’ll want to pull the deal forward on their own.
If your marketing and sales efforts aren’t focused on your Ideal Customers, you will spend way too much time and energy on prospects who don’t really need what you have to offer (or they don’t understand yet why they need it).
In pipeline reviews or one-on-one coaching sessions, be merciless in finding out how much energy reps are putting into mapping out decision-making processes and people.
When doing outbound sales, start high—one or two levels higher than your decision maker.
Ask the prospects how their buying process works.
Obsess About the Decision Making Process, Not The Decision Maker
“How have you evaluated similar products or services?” “What is the decision making process?” “Who is involved in making the decision?” “How will the decision be made?” “What are the steps to have a check cut or funds released?”
Agree With The Prospect On Where The Free Trial Fits In Their Buying Process (Or Your Selling Process). A free trial is just one part of a longer (but hopefully not too much longer!) sales or buying cycle. If the trial is successful, then what? Answer that question before you begin the trial.
Define With The Client What A “Successful Trial” Means.
how many hours of selling time per rep does each sales cycle require?
