Best Practices for Accelerating Sales

© SOMAmetrics 2013 1

Best Practices for Massively Accelerating Sales

Workshop PresentationAlicia AssefaCOO SOMAmetrics2013


Agenda

• Terms and Definitions• What Teleprospecting Is/Isn’t• Elements of a Complex Sale• Framework for Quality SQLs• Funnel Math• Marketing and Teleprospecting Quotas• Build the Right Tools• Manage for Success• SQL Closed Loop Workflow• Manage SQLs in the Sales Funnel


Terms

• GOSPA – Goals Objectives Strategies Activities• KPI’s- Key Performance Indicators or metrics• Impressions – Touches to your targets• ASP – Average Sale Price• MQL- Marketing Qualified Lead – interested prospect• SQL- Sales Qualified Lead – qualified prospect• Response Rates – Campaign responses• Sales Funnel – Sometimes referred to as a sales pipeline

and tracks deals from start to close. Used to forecast revenue


Terms

• DANCE TACP process for qualifying prospects:– D-for dollars (budget)– A-Authority– N-Needs– CE-Compelling Event– T-Timeline of their decision– A-Awareness– C-Consideration– P- Preference for your solution


Teleprospecting Is/Isn’t

Teleprospecting Is:• Often the first live-person contact your prospects will have with your

company. The conversation needs to be spot-on and meaningful for your prospect

• An effective method for delving into prospects needs and building their pain

• A sales funnel development engine• Most effective when supplied with Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)• A great way to stay in touch with Target or Key accounts• In touch with many, many prospects every month. These prospects often

provide useful market intelligence which your company can gather and use to perfect its messaging



Teleprospecting Isn’t:• A panacea! If your company doesn’t have a viable solution, OR doesn’t

know the right targets to reach, OR if your messaging is off, Teleprospecting will not work for your company

• Very effective as a “cold-call” engine. Effective Teleprospecting teams are given MQL’s to contact every month.– Use Funnel-Math to determine the right number of MQLs for your team

• Your CMO, VP of Marketing/Sales! Make sure that your Teleprospecting team has all the tools they need to be effective on the phone and in follow-up communications with Prospects:

– Call guide, qualification questions, emails, voicemail script, other content

– Ensure that your message is integrated throughout all Teleprospecting Tools



Teleprospecting Isn’t:• Sales. Don’t expect them to close deals. Educate them to uncover needs

and to develop pain. Sales and Inside Sales are the teams to develop Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) into closed business

• Admin support for sales reps. Don’t give your Teleprospector a second job as an Admin.


Ideas Strategy Best Practices Execution

Audits&

Assessments

Brainstorming

Idea Roadmap

Outbound

Inbound Social Media

Organic /Paid SEO

Original Content

Public Relations

Events

Advertising

Direct Mail

Email campaigns

Teleprospecting

Funnel 2

Funnel 1

Funnel 3

Four Funnels Framework

Marketing Strategy

Sales Strategy

Revenues

Automation | Metrics

Funnel 4

Business Strategy

Sales

Customer Service

Teleprospecting works best when considered a component of your company’s over-arching Marketing and Sales strategy

XX


Case Study: Complex Sales

• VP of Global Teleprospecting for $3billion global technology solution company

managing team of 35 Teleprospectors supporting 5 business units

• On average, 4-5 conversations were necessary with influencers and decision makers

to gather all required information to turn in a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)

• Project Portfolio Management (PPM) BU (8 Teleprospectors/ ASP $250K)

– Sponsors: Project Management Officers (PMO)

– End-users: Project Managers

– Roll-up dashboards to CEO . CIO and CFO

– Gate Keeper: IT, VP, Executive Admin

– Key challenge: finding the “PMO” many targeted companies had different titles

for the same role

– Needed to rally all key stakeholders including IT

• Success: SQLs from team generated a $104M Sales Funnel and Generated $40M in

Revenue


Elements of a Complex Sale

• Target customers

– May be large organizations (Fortune 2000 companies and government entities)

– May associate significant risk and cost to the purchase of the solution

• Often involves decisions from CXO’s and a handful of key stake holders

• Different titles may be in charge of the same initiative, making it difficult to

determine where to begin the prospecting process• Significant research and time may be required to uncover the many

moving parts and weave together a coherent story to present to the Sales team

• Purchase of solution may be the result of a company or division-wide

initiative

• Complex solutions are often disruptive technologies that generate fear

regarding the “old guard” and “my job”!

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Teleprospecting for Complex Solutions

• Requires that your team can navigate the issues, find the right people (decision makers and influencers), build pain and educate the prospect so that they know how your solution can solve their problem

• May take multiple calls over many weeks to gather enough information to generate a high quality SQL

• May result in bringing multiple departments together to join in the “buy-in” process. This may be what it takes to justify the prospects investment in your solution

• If done well, will massively increase the productivity of your Sales team and ROI of your marketing campaigns


Elements of a Complex Sale

CEO

CXO-A

VP-A1

Director-A1

Manager-A1

VP-A2

CXO-B

VP-B1

Calls made to non-decision makers won’t generate viable SQLs.


Framework for High Quality SQLs

Company Information:

- Name, Address, Etc.- Industry, Size, Etc.

Executive Sponsor #1:-Name, Title, Department, Role

-Key Initiatives/Pain-Challenges impacting success

-Interest Level (1,2,3)

Stakeholder #1:-Name, Title, Department, Role



Executive Sponsor #2:-Name, Title, Department, Role



Stakeholder #2:-Name, Title, Department, Role



Each SQL Should Paint a Picture for your Sales TeamA Great SQL will have the following elements:• Information about the company, issues,

initiatives• Perspective from a CXO• Perspective from a few Key Influencers • Interest level of 1 or 2• Timeframe, as established by sales team

Interest Level/ Pain/ Need:-1 = Meltdown-2 = Hot-3 = Tepid


Funnel Math – Set Appropriate Quotas

• Start with Funnel Math– Sales targets that are developed without alignment to sales and marketing

budgets won’t be met

• Adding more Sales/Inside Sales resources may not be the answer, if they aren’t supported by demand generation programs– Our studies show that it takes 2300 cold calls to generate 1 closed deal– Effective Teleprospecting can massively increase the productivity of your sales

organization and Sales Funnel Growth

• Sales and Marketing should work together to align revenue targets to marketing budgets to ensure that you generate the right numbers:– Impressions – MQLs– SQLs– Sales Funnel


Funnel Math – 4 Funnels

Funnel 1 Funnel 2 Funnel 3 Funnel 4

Drive Awareness Educate Qualify Engage

Marketing

Teleprospecting Sales

Print

Email

SocialMedia

Broadcast

MarketingCampaigns

SEO/PPC SQL Sales FunnelMQL


Marketing and Teleprospecting Quotas

• Once you know your numbers, set appropriate quotas for your Marketing and Teleprospecting Teams:– Marketing Quota: Total MQLs needed to support the Teleprospecting

team

– Teleprospecting Quotas:• SQLs are the qualified leads that are presented to Sales each month. KPI:

8 SQLs per month is a great start.

• SQLs to Sales Funnel is number of SQLs * ASP that you expect to grow the sales funnel. KPI: 80% of approved SQLs should go on the Funnel.

• SQLs to Closed Deals is the number of SQLs that generate revenue. Multiply the closing ratio by SQL Funnel quota to determine this number.


Build the Right Teleprospecting Tools

Marketing – Targets and Message• What is your solution or service and what pain does it solve?• Who are your best targets:

– Industry– Departments– Titles

• What is your message

• What are the qualification criteria for your SQLs:– A- Hot

– B- Warm

– C- Lukewarm

– Nurture

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Build the Right Teleprospecting Tools

Teleprospecting Play Book Content • Call Guide

• Qualification Questions

– DANCE

– Pain Development Questions

• Objection Management Document

• Customer Stories that outline:

– Problem

– What your Company Did to resolve the problem

– Outcomes

• List of Key Features and corresponding Benefits

• Pain Analysis

• Key Targets

• Message

• ROI

• Key Performance Indicators

• GOSA Template

• Job Description

• MBOs

• Other Resources


Manage for Success

Start your Teleprospecting department with 2 Teleprospectors• You will generate more SQLs, which enables a faster ramp of the sales funnel• Learnings will happen faster

– Market information– Issues– Questions

• There will be a team vs. a sole person slogging away on the telephone

Whom should you Hire?• Teleprospecting for complex solutions has been around for almost 30 years.

There are many people available who have experience and like the work.– When you begin, start with experienced people– If you have a complex solution or service offering, hire experienced people


Manage for Success

• Manage a Teleprospecting team with the same rigor that a Sales Manager uses to

manage her sales team

• Each Teleprospector will need to understand what is expected of them, every day,

month, quarter– KPI’s – Dials, Key Conversations, Potential SQLs, SQLs, SQLs to Sales Funnel and SQLS to

Closed Deal

• Successful Teleprospectors have a plan:– Goals, Objectives, Strategies, Plans and Activities (GOSPA) is a quarterly business plan that I

have used to help team members stay on track

– The GOSA must align with KPI’s

• Teams that can achieve bonuses are more successful than those who receive only

a base salary

• SPIFF’s add fun and a competitive spirit to the daily grind of making 40-50+ dials

per day


Closed Loop System

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MQL’s from Marketing Engine

Teleprospector Qualifies MQL

Meet Qualification

Criteria?

Target Accounts from Sales

Interest established? Meeting set?

Designate as SQLApprove SQL and assign to Sales

SQL Accepted by

Sales?

Sales Opportunity Created

Good Opportunity

?

SQL to Sales Funnel

Y

Y

N

N

Y

N

N

Y

Y

N

Marketing Process Qualification Process

Approval Process

Feedback

Review Process


Sales Funnel Management

Discover

Funnel

Forecast

Closed Deals

Prospect commits to get deal done

Sales Engagement Tools

Criteria for movement to next stage

Deals close faster when prospects are engaged throughout the sales process!

Continuous Marketing• Pain and Consequences• Solution and Benefits• Customer Commitment to get

the deal closed (MOU)


Q &A

SOMAmetricsRevenue Acceleration Consulting Practice

The Raymond House, 655 13th St. Suite 303

Oakland, CA 94612510.206.9263

www.somametrics.com