Here’s What Is Wrong With That Picture.

Handing a highly qualified “2.0 lead” to a sales person still stuck in the “sales 1.0 cold calling world” will not achieve the desired results.  A sales person can no longer call a prospect and engage in a fishing expedition dialogue to try to uncover possible client pain points.  Applying available basic levels of business intelligence to qualified prospects is critical to the initial phone conversation.  Remember, you are not trying to close the prospect over the phone you are trying to get a face-to-face meeting.

Savvy 2.0 sales people take the time gather meaningful data on their target prospects.  It doesn’t take two hours of research to do a basic LinkedIn search to see if you are connected to anyone who knows your prospect.  A quick call with someone connected with your prospect can yield a huge amount of information on his or her personality and hot buttons.  It also allows for the development of crisp messaging that allows you to quickly engage in conversation.

Prospect Research is Easy When You Know Where to Look

Another research approach is to review stated corporate objectives from the prospect’s latest annual report or quotes from newspaper or trade journal articles. By knowing their goals and objectives you can tailor your initial conversation around ways your firm can assist them in those efforts.

Selling in a 2.0 world takes different skills and approaches. Have your sales people take 10 minutes to do some basic research before engaging with a new prospect, your results will be better and your prospects will appreciate the fact that you took the time to get to know them before the first call!

With January in the books it’s time for Sales Leaders to review their sales performance metrics for month one of the 2012 sales plan.  Like we did at the end of last year, we are providing a sales leaders checklist of the information you should include in this review – as well as suggestions on where to focus at this point in the first quarter.   (If you’re still looking for help completing your 2012 sales plan download our guidebook to sales planning here.)

Step 1 – Compare Your Actual Metrics to Sales Plan Targets

Look back at our recent post on Sales Metrics You Can’t Manage Without.  Here are a few worth checking as you evaluate your first month.

Current Cycle Metrics

• Qualified Pipeline to Quota Ratio
• Pipeline by Source (current account, new logo, channel, etc.)

Mid-Cycle Metrics

• Win to Bid Percentage
• Walkaway Ratio (no bids)

Step 2 – Account Review Action Plans

If you are completing at least one account review a week you have four sets of Action Plan Summaries to follow up on this month.  Our Account Action Plan Success Kit provides a template for organizing all the important “to-do’s” that get identified during an account review.  Review those summaries and provide the appropriate nudges where necessary to keep everything moving.

Step 3 – Update the Sales Forecast

Now that you know which opportunities closed and which ones slid into February you can update your sales revenue forecast with actual data.  Keeping this important model up to date ensures your alignment with the Finance organization as they are refreshing the company forecasts.  (The CFO will become your new best friend if you make this a regular monthly deliverable to her team.)

Step 4 – Meet with Marketing

Marketing plays such an important role in the success of today’s sales model that a once a month is the absolute minimum frequency for this critical team.  Depending on how advanced and integrated with sales your marketing function is, items to cover can include:

• Lead Pipeline Analysis (how many leads are in each stage, current conversion percentages, values by stage)
• Website analytics and keyword reports (see what we had to say on this topic in Three Skills Sales Leaders Never Thought They Would Have to Master)
• Outbound messaging campaign dashboards and review of upcoming campaigns.  Are these programs aligned with your sales strategy (i.e. verticals, geographies, targeted functions and roles, etc.)?

Step 5 – Step Away From the Desk

Sales Leaders need to maintain their relationship with the field.  That means spending face-to-face time with important clients, prospects, field sales managers and sales reps on a regular basis.  Also be sure to meet with your company’s field delivery organization on your trips out of the office.  Yes, being a ‘corporate resource’ is important when your team needs an advocate in HQ, but that doesn’t mean spending all your time in headquarters and meeting rooms.

One month is now done and how you adjust and react to what happened impacts the rest of your sales year.  Give us a shout and tell us if these suggestions helped keep you on target to meet your goals.

Help Your Website Sell As Hard As You Do

Analyze your existing website structure

When was the last time you reviewed and refreshed your website? Website structure is critical both in terms of ease of use and for proper indexing by search engines. A website that is poorly constructed will cause users to bounce away if they can’t find the information they need quickly. Strong visual appeal and links to social sites are also important.

Review your competitors web presence

How does your website compare to your top 5 competitors? How do your product or service landing pages compare with your competition? What keywords are they using to be found and how effective are they in social media engagement? Do they blog regularly and does the content they provide add value or is it a selling message? If after your review you find your competitors are engaging with their target audience more effectively than your firm it’s time to invest in a better process.

Get the right key words

Key word research is key component in building an on-line strategy. Effectively integrating those key words into your web presence can help you be found faster and before your competitors. Several methodologies are available to make sure the right keywords are found. The goal is to find key word phrase combinations that help you establish your own brand persona.  Give these approaches a try.

1. Google analytics
2. Key words already in existence on your website
3. Key words used by your competitors
4. Keyword popularity searches

Social media engagement

Most if not all companies are present in some way on social networks; platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook are the most common ones.  The unique attribute of social networks is that they allow you to connect with people who are like-minded or that have critical problems they are trying to solve.  Social media is the perfect venue for your firm to show their market and domain experience by providing content and information with these groups. Real success is determined by being able to engage with conversations, not just pushing a sales pitch. Approaching social networking with the right spirit will quickly gain you traction from the right followers.

Curious what a competitive web site assessment includes?   Get in touch and we’ll share a sample with you.

While dealing with bad news is never a fun part of the job for CEOs and Chief Sales Officers, it’s why you “make the big bucks”, right?   When it comes to bad sales news, we also always prefer January challenges over December surprises.   Most Boards of Directors will agree with that!

Let’s say you are one of those Sales Leaders who has done what we suggested and really scrubbed your sales pipeline.  All the dead wood is gone and you’re left with a much more realistic, but painfully smaller list of opportunities to close.  Now you have tell the CEO that your chances of hitting the first quarter sales target are much lower than you thought and the rest of the year is going to be an uphill climb.   Resist the temptation to delay the conversation – and prepare yourself for the discussion with data and a plan.

Three Requirements for Dealing with Bad Sales News

Get Your Facts Straight – the First Time

Check and double check the important data on the remaining deals in your pipeline.  Pay particular attention to close dates, values and probabilities.  Your credibility is on the line here and any questionable information will cast a dark shadow of doubt over the entire situation.

Determining Exactly Where You Stand and Know the Impact

What is the best outcome the company can expect from the revised pipeline – and what is most likely.  This is the time to rip the Band-Aid and get all the bad news out there.  How many quarters will be impacted and to what degree?  Don’t be defensive when answering questions about how this happened and be open to suggestions from the CEO and the rest of the Leadership team on ways to recover.

Have a Plan for Recovery

If you have not finalized your 2012 Sales Plan – NOW IS THE TIME!  Come prepared to demonstrate how your sales team will rebuild the pipeline.  Explain what resources and organization support will be needed to help the plan succeed.  Prepare a budget of required investments in people and process.  Be realistic about the expected timelines and results.  This isn’t about setting up the diving catch at the goal line to win the game.  It is about demonstrating that planning, process and execution are the way to permanent recovery.

Sales leadership is often about accepting reality the way it is, not the way you want it to be.  It is also about accountability and transparency and this is the time of year to establish that with your CEO and the rest of the organization.

Here are some tools to help you self-assess your situation and design your sales plan for transforming your sales organization to best-in-class performance.

Do I Have Enough Pipeline Calculator

Sweet Spot Matrix Success Kit

Increasing Sales Effectiveness with Marketing Automation

B2B Sales Planning Handbook

Let us know if we can help.  (We won’t judge!  We’ve been there ourselves…)!

We routinely see companies with B2B sales organizations that don’t (or won’t) make cold sales calls.  When a web or phone lead comes in they are quick to respond but when no leads are available their sales people sit idle, do non-sales related tasks, or worse go home early.

Many of these companies consistently fail to attain their sales targets and in most cases only 15-20% of their reps make plan. Their sales teams are uncomfortable cold calling so they do as little of it as possible and their results show it.  As a sales leader or senior executive how do you change the situation; different people, more training, better processes, the answer is probably yes.

Sales reps will continually complain to senior management that they need more or better leads – but the question is if they had those leads what would they do with them?

One skill exhibited by strong cold callers is the ability to establish a rapport quickly with a prospect.  If a sales person has trouble cold calling will they actually be able to engage effectively with a prospect when supplied with a warm lead?  While a warm lead exhibits some of the behaviors of a qualified lead, the sales person still needs to engage with the prospect to further validate the level of qualification.  If that sales person is incapable of successfully engaging with the bulk of the prospects they interact with you have a problem.

Today’s reality is that every company should be considering ways to improve qualified lead flow to their selling teams. Inbound marketing and marketing automation are two well-documented ways to put more warm leads in the hands of your sales team.  Handing your sale people a warm lead can help them establish a meaningful conversation with a prospect faster than by cold calling.  Warm leads help eliminate the “fishing expedition” portion of the cold call, allowing your sales person to quickly zero in on client needs and hopefully reducing sales cycle time.  But Sales Reps still must be able to establish rapport!

If you believe that investing in a lead generation program will give you the highest probability for success you are right.  High performing sales teams need a steady stream of qualified prospect’s to help them achieve quota on a consistent basis.

What lead generation programs won’t do however is to force lazy or undisciplined sale reps to engage with a prospect!

The right sales metrics tell the chief sales officer and CEO everything they need to know about how they are tracking towards their company’s revenue objectives.   For some companies it’s a complex, finely tuned set of calculations, reports and charts.   Others are just as successful with only a few simple ratios and percentages.

What matters most when it comes to sales metrics is what works for your company.

• Sales dashboards that are very labor intensive to prepare run the risk of being dropped when schedules get busy.
• Overly complicated dashboards that can’t “speak for themselves” may be a challenge when shared outside the presentation room.
• Going too simple may mean missing important indicators of where your year is going.

We’ve seen companies with multi-billion dollar revenue quotas do just fine with three or four rock solid metrics.  We’ve also seen smaller organizations with under $50 million in revenue manage from a sophisticated set of sales gauges.   Here are some examples of sales metrics to consider for your organization.  Some will be familiar, others may be new to you and possibly applicable to your organization.

Current Cycle Metrics

• Qualified Pipeline to Quota Ratio
• Pipeline by Source (current account, new logo, channel, etc.)
• Pipeline by Forecasted Closing Period (day, week, month, quarter, etc.)
• Opportunity Aging Report

Mid-Cycle Metrics

• Average sales cycle duration
• Win to Loss Percentage
• Win to Bid Percentage
• Walkaway Ratio (no bids)

End of Period Metrics

• Percentage of Sales Team Achieving Quota
• Year over year change in average contract value
• Year over year change in top line revenue

As we said earlier, what matters most is what works for your company.  If you are looking for an independent assessment of your sales metrics dashboard we are glad to take a look.  Schedule a Sales Optimization Review and let’s have a conversation.

2012 is off and running for B2B sales teams and sales leaders are already wringing their hands over pipelines, close dates, deal sizes and winning percentages.  It may seem like it’s already too late to take the time to finish your 2012 sales plan, however little else can set you up for success like a written sales plan.

This sales leaders guidebook features our time-tested approach to sales planning and includes many of our most valuable lessons, examples and resource links. Follow these five steps and you will be well on your way to hitting your 2012 sales targets.

• Setting Sales Goals and Targets
• Building the Revenue Plan
• Filling the Funnel
• Creating a Selling Culture
• Executing and Measuring

You can download the B2B Sales Planning Handbook here.  For additional guidance and even more examples we also offer the companion 5 Steps to Successful Sales Planning slides from the popular webinar we did in conjunction with the Outsourcing Institute.

Download the B2B Sales Planning Handbook ebook

Download the 5 Steps to Successful Sales Planning slides

Enjoy these sales leaders resources and let us know how it goes!

The average deal sizes for B2B Sales has decreased across all measured categories over the past two years, reports leading researcher Marketing Sherpa.   In a recently published analysis they indicate that an increased reliance on promotions and “selling on price” has contributed to these declines.

How Sales Leaders Should Respond to Declining Sales Values

Improve Sales Lead Management

Marketing Sherpa recommends that organizations selling in the larger deal size segments must incorporate lead management best practices to improve their success.  “Organizations with larger deal sizes, longer sales cycles, and more parties to convince, may have a greater need to establish processes for lead generation, qualification, scoring and nurturing,” is their recommendation.

Validate Your 2012 Sales Revenue Plan!

Along with improving lead management, the other important takeaway from this study is the need to revisit Sales Revenue Forecasting.   Assumptions built on the larger deal sizes may need to be tested and revenue models updated.  3FORWARD provides a complimentary sales revenue forecasting template to help with this process.

If you have any questions on it please let us know.

CSO’s who consistently achieve their sales plan understand that several key functions must be precisely orchestrated to give their sales teams an efficient sales process and steady stream of qualified leads.

What Today’s Successful Sales Model Includes

• Up to 60% of the buying process occurs before a sales person engages with a prospects, best of breed sales leaders understand the critical role marketing plays in identifying the perfect sales prospect and the messaging/ content needed to effectively engage and nurture future clients.
• High performing organization have close alignment with their marketing counterparts and provide a constant stream of feedback to ensure messaging is adjusted based on changing market conditions.
• They also make sure that the leads provided by marketing are followed up on immediately and if a lead is not fully qualified it returned to marketing for further nurturing.

Where Laggard Sales Leaders Often Fall Behind

A vital area that many laggard sales leaders shoot at and miss is sales pipeline forecasting.  Constantly missing sales forecasts is an indication that a sales leader does not have their finger on the pulse of their sales team.  Remember, nothing causes a leadership team to lose confidence in their sales staff like constantly missing forecasts!

One of the main causes of missed forecasts are sales pipelines that are bloated with poorly qualified deals.  Opportunities that have aged well past the average sales cycle usually become a “no decision”.   As we are entering a new plan year it’s not too late to sweep these dead deals out of the pipeline.  It may be painful now but at least you will have a better handle on where you really stand and give yourself a fighting chance for the rest of the year.

For tools to help you calibrate your sales pipeline to your revenue goal try our Do I Have Enough Sales Pipeline Calculator and Sales Revenue Forecasting template.  Also consider a Sales Optimization Review if you’re ready to really take charge of your sales future.

We started a discussion at the beginning of the year on B2B sales transformation, asking the question, Where Does the B2B Sales Model Go From Here? 

Why is that more pertinent now than ever?  Quite simply, because the traditional sales model most companies still embrace is an end-to-end, top to bottom BIG TIME disappointment.  It many cases it is flat out failing.   The proof is both statistical and anecdotal.

• Consider the high turnover rates and shortening tenure of chief sales officers.  (Most CSOs last less than two years).

• Sales forces struggle to have more than half their reps make quota.  We recently interviewed a CSO who told us only two of his eleven sales reps made plan in 2011!

• 1,900 B2B buyers told a Marketing Leadership Council survey they prefer to conduct their buying process on-line – on their own.  On average they are 60% through their research and vendor evaluations before ever wanting to talk to a sales rep.

• For all that has been invested in lead generation and marketing automation over the past few years, a 2011 Marketing Sherpa survey of 1,745 B2B marketers found their top two challenges remain finding new sales leads and converting those leads to paying customers.

What Boards and CEOs want to know from Sales Leaders is, “How are you going to do better in 2012?  What will you do differently than before?”

We just completed a workshop for a client whose situation is likely quite similar to many other B2B companies.  Here’s where things stand:

-      Growth was flat last year.

-      A challenging sales increase in 2012 has been committed to the Board.

-      Finding leads is the top challenge.

-      The pipeline is not where it needs to be at this point in the year.

They have decided to undertake a sales transformation project with the goal of propelling their sales results to best-in-class status.  The initial stages of the project we are helping them execute are focused on these key areas:

1. Sales Readiness.  

Constructing a revenue model, sales throughput requirements, sales lead and pipeline conversion targets and pipeline gap analysis.

2. Sales Model

Determining the ideal sales team size and structure, roles and responsibilities, quotas and target assignments and required activity levels.

3. Prospect Targeting

Defining the prospect sweet spot for targeted segments, identifying buyer drivers and trigger events, prioritizing the lead prospect list and defining lead database segmentation.

4. Lead Generation

Creating persona specific messaging campaigns, defining lead scoring model, creating lead qualification workflows, establishing warm lead nurturing process.

5. Defining Sales Performance Management System

Creating sales performance dashboards for executive leadership and sales management.  Creating key performance indicators and metrics for leads, sales pipeline and revenue forecasting.

Importantly, they have decided an aggressive redesign of the end-to-end sales process is what is needed.  It’s the right way to approach a business challenge that is this critical to the future of the company.

If you’re a CEO or Sales Leader who is thinking it’s time to transform your sales model, consider a Sales Optimization Review as the perfect place to start.