by Glen Springer | Nov 11, 2015
This is a guide to five ways that marketing automation and sales technology can quickly shift your internal culture and help your sa
les team be more effective, and most importantly, win more deals.
The five avenues through which adoption of marketing technology and sales automation will have an immediate positive impact on your performance are as follows:
- Lead Capture
- Lead Qualification
- Email Automation
- Lead Intelligence
- Real Time Lead Alerts
Below is a brief explanation of how each of these features will help boost the performance of your sales team and the success of your marketing efforts.
Lead Capture
Tools come onto the market and promise to help sales and marketing teams improve their efficiency. Pardot Marketing Automation Software, for example, allows you to identify companies and targets that are spending time on your site without the need for any information to be directly supplied by the prospect. The major value established here is through the ability to identify potential prospects without having the lag time of: contact info needing to be input or using a 3rd party data provider like Inside View, LinkedIn, one Source and SalesForceData. This method more quickly identifies the key players within a company, spending time digesting your marketing material. These 3rd party data provides are used to pull in additional data to fill in holes for contacts that are already established.
It is important to not downplay the necessity of being able to capture leads with landing pages and forms. That is not a new concept or strategy and will help increase your ability to hand over qualified prospects smoothly, when combined with strong lead management rules.
Lead Qualification
In today’s B2B markets, there are two main ways to directly and successfully qualify leads: using implicit behaviors and activities or explicit data and demographics.
By using implicit information and dynamic lead scoring, you will have the ability to rank and score formerly unquantifiable activities (email, web, social) variably by importance and then set up response actions. These sales automation efforts seamlessly pass top scoring prospects over to well-prepared sales reps in real time.
In using explicit data and lead grading, you gain the ability to qualify a prospect on who they actually are, and the habits they have exhibited – ex. a CEO versus a workaholic just trying to learn something new by requesting your content. You can also adjust grading up and down depending on industry, company size and other various metrics. Essentially, you are able to grade your prospects against an ideal customer profile that your sales and marketing team identifies.
These tactics will directly help your sales team avoid talking to bad prospects that won’t convert, and these grades and scores provide you with another way to dynamically pre-qualify and assign the best prospects to the best sales reps.
Email Automation
Email automation is a major facet in helping your sales reps take their knowledge about and performance with leads to the next level. Reps now have the ability to use email integration tools for programs like Outlook, Gmail, Apple Mail and Thunderbird to send personalized emails through the marketing automation tool. This integration results in a new way to personally track opens, clicks, and site time that comes with the option to receive real-time automatic notifications sent to reps.
Email automation also allows for new approaches to personalized email campaigns. The marketing team can craft a message or series of messages to the company’s entire pool of prospects, yet dynamically assign the various fields of the email as they apply to each prospect. This serves two main purposes: 1) reps are accredited by leads to having provided appropriate information with no effort (the marketing software and sales engine took care of everything) and 2) all replies to specific content go directly to the assigned rep, and can be analyzed to provide further insight for future targeting.
A consequential bonus of email automation is that sales reps can pass back “not-yet-qualified” leads to be furthered nurtured by the marketing automation program. This allows for continued exposure, lead qualification and reduced lead exit. Sales reps are notified if the lead “comes back to life” and the lead is automatically sent more digestible content.
Lead Intelligence
Through marketing automation and sales technologies, reps are able to track all online behaviors (email, web, social) and that data is put directly into any CRM (Salesforce) instead of requiring the sales rep to learn the ins and outs of the back-end functions of the marketing automation prospect tracking system and put the information in themselves. Actionable data including the original lead source, specific page views, keyword searches, webinar attendance etc. can all be tracked. This allows for sales reps to profile and frame the content for anything from conversations, voicemails and follow-up emails based on the prospects specific actions and activities.
Real-Time Lead Alerts
This function of sales technology and marketing automation is crucial if you want to compete effectively against competition in the market. Timing is everything, as any good sales rep knows. Real-time lead alerts allow sales reps to reduce response time almost entirely when companies or leads are actively engaged in the sales education collateral. Sales reps receive instant alerts via email, text, mobile applications, and desktop notifications – whichever medium they prefer.
With these alerts and summaries, reps can:
- Prioritize their day with the most active prospects
- Perform quick lookups of anonymous visitors in LinkedIn or Jigsaw to identify potential new prospects
- Click on links to trigger CRM profile lookups
- Send email to active prospects with a few quick clicks
- Filter out unwanted and distracting activity
All five of these features: Lead Capture, Lead Qualification, Email Automation, Lead Intelligence, and Real-Time Lead Alerts save your reps time and help them close more deals. An effective integration and strategy surrounding marketing automation and sales technology will help you to synthesize marketing and sales objectives and improve overall company success.
For more information on how to increase B2B sales volume and how you can adjust your B2B lead generation, demand generation and sales tactics, look for our 5th and final blog of this series, out next week.
If you would like to learn more about how we at Gabriel Sales can combine your product knowledge and thought leadership with our sales and marketing expertise to increase your success and beat out competition, please contact us.
by Glen Springer | Oct 28, 2015
In the first blog of this series we outlined how the buying process has changed dramatically over the past several years. The Buyer, not the Seller, now controls the entire purchase process as B2B sales are shifting to consumer based. We also discussed what it is you need to consider and be prepared for if you are eager to drive meaningful cultural change and increased revenue for your organization. Part 2 will cover how your culture, attitude and team dynamics can impact your ability to increase revenue growth, and the need to facilitate a shift in your customer’s buying process, not your B2B sales process.
Longer sales cycles = Be prepared
You have to begin by accepting that buyers have extended their purchase cycle by 1.5X-2X (Sirius, 2012) and revenue growth is going to be both a marathon and a sprint. Your sales team still needs to remain focused on hitting revenue targets, however you need to accept that as deals enter the pipe and buyers are going through the first few stages of their purchase, some of them are going to hit the pause button. What is crucial is that you have a plan for what occurs next when this happens. Does the lead stay with the rep or does it go back to the inside sales team? Is there a way to stay in front of them without wasting the time of sales reps? What content will they want to digest in the interim?
Buyers want and expect to be educated first
It may be necessary to embrace the need to develop new disciplines and fully commit to content marketing. This is arguably the most radical change that needs to be made and it is also your most significant opportunity. Your marketing team will have to take your buyer further through your sales process because it is what your buyers demand. The days of generating leads through marketing and tossing them over the fence to the sales team are over.
Hint: Marketers can’t do this alone! They will need the support and contribution of your executive team and product specialists, acting as thought leaders. If marketers can effectively leverage your thought leaders, they can support the sales team exponentially, keeping them focused on selling.
Sales and marketing on the same team
The days of compartmentalized offices are over. For many companies, this is the biggest hurdle as it has become a cultural norm. B2B Sales doesn’t always care about what marketing does as long as it leads to more leads, and marketers don’t think sales appreciates or understands the work they do (and they are often correct). As with any successful team, to compete and win you are going to need to align sales and marketing with the tools, content and processes necessary to support your inside sales reps with content that demonstrates thought leaders and differentiators effectively. Mutual respect is key.
Technology is king – embrace it
The advent of marketing automation platforms, Google Analytics and CRM’s has led to the ability to bring sales and marketing teams together like never before. These technologies allow you to implement a Sales Architecture, Infrastructure, and Technology Platform that provides transparency and accountability throughout your entire sales process. Keeping score helps teams flourish. This isn’t rocket science; just head out to any Little League or Soccer Field on a Saturday during a game and compare it to what happens during practice. During exercises, energy level and focus fluctuates. Put them on the field where they are accountable for and measured by their results and everything changes. It’s a great deal more interesting and fun as well.
Finally, budget appropriately
As was previously mentioned, sales is now both a marathon and a sprint. What this means is, while we appreciate the need and pressure to hit quarterly numbers, it’s unreasonable to expect an effective process to fall into place that quickly. You need to plan on investing in this new engine for at least 4-6 months until you will start seeing constant results. Remember the scale of the shift you are undergoing. As the process becomes imbedded into your culture and your teams align with this new train of thought and start firing on all cylinders, revenue will increase and cost of sales will decrease. This dual-benefit allows you to utilize your increased revenue and cost-savings to grow the engine and produce exponential results.
Summary – Sales and Marketing as one unit
- Your buyer demands education
- They want access to thought leadership and product specialists
- Thought leaders can’t waste time on prospects that just want education
- Your buyer does not want to engage with sales until they are ready to purchase
- You must demonstrate you understand their situation and pain before engaging a prospect with sales
Everyone can understand the social contract between salesperson and buyer. The Seller sells, and the Buyer buys. Pain, gain, and solution selling are still important, but it is becoming increasingly important for your sales team and your marketers to get prospects on the phone by sharing thought leadership from your product specialists and executives. Pressuring the buyer to buy and introducing a sales rep prematurely may lead to winning a couple deals in the short term, but it will drive more deals into your competitor’s hands in the long term.
So the question remains – what does my B2B sales and marketing organization need to look like to create the proper demand for my sales team now that marketing’s job is to take buyers beyond just awareness and drive leads into my sales funnel? Look for our next blog in the series that outlines “The Core Competencies I Need From My Demand Generation Team.”
If you would like to learn more about how Gabriel Sales can apply some of what we have learned for your business specifically, contact us today.
by Glen Springer | Oct 21, 2015
This is the first blog in a five part series discussing how to increase B2B sales volume and how you can adjust your B2B lead generation, demand generation, and sales tactics to potentially double your revenue growth in the next 18 months.
This series discusses the shift in B2B sales (hint: buyers don’t buy the way they used to), the impact this change may have on your current business and approach, the growing importance of the role marketers must play in your sales process, and how you can turn this knowledge into a significant B2B sales and lead generation advantage.
There is a need to execute B2B sales and demand generation in a new manner. A recent study conducted by Adam Needles showed that companies that have embraced the concept of “selling to buyers the way they want to be sold” have seen a 157% increase in revenue over the past two years.
Only 10% of companies in the market have accomplished a successful adoption of this new paradigm according to Forrester Research, providing an opportunity to take advantage of your competitor’s unawareness. That same study suggests that a Fortune 2000 competitor will take 18 months and twice the expense to shift their culture due to resistance inherent in larger organizations.
The Shift: The Buyer (Not the Seller) Now Controls the Sales Process
Unless you’ve been MIA for the last ten years, you know that it is increasingly more difficult to get your buyer on the phone (our connection ratios have dropped from 18%-21% to 6%-11% over the past 2 years). Additionally, we are all aware that the sales cycle has increased between 1.5X-2X (that can be months, quarters, or even a calendar year depending on your sales cycle). This is all due to the buyer having taken control of the sales process and the abundance of information available. This simple fact is one thing you need to keep top of mind throughout this series and your sales execution.
Why Buyers are More Risk Adverse
It’s 2015, not 2006 anymore. The stock market fluctuates daily, R&D budgets are slashed regularly, and both real and imagined geopolitical and domestic issues are exacerbated by a rapidly increasing news cycle. Fewer aspects of the economy and business are perceived to be within our control which leads to tighter budget controllers who are more focused on mitigating this increased risk. Buyers have been forced to be smarter and more cautious with how they spend.
More People are Involved in the Buying Process
Since 2009, more decision makers are involved in the buying process (there is safety in making group decisions). According to a MarketingSherpa study, there are typically three people involved in transactions of 25K$-100K$ and anywhere from four to eight decision makers involved in deals over 100K$. Additionally, according to the Harvard Business Review, 90% of buying decisions now require input from both the technical expert and the business expert. What this has led to is the need for your team to educate and sell to more people with increasingly different needs.
SaaS, Telco, and Apple (to name a few) Have Transformed the B2B Sales Experience into a Consumer Sales Experience for All
SaaS companies have done a fantastic job converting the B2B sale into a consumer purchase experience. Now a buyer can come to a website, find the products they are interested in, conduct additional research, and in some cases just plug in the corporate credit card. In most cases, buyers can avoid speaking to a sales rep altogether, unless they make the conscious decision to be “sold.” Coupled with the fact that buyers feel more comfortable making large purchases due to the abundance of information available on the web, buyers are becoming more and more comfortable making these decisions without consulting a sales rep.
Consider how you purchase your home media now: I personally managed to bundle phone service, internet, cable television, and a sports package while layering in Netflix and Hulu streaming through a Blue Ray player and my kid’s Wii without ever speaking to a “sales person” other than to schedule installation. For another example, look at the experience provided by Apple retail locations. The “sales reps” greet you, allow you to play with the technology, have you request assistance when you are ready to buy, and they pull out their iPhone to conduct a $500-$2K transaction. B2B sales and marketing teams have had the bar raised and need to strive to improve the ease of education wherever possible.
Digital Sales Content = Critical
YouTube, Webcasts, Podcasting, Twitter, and Facebook are all household names which implies they have a long-standing history. However they have only been truly prominent for several years, and serious adoption in the B2B sale is less than a couple years old. The average buyer now digests 12 pieces of digital content on average before they purchase (up from five in 2011) and this trend is expected to continue.
Similar to SaaS sales and other technologies we discussed above, consider how your personal network consumes “entertainment” media. Just a few nights ago I looked around my living room and my wife was on her iPhone posting videos of our kids for the grandparents on Facebook, while simultaneously catching up on twitter. My son was on the iPad checking out MLB stats and my daughter was self-publishing a “picture-book” on the desktop while I was watching an NFL game (while DVRing Breaking Bad) and flipping through the Sunday New York Times on my iPhone. Did I mention I was also pulling a Google Analytics report for an upcoming meeting that compared mobile traffic during a time period in 2011 vs. 2012 (see below)?
Mobile Traffic Oct 2012
As consumers we are accustomed to digesting content where we want to and when we want to. We are consuming across platforms and mixing our consumption of entertainment and work-related content throughout the day. It’s easy – we feel entitled and we feel educated. This same philosophy must be applied to how you sell to your B2B buyer. They should be able to purchase your solution when they want to, and in the manner they desire, whether that be on Monday morning or Sunday evening.
The bottom line is simple: you need digital content!
You need to share it effectively and deliver your message in multiple formats so your buyers can educate and buy on their schedule, not yours. Remember, there are more and more buyers involved in the process that will want to digest specific material on their own time.
Meet the Buyer Where They Are in Their Buying Cycle – Don’t Force Them into Your Sales Cycle!
Inbound leads are coming in at earlier stages of the buying cycle when buyers are still in the education phase. This means your initial job as a sales and marketing team is to educate first, helping the buyer before you “sell” to them. This is tricky because it can increase your costs if you are overinvesting in selling to buyers that are not ready to transact. The flip side, which is potentially more daunting, is that we are now seeing 25% of buyers make their purchase decision after self-education and short listing online (Sirius, 2012). This means your team needs to act quickly and decipher where a buyer is in the buying cycle so they can be treated appropriately.
If you sell too hard, too early we know that:
- 70% of leads are passed to Sales Reps before they are ready to engage (MarketingSherpa, 2012)
- 80% of mishandled leads will buy from a competitor (Forrester, 2011)
If you get it right we know that:
- Well-nurtured leads close 23% faster and result in 40% more revenue (Aberdeen, 2012)
Summary
What is happening right now is not a small shift. It is a fundamental transformation that was the promise of an interconnected world after the internet first reared its head 30 years ago. In the last two years, this shift has accelerated dramatically. Since the birth of modern banking during the Renaissance, the majority of transactions have been driven by a seller-buyer relationship. The seller had information they shared with the buyer, and the buyer made a purchase. What we are experiencing now are the final stages of this dramatic shift that has been slowly taking place right underneath our noses since Google first organized the internet for immediate access. The buyer expects and desires to make a purchase without the intervention of sales whenever possible. They expect honest and authentic information, and demand it now. If you are not prepared to do this for your buyer (making the buying process fast, easy, and not sales-rep dependent) and your competitor is, you will lose.
To learn the impact this cultural shift has on your own sales and marketing culture, please check out the next blog in this series for things to consider as you ponder the looming question: What does all of this mean for your business?
If all of this seems a bit daunting, you can also check out our Sell Smarter, Sell Faster Whitepaper to learn more about short term tactics you can implement with your team right now.
by Glen Springer | Oct 7, 2015
Every call is important, here are strategies and techniques to help secure those 2nd, 3rd, and 4th (and so on) phone calls with potential leads. Obviously a cold call is just the tip of the iceberg when interacting with a new prospect. A question that burns on every sales rep’s mind is: what should I do to get this lead to commit to another conversation?
In a recent blog we recently, detailed 6 Questions to Ask All New Leads that will help you drive meaningful interactions with prospects, ultimately filling your pipe with better opportunities. In this blog, we will outline 10 B2B sales techniques and strategies that can be used along with those 6 questions to help successfully move opportunities through their buying process.
Once you have gained the actionable prospect information by asking those 6 questions, you need to get them to commit to another meeting. What’s the best approach to set next steps?
We have compiled a list of ten strategies and techniques to accomplish this. There is no single way to address this problem as every lead is unique. However, through direct questioning and technique, you can employ any number of these strategies to successfully move the conversation forward.
Identify what stage of the buying cycle the prospect is at and don’t try and force them to another stage. Give them the opportunity to get there by providing appropriate content.
This is crucial, and should be done for every lead that is not immediately disqualified on a cold call. If you try and set a business proposal meeting with a lead that is barely aware of the existence of a new field of technology, you will quickly find your way to a “no.” Help them along their buying process through your selling techniques and marketing content.
Be polite and professional first and foremost.
Always remain polite in the initial interactions with new prospects, but be wary of trying to create too significant of a relationship too early in the process. Many leads want to understand that you respect that their time is short, their phones are busy, and they want to be in control. To accomplish this, it is helpful to be short, succinct, and direct in your initial conversations, so that the expectation is set early in the opportunity.
Provide all of your contact information
You would think this is a no brainer but it is the standard in sales interactions today to successfully provide information for all means of contact: phone, email, website, etc.
Ask them if there is anyone else that would benefit from communicating with you and seeing your educational information
The more people you can connect with in an organization, the better. You want to get them talking about your solutions, sharing it with others who may be involved with the business process or buying process.
Ask them for a good time for a follow-up conversation
It’s amazing how easy it is to get a second meeting on the books just by simply asking for an available time to have it. If they say they don’t have time this week, ask them about next week. Don’t be so easily dismayed to hang up the phone without having a firm second conversation scheduled.
Ask them for their preferred way to communicate during your next conversation
Some people hate answering emails, others won’t answer their phones unless they are completely unpreoccupied. Give your prospects the opportunity to tell you the way they prefer to communicate.
Make sure you’ve got the right person
Many people will allow you to send them any and all information. Whether they are trying to find distractions from their own work, or if they’re just curious about the space, it is important not to waste valuable time on leads that have no impact on technology implementation, solution service decisions, or buying power.
Give them homework
This can be simple: “Visit our website when you have a moment, our URL is _________” Or, you can provide relevant content for them to digest. Maybe you have demonstration videos that buyers who are farther in their process would benefit from seeing. Whatever tool you use, asking your prospects to review content in between connections is crucial in staying relevant within their consideration set.
Always, always, always finish a conversation with next steps
The first ten suggestions are all directed at successfully accomplishing just this. A conversation without next steps planned gives the opportunity for your prospect to fall into someone else’s pipe before you’ve even successfully engaged them in yours. Time, mode of communication, and task to be completed by both parties – all three of these aspects are crucial in a successful next steps plan.
Know when to not push for a second contact, but rather circle back in a timely fashion.
Sometimes you catch a lead in a meeting, others simply hate cold calls. It is a useful talent to be able to discern when to just let the lead go, and give them another try without requiring anything from them, including listening to your extensive pitch. This should not be used except in extreme circumstances, as we believe every valid target prospect will be willing to engage with you if you provide them content that supports the stage of the buying cycle they are in.
The more techniques and strategies you can employ in your initial contact with a new prospect, the greater your success will be in filling your pipe with quality opportunities and moving more deals to closing.
by Glen Springer | Oct 7, 2015
Every call is important for B2B sales.
Here are strategies and techniques to help secure those 2nd, 3rd, and 4th (and so on) phone calls with potential leads. Obviously a cold call is just the tip of the iceberg when interacting with a new prospect. A question that burns on every sales rep’s mind is: what should I do to get this lead to commit to another conversation?
In a recent blog, we detailed 6 Questions to Ask All New Leads that will help you drive meaningful interactions with prospects, ultimately filling your pipe with better opportunities. In this blog, we will outline 10 B2B sales techniques and strategies that can be used along with those 6 questions to help successfully move opportunities through their buying process.
Once you have gained the actionable prospect information by asking those 6 questions, you need to get them to commit to another meeting. What’s the best approach to set next steps?
We have compiled a list of ten strategies and techniques to accomplish this. There is no single way to address this problem, as every lead is unique. However, through direct questioning and technique, you can employ any number of these strategies to successfully move the conversation forward.
Identify what stage of the buying cycle the prospect is at and don’t try and force them to another stage. Give them the opportunity to get there by providing appropriate content.
This is crucial, and should be done for every lead that is not immediately disqualified on a cold call. If you try and set a business proposal meeting with a lead that is barely aware of the existence of a new field of technology, you will quickly find your way to a “no.” Help them along their buying process through your selling techniques and marketing content.
B2B Sales 101: Be polite and professional first and foremost.
Always remain polite in the initial interactions with new prospects, but be wary of trying to create too significant of a relationship too early in the process. Many B2B sales leads want to understand that you respect that their time is short, their phones are busy, and they want to be in control. To accomplish this, it is helpful to be short, succinct, and direct in your initial conversations, so that the expectation is set early in the opportunity.
Provide all of your contact information
You would think this is a no brainer but it is the standard in sales interactions today to successfully provide information for all means of contact: phone, email, website, etc.
Ask them if there is anyone else that would benefit from communicating with you and seeing your educational information
The more people you can connect with in an organization, the better. You want to get them talking about your solutions, sharing it with others who may be involved with the business process or buying process.
Ask them for a good time for a follow-up conversation
It’s amazing how easy it is to get a second meeting on the books just by simply asking for an available time to have it. If they say they don’t have time this week, ask them about next week. Don’t be so easily dismayed to hang up the phone without having a firm second conversation scheduled.
Ask them for their preferred way to communicate during your next conversation
Some people hate answering emails, others won’t answer their phones unless they are completely unpreoccupied. Give your prospects the opportunity to tell you the way they prefer to communicate.
Make sure you’ve got the right person
Many people will allow you to send them any and all information. Whether they are trying to find distractions from their own work, or if they’re just curious about the space, it is important not to waste valuable time on leads that have no impact on technology implementation, solution service decisions, or buying power.
Give them homework
This can be simple: “Visit our website when you have a moment, our URL is _________” Or, you can provide relevant content for them to digest. Maybe you have demonstration videos that buyers who are farther in their process would benefit from seeing. Whatever tool you use, asking your prospects to review content in between connections is crucial in staying relevant within their consideration set.
Always, always, always finish a conversation with next steps
The first ten suggestions are all directed at successfully accomplishing just this. A conversation without next steps planned gives the opportunity for your prospect to fall into someone else’s pipe before you’ve even successfully engaged them in yours. Time, mode of communication, and task to be completed by both parties – all three of these aspects are crucial in a successful next steps plan.
Know when to not push for a second contact, but rather circle back in a timely fashion.
Sometimes you catch a lead in a meeting, others simply hate cold calls. It is a useful talent to be able to discern when to just let the lead go, and give them another try without requiring anything from them, including listening to your extensive pitch. This should not be used except in extreme circumstances, as we believe every valid target prospect will be willing to engage with you if you provide them content that supports the stage of the buying cycle they are in.
The more techniques and strategies you can employ in your initial contact with a new prospect, the greater your success will be in filling your pipe with quality opportunities and moving more deals to closing.
by gabriel_sales | Sep 23, 2015
This blog was created in order to help companies that are considering outsourcing to determine when sales consulting is necessary to improve long-term results and effectiveness.
Gabriel Sales is an outsourced sales company in the truest sense of the word. Outsourced sales is not always cheaper (at least in the short term). It’s about guaranteeing your investment works harder and smarter. Outsourcing sales should make you more effective, provide access to shared tools, sales and marketing expertise, sales management expertise and processes required for success.
Organizations typically don’t come to us because they are wildly successful on their own, but because they want to close more business faster. In many cases, this requires consulting upfront. This blog is designed to help you be as honest as possible about the potential need for consulting prior to starting a sales outsourcing relationship.
There are many options for companies to drive sales other than simply building on their internal team. Wikipedia has great overviews of your options – from channel sales, to resellers, to manufacturer reps, to outsourced sales companies. When discussing outsourcing sales, where we like to start the conversation is with the word “outsourcing” itself:
Outsourcing involves the contracting of a business process – previously performed in-house – to an external provider.
Outsourcing = Process previously performed transitioned
With this definition in mind, very few companies are looking for pure sales outsourcing, which is why we define Gabriel Sales as a sales execution, sales consulting and sales content marketing company. We execute alongside consultation.
During our initial conversation with potential clients looking for “outsourced sales,” what we discover is that some of what they are currently doing works well, and some of it does not. We look at these issues separately, and discover what they really need. This typically presents itself in a combination of 2 to 5 of the areas below:
- Sales Scripting
- Outsourcing Lead Generation
- Outsourcing Lead Nurturing
- Outsourcing Sales Qualifying
- Outsourcing Sales Closing
- Sales Consulting
- Commission Only Reps
- Contracted Sales Reps
When a prospect is looking for a contracted rep or commission only, they are really not interested in developing a repeatable sales process, which by our definition, is not outsourcing.
When we talk to most companies we work through a formal process to identify how much consulting is needed, so that we can figure out how fast execution can start filling their pipe. Generally, we can start executing and consulting concurrently. We have a formal process called the Gabriel System™ that makes this simple and easy for clients. We can generally get through the discovery process within the first week of launch and be on the phone, filling the pipe within two weeks. What follows below is an abridged overview of what information we extract during the Gabriel System™ discovery process. Unless you are a pure start up launching from scratch, you must have found some successful process. It’s our aim to figure out what is working, so we can improve on that for exponential growth.
Our first set of questions surrounds how mature your sales function and process really is:
- What is the historical sales cycle?
- How accurate was last year’s forecast?
- How many meetings does a typical sale take?
- What is the material presented in each one of those meetings?
- What digital content is being consumed are part of the sale?
- How many cold calls does it take to put a prospect into the pipe?
- How many prospects are currently in their nurture pipe?
- What are their typical conversion metrics?
- Do they have cold call scripts? First call scripts?
- Is the pricing model fixed? When was it last changed?
- Who are the top three direct competitors? Indirect?
- Why do you win? Why do you lose?
- What markets have you targeted?
- What decision makers do you sell to?
- What technology platforms are you utilizing?
- Do you work with a creative agency?
Our second set of questions (really just one question):
- How much of your current process is documented?
- Fully documented? Ready to outsource
- Needs work? Some sales consulting may be required
Our third set of questions is specifically about each stage of the discrete part of the sales process, and whether or not they need improvement:
- Lead Sourcing and Targeting?
- Lead Generation?
- Sales Qualifying?
- Sales and Marketing Alignment?
- Sales Engagement and Sales Pipe Velocity?
- Sales Metrics?
- Sales Closing and Sales Upsell?
Our final set of questions relate to message and content readiness and effectiveness:
- Do you have a positioning document?
- Do you have a messaging document?
- How much collateral do they have and of what type?
What does this all distill down to? The more honest you are upfront with an outsourcing sales partner, the faster increased efficiency and production can be achieved. We encourage you to be honest and clear about what is broken and needs fixing.
The value Gabriel Sales creates for our clients as a sales outsourcing partner is that we don’t hesitate to begin execution. We lead with execution, support, and consulting. Our efforts shorten sales cycles while simultaneously improving your strategy. Doing both in conjunction gives everyone access to the hard data, metrics, and qualitative insights required to create a winning, repeatable, competitive sales engine. We consult and execute in order to double sales growth.
If you are interested in getting to the market with speed and would like to learn more about how we can help, please CONTACT US for a free pipe velocity review.
