Increase Conversions Throughout the

Sales Process

Courtesy of TopOPPS

Jim Eberlin, Founder & CEO

The recipe to ensure a consistent and rigorous sales process that dramatically

improves sales performance.

HOW TO

Do you remember the pressures to maximize value as you were growing up? I had an awesome dad, and one of the many things I admired about him was his ability to maximize the value of anything we bought, acquired, or were given. He’d always instruct me when I left money on the table, paid too much or didn’t get enough value out of something. He would never just throw something out or let it deteriorate, he would fix it and enhance it so that it worked as advertised or better.

Now, I apply those same principals to our sales organization. Everything we have in our sales organization has to be working “better” than advertised. And of course that applies to our sales process, which I believe many companies neglect without knowing there’s a better way.

So, in the same spirit of good ol’ dad, I’m going to first tell you how much money you could be losing by not having a formal, rigorous sales process supported by the right kind of automation. Then I will give you a recipe for maximizing the value of your sales process that is proven by research and actual customer use cases. So, you’ll have a better and more organized sales organization and you’ll grow revenue!!! 2

INTRODUCTION I had an awesome dad, and one of the

many things I admired about him was his ability to maximize the value of anything

we bought, acquired, or were given.

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RESEARCH

According to the research study of 9,000 companies by CSO Insights, only 48% of sales reps hit quota due to an informal sales process. Now, let’s translate that into dollars. If only half of your team is hitting quota, and let’s use a quota of $800,000 per rep per year for perspective, that means you’re losing $400,000 per rep. So, if you have 10 reps, that means a loss of $4 million. Do your own math - but any way you look at it, an informal sales process is costing you a lot of money. By implementing a formal process, quota achievement increases to over 60% of the team, and if you add supporting automation on top of that, it will increase an additional 10% or higher and save a ton of time.

So, what does an informal sales process look like? Here’s how you can tell if you have one.

If you have a report that you use for your pipeline reviews or 1:1s that looks like this, chances are that you have an informal process. Even if you have that powerpoint slide with stage descriptions pinned to your cubicle wall, it’s still pretty informal. Having stages with weighted percentages is not formal - it’s a subjective status of opportunities that could be all over the place. The conservative reps (sand-baggers) will have everything in stage one, if they recorded it at all, until their gut says they can put it in commit. The overly positive reps (happy ears) will have a lot of opportunities in later stage that don’t belong.

With this inconsistent sales process, you don’t have a good definition that’s clear, where everyone from management to sales rep knows where a deal belongs. This makes it impossible for management to use data to help develop reps or to get a grasp on whether the number is going to be met.

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Hopefully I’ve proven that you need a formal sales process - so what does that look like? Overall you need consistency so that everyone is doing the same thing, everyone knows where deals belong. From this, deal conversions, advancements and regressions can be measured while pipeline and forecasts will be accurate and useful.

A formal and rigorous sales process will make this happen. You’ll need the following recipe that we will describe more fully in this article:

1. Methodology - A structured plan to educate a qualified prospect on the problems, priorities, reasons for change and guidance to help their selling activities.

2. Buyer/Seller Journey - Listing all stages and activities that need to occur, and naturally occur, that fit the buyers and the sellers.

3. Automation - Additional CRM automation that “intelligently reminds” sales reps for sales process enforcement and hygiene - so the reps have an easier way to update the CRM through advanced automation, rather than the traditional way.

Additionally you’ll need the proper analytics that help predict, forecast and coach.

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THE RECIPE

The first of the 3 criteria in a formal process is methodology. At TopOPPS we inject a lot of the Challenger Sale and Challenger Customer methodology into the process. We like the teaching and guidance of the first book so that our prospects understand the value TopOPPS provides of artificial intelligence for sales forecasting, pipeline management and sales process enforcement along with simplified CRM updates. You can’t just “lead with” these benefits, you have to “lead to” these benefits. Otherwise, the prospect may not see the problem as worth changing. So, in order to break the framework of their current way of thinking, you have to prove that you are a pain-killer to a prioritized problem and not just a vitamin. Sell change, then solution.

The next part of the Challenger Customer methodology that we incorporate into our process is finding and identifying the buying team. CEB says that there is an average of 5.4 members to every buying team that are required to make a decision. We need to find these members, identify them and win over the mobilizers (especially the teachers) to promote the product within the group.

And finally, we utilize these mobilizers to build consensus within the group, arming them with enough information to overcome objections and guide the group with “what to do” instead of just selecting the best vendor on price. These mobilizers are better at winning consensus and circumventing dysfunction with the group than the sales rep.

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Methodology

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Stages are created based on both how the buyer buys and how the seller guides. Research from the CEB shows that buying groups typically reach out to a vendor after 57% of their evaluation process is complete or later. If the group is left on their own, there is a high probability that they end up in a stalemate or select a vendor based on price.

The process is tailored based on the mobilizer (the book calls them teachers, skeptics, and the go-getter) and arming them with the ability to overcome objections and win consensus. There must be a convergence of the buying group and the change is driven by the mobilizer.

Below is the sales process TopOPPS follows. Milestones and activities within these stages are designed to change the mental model, build consensus, tailor for a convergence of the buying team to make a decision - driven by the mobilizer. We map out the activities of the seller and what the buyer does in each stage.

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Buyer/Seller Journey

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Without good data, there’s no direction. No good information for conversations between a manager and a sales rep. Forecasts become more of a gut feel - and no one can predict accurately or get early warnings from a lack of pipeline. Teams can’t develop, processes can’t improve - and there’s a lack of visibility.

Just having a CRM is not going to provide the fullness of a predictive forecast and insights into the pipeline and analytics. Automation has to go beyond standard CRM features and provide the following:

1. Predictive sales forecast2. Predictive pipeline insights and ease of visibility 3. Sales process enforcement - so all leads and opportunities adhere

to the proper stage4. Pipeline hygiene for clean and accurate data5. Simplified CRM updates - so reps don’t have to spend much time

in the CRM

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Automation

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Analytics must include conversion rate information so that stages can be identified where deals fall out and sales reps can be coached on how to better advance deals - increasing the conversion win rate. See example below that shows a sales funnel with stages of leads and opportunities. The example shows stages starting with Sales Qualified Leads (SQL), Sales Accepted Leads (SAL), where a rep will accept a lead, then it advances to Qualification to Compelling Need and so on.

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For more information on how TopOPPS provides accurate sales forecasts, pipeline and opportunity management, sales process enforcement, CRM hygiene and simplified pipeline updates, please request a demo.

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SUMMARYAll of this can be provided by adding TopOPPS to your CRM. By following this recipe for a formal and rigorous process, you can maximize the value of your sales process, making it consistent and predictive, while ramping reps sooner and plugging the holes where you are losing millions of dollars. This will make good ol’ dad proud of you!!