Jacco van der Kooij, Fernando Pizarro, Winning by Design
The first VP takes three to six months to hire. He buys tools on an ad hoc basis to fit the budget. He establishes a once-a-year training program that includes lead development, closing, and negotiation skills. Staff turnover begins because quotas go unmet. Belatedly, he attempts to deploy processes too late. (Location 65)
The first VP takes three to six months to hire. He buys tools on an ad hoc basis to fit the budget. He establishes a once-a-year training program that includes lead development, closing, and negotiation skills. Staff turnover begins because quotas go unmet. Belatedly, he attempts to deploy processes too late. (Location 66)
The customer journey usually starts when the client recognizes a fixable problem. This can be through any of the following, in any order: a content marketing campaign leads to an inbound lead from nurturing word of mouth results in inbound leads through a referral the sales team reaches out in an outbound sales call, email, or Linkedin Inmail a community event causing word of mouth Search Engine Optimization leads to competitive ranking against a search query which results in an inbound lead a social media interaction such as a tweet, posting a blog post, or liking/sharing/commenting on an article (Location 225)
However, an application service such as a $10/month communication service is a different creature. Think of a client whose West Coast sales team buys a license for 5 seats at $50/month or $600 in ACV. In this case, the goal of the services team is to get all 500 users on the service. This means a 100x upsell/cross sell opportunity that is more complex. The CSM in this case would only work on the onboarding process and get the first users happy; after that (s)he signals to the AE (tier 2) or AM (tier 1) that the account is ready for upsell. (Location 982)
In this example, you would need a CSM solution that measures usage across 240 clients a year and signals to the AE which clients are ready for upsell/cross sell. (Location 996)
It is all too common to see sales teams in which directors are doing high-volume prospecting for low-value customers. Believe us, while this sounds stupid and you are probably telling yourself that you would never make that mistake, in practice it happens all the time to perfectly smart people. To counteract this default behavior, you must go through a deliberate exercise in which you segment your customers by how much revenue they can produce, how many potential customers exist in each segment, and what it costs to service those customers. You can then implement the following common-sense strategy: “use low-cost, online sales teams to process high-volume, low-value segments.” (Location 148)
The question to ask is not “how are we going to sell it?” but rather “how is the customer going to buy it?” Once you have figured that out, then you can plan against it. The customer journey usually starts when the client recognizes a fixable problem. This can be through any of the following, in any order: a content marketing campaign leads to an inbound lead from nurturing word of mouth results in inbound leads through a referral the sales team reaches out in an outbound sales call, email, or Linkedin Inmail a community event causing word of mouth Search Engine Optimization leads to competitive ranking against a search query which results in an inbound lead a social media interaction such as a tweet, posting a blog post, or liking/sharing/commenting on an article (Location 223)
I) The need for content across the entire 5-stage sales process Content needs to be available BEYOND the awareness stage. The biggest gaps in this content development for most companies are currently in the education stage and the use stage. Buyers are often overwhelmed with high quality awareness content. But educational content on our clients’ websites tends to be razor thin. Moreover, content that helps buyers with use-cases is completely absent. Further on, recall that the onboarding and expansion stages are the most important ones for achieving profitability. Almost NO content is generated for those stages today. The implication of this is that you have to reallocate budget to generate content for EVERY SaaS stage. (Location 861)
BLUEPRINT 2 A Review of Moments that Matter (MTMs) (Location 247)
Today’s sales has a different anatomy, requires a different skill set, and is tool-assisted. Let’s step through the anatomy of a regular sale: 1 — Mark reads a blog post describing an issue he is experiencing. 2 — He clicks on a link that takes him to a web-site, he is interested. 3 —Mark signs up for more insights, and gets immediate access. 4 — Laura the SDR at BCD.com sees Mark’s request, and accessing the content, she checks his background and contacts Mark. 5 — Mark and Laura chat - Mark agrees to a call. He invites his team. 6 — Laura sets up Jill the AE, who notices that Mark’s team is researching based on all the web hits and clicks on the articles she provided 7 — The team has a great disco/demo call. Mark asks for a proposal. 8 — Jilll sends her proposal to Mark - it shows up on her forecast. 9 — The deal goes dark. Mark does not respond to Jill’s inquiries. Jill drops the deal from the forecast. It impacts her performance. So what went wrong? Traditional sales teaches that we must establish a critical timeline, RoI, value prop etc. That works for a $80,000 deal, but at $500/month Jill’s company cannot afford to do this at any scale. Social selling gurus will tell you that Jill can use LinkedIn to establish a relationship with Mark’s boss. Mark’s boss however will simply reply to her inquiry - cc’ing Mark, and with it destroy the trust. Dead deal. Instead you should use online skills, tools and content; 8 — Jilll SHARES an online version of her proposal which lets her track views, instead of sending it as an attachment. 9 — Mark tables her proposal. Jill keeps sharing BEST PRACTICES with Mark. Continuing to build thought leadership. 10 — Weeks later Mark opens Jill’s proposal. Jill instantly receives a NOTIFICATION, and she contacts Mark immediately. 11 — Mark who just obtained BUDGET works with Jill on a revision. 12 — Mark SIGNS-UP for a 12 month contract. This approach requires a process - optimized for online selling. (Location 463)
blueprint 5 (Location 542)
MDR: Inbound Lead Development and Qualification Receives requests from clients who want more information (MQLs). Stack ranks MQLs by priority; hot ones are identified using skills and tools. Researches and contacts clients ASAP. Qualify customers: Qualified clients (SQLs) are assigned to FAEs (Enterprise), AEs (SMB), or Self-Service. Disqualified clients are tagged and some may go back to nurturing (or Self-Service). When lead gets accepted, the MDR gets compensated. SDR: Outbound Lead Generation Develops SQLs from: a top 50 list from the AE, finds entry points. a target market from management. Researches and identifies qualified targets. Engages in an insightful conversation through email, phone, chats, to understand the customer’s needs. Qualifies clients based on fit: Qualified leads are assigned to an FAE/AE. Disqualified leads will be tagged and some may go back to nurturing (or Self-Service). When the lead gets accepted, the SDR gets compensated. (Location 544)
The Change The company quickly realized they needed to implement a proven blueprint, one that distinguished a clear separation between lead generating activity – generating SQLs – and closing activity – securing commitments (WINs). (Location 610)
We often see boardroom conflict due to miscommunication about what constitutes a Lead. Comparing apples to oranges doesn’t solve problems, and we have found that using the following terminology helps clear the air. (Location 657)
The Problem: A prominent Marketing Automation Company secured new financing to grow, and the company hired a team of SDRs to increase the pipeline for its Account Executives. However, the company had a hard time hitting its MRR goals. (Location 679)
Blueprint 7 highlights the fact that each role in the online sales organization plays a role at a specific point in the customer journey. It is worth noting that some of these roles actually do roughly the same activities – for example an SDR has to pitch, handle objections, and close on a meeting, just as an AE has to pitch, demo, handle objections, and close on a deal. However, the timeframes for an SDR are highly compressed – which makes the SDR role a great training ground for AEs. (Location 727)
Workflow for the outbound sales process O1. SDR receives a top-50 account target list from the AE, and starts the research O2. Finds contact details online, downloads into CRM and sets up a workflow O3. Reaches out to the person and provide insights via email, InMail, social media, and/or phone call O4. Upon engagement, SDR acts IMMEDIATELY. Provides a brief pitch “relevant” and concise for the client O5. SDRs performs a diagnose on the clients situation, asks smart questions, and address reservations while qualifying the client O6. Upon qualification/interest SDR schedules an online meeting with the client and the AE, to perform a disco/demo O7. Sends out a professional invitation the client uses to brief people internally. SDR updates CRM with notes on the opportunity O8. 1 Hour before the meeting the SDR sends out re-confirmation O9. SDR opens the call for a transfer to the AE (Location 789)