building the structure and mechanics of a professional sales organization
TRANSCRIPT
Structure and Mechanics Constraints enable creative approaches
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Predictability
3 Jeremiah Fellows: Collaborative Selling
• You need one thing as much as you need sales: Predictability.
• Risk Management • Changes in the pipeline can be early warning signs • i.e. a lengthening proposal phase can indicate a new competitor or poor qualification
process
• Manage growth • When, where and how to invest
• Evolve • Need to treat sales like any lean startup • Impossible to iterative efficiently without numbers
Getting Started
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• Don’t get a CRM • If you don’t know your sales process you will use the default CRM sales process
• Cycles, stages and metrics are not relevant to your sales process. Understand your sales process.
• Understand your customers • Document the stages • Test some hypothesis
• Now get a CRM • Make it match your process
The Foundation
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• Three areas of research to understand your sales process • Develop buyer and influencer personas
• Explains the Who • Develop a customer journey map
• Explains the what & how • Buy cycle will drive your sales process
• Develop system for prioritizing your efforts • Prioritization and a compass • Limited resources, cannot chase every opportunity.
Who?
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Understanding the people who buy your product or service.
Personas
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• Persona for each buyer type & influencer
• No vacuums! • B2B has team members, supervisors, executives, admins • B2C has families, friends and peers • They all interact and influence the decision to buy
• How Many? • Go with too many then group
• Pictures - No Customer X • Make them real
• A name and a job • A picture • Accurate demographics
Personas
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• What is unique to your product and services • How do these features map tp your customers lives?
• i.e. Dog owner who went to school in the PAC12 college conference buy more from you
• Mandatory elements • Demographics • Role – family, social or organizational • Who influenced by • Who do they influence • Motivations • Where do they go for information
The Customer Journey Map
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What are the interactions and influences that impact a customers decision
The Customer Journey Map
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• Map the stages of the buy cycle
• Map how the personas interact at each stage • More complex sale requires a CJM for each persona • Simple may only need one map
The Customer Journey Map
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• If you don’t know start with basics • Awareness • Research • Consideration • Decision
• Will probably be some sub stages • Update as you learn
• Map how the personas interact at each stage • More complex sale requires a CJM for each persona • Simple may only need one map
The Customer Journey Map
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• Map the touchpoints at each stage • Each interaction with your organization
• Website • Twitter feed • Tradeshow • Sales call
• Include every persona active during that touchpoint
• Map the touchpoint details • Emotions • Influencing personas • Information/resources they need to move to the next stageFrom others and from you • Expectations • Satisfaction with the interaction
The Customer Journey Map
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• Map your sales process to the Customer Journey Map • List the information you need to qualify the prospect to move to the next stage. • List the activities you need to do to move them to the next stage
• If the opportunity is right! • List the resources your sales people need at each touchpoint
• Collateral, etc.
Opportunity Value
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• You cannot and should not chase every opportunity • Not every sale is a good sale. Not every customer is a good customer.
• Referenceable, collaborative etc. • AW Prospect Ranking Criteria
• Culture • Nature of work – cutting edge, fun or bigger purpose • Referenceable
• Cool project with well known brand • Social or environmental impact
• Looks at the things your best customers have in common • characteristics of the company • Type of work
Opportunity Value
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• Need a ranking for every opportunity but also for every customer • Customer Quarterly Review – Opportunity values can change
• Staff changes • Industry shifts
• Scores should be a percentage, not a flat number • Your opportunity value criteria are going to change over time • need the ability to compare values over history
Get it in Excel
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• Start tracking • The number each prospects in each stage and sub stage • How long each prospect stays in each stage and sub stage • Where each prospect falls out and why • AW Example: Thought we had a lead generation issue, turned out to be a poor
qualifying issue. • Iterate, iterate, iterate • Now you can get a CRM
Progress Review
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• Regular cadence of meetings with a cross section of the organization • Weekly - Pipeline meeting
• Numbers will indicate where you need focus your efforts for the upcoming week • Sales retrospective (15 minute standup)
• Weekly or after each sales process depending on the length and complexity of the sale
• Quarterly Customer Review • Fire your bad customers
Case Study 1: Mythology Managing using mythology. Stop guessing about how you got that big deal.
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Case Study 2: Org Structure More sales people does not create proportionally more sales. Volume of sales might be limited by non-sales related organizational structures
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Case Study 3: Process You can’t create a hypothesis and test against it without a defined process. Constraints enable creativity.
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Links & Books
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General information
• This is Service Design Thinking • Sales should be a service. This book is the service design bible and can drive thinking about
how to design your sales as a service.
Customer Journey Maps
• Smaply: Customer Journey Mapping software.
• Tips for beginners
Personas
• What If Your Customers Were Actually People?
• The Foundation of a great user experience
Sales Process
• Lets Get Real or Let’s Not Play: Transforming the buyer/seller relationship