How to turn B2B Sales in to a computer game

Strategise - Use different tools and characters within the game at each level, with our end goal of completing the game i.e. closing a sale

- Common misconception - hiring sales staff will increase sales - WRONG

- Traditional sales processes have developed - the focus has shifted to the development of “sales opportunities”

- More time spent on “prospecting” - traditional sales people are terrible at this

Create a Sales Machine - Fully integrated structured system

- For a start-up the main selling responsibility should fall to the founder

- know your product/service better than anyone - learn how to sell your product/service from the inside - access to golden market intelligence (product/service always needs tweaking) - essential for growth - founder should be involved equally as much in production as in sales

Ingredients of a Sale 1. A Compelling proposition

2. Sales Opportunity - the most tricky part

3. Hustling

4. Critical Sales Conversation

Inbound Marketing1) Referrals2) Free Tools/Trials3) SEO4) Blogging5) Email Newsletters6) Webinars7) PPC8) Affiliate Marketing9) Social

Outbound Marketing - Cold Emailing:“contacting someone who doesn’t know you and isn’t expecting your call”

- Don’t need high marketing budget- Extremely targeted- Measurable - Integrated in to the business easily in-house

- you can’t just cold call nowadays in the traditional form and expect to make sales..

Build Process- a process for getting quality incoming leads & filter out unqualified opportunities:

1) Define ideal target profile2) Ad target accounts3) Find Contact details4) Send cold emails5) Work responses6) Call conversations7) Demos/ appointments8) New opportunities 9) Close deals

Preparation stage

Prospecting

Sales Cycle

Find Ideal Customer - Find ideal customer profile - spend time doing this

- define which companies are your top 5-10% of customers - those most likely to purchase your product/service for the most revenue

- develop focused lists based on tight criteriaeg. No. of employees in co.? Industries receptive? Marketing budget? Solution in place? Financial status? Values/People? In-house person?Current system?

Build Your List - Start finding contact details for your ideal customers

- Can purchase contact database sources:One Source, Jigsaw, Inside View, Zoom Info, Data Salad

or - Build your own list - use an elancer

- If no access to database or no contact details - use Reportive (free gmail plug-in), Sales Loft (Linkedin plug-in)

- Need to find email of decision maker - usually C-Level

“Cold Calling (Emailing) 2.0”

- concept developed by Aaron Ross, author of “Predictable Revenue”

- goal of every cold email should be to:

1) Find who is the best person to contact i.e. the decision makeror2) To establish best time to call

THINK RESEARCH CALLS (emails), NOT COLD CALLS (emails)

Be Honest - Don’t start selling yet, the aim is to find out about the company & whether they’re a potential fit - keep emails short and sweet and be specific

- Text based and not fancy html

- State simply and clearly why you’re reaching out

- Make email easy to read on smart phone

- Offer credibility - examples of people you work with

- Ask for one simple call to action

- Avoid common spam trigger words like “free”, “opportunity”, “click here”

Example Email Hi FIRSTNAME I am writing in the hopes of finding the appropriate person who handles COMPANYNAMES marketing. PersonX, PersonY and PersonZ have also been contacted - if it makes sense to talk, let me know how your calendar looks. SUSO Digital specialise in digital marketing for Tech Startups & E-Commerce sites through SEO, App Mktg and Reputation Mgmt and typically improve organic Google traffic by 99% whilst increasing sales by 62%! It’d be great to have a chat about COMPANYNAMES next steps for marketing your product/service and provide you with some free consultation for how we will be able to improve traffic to your site/ your download numbers. If you are the appropriate person to speak with, what does your calendar look like? If not, who do you recommend I talk to? Thanks Matthew Barnes Sales ExecutiveSUSO Digital+447732157343Tileyard Studios, Tileyard Road, Kings Cross, London, N7 9AH

Title Header - “Appropriate Person”

Refining The Process Use CRM/Analytics to track success (Yesware, Marketo, Salesforce, Mailchimp, Aweber) :

1) Email response rates2) Emails companies respond to & why3) Who is responding 4) Who became qualified opportunity & why5) Constantly Refine - A/B test

Eventually - you can automate areas of the process

Hustling/Sales Development

Tracking Success- Aim for 50-100 emails a day, 5-10 responses - including positive, negative, & neutral

- Send messages before 9am or after 5pm and avoid Mondays & Fridays(schedule using Boomerang)

- Assess open rate, click through rates, unsubscribe rates & bounce rates

- Average reply rate is 7-9% - averages vary by industryhttp://www.smartinsights.com/email-marketing/email-communications-strategy/statistics-sources-for-email-marketing/

- Don’t give up on an initial “No” - find out why

Yesware Dashboard

Can-Spam Compliance - Allowed to send unsolicited emails so long as:

1) Subject Header not misleading

2) Have valid physical address in email

3) Include “opt-out” for future communications

Best Practice Briefing - the scheduled call - phone/skype/go-to meeting/join-me

- should be initially done by founder (“critical sales conversation”)

- learn more about organisation, let them do most of the talking

- here you can “sell the dream”

- help prospect create vision of dream solution which will solve their problems

Ask The Right Questions - Typical call:

1) Intro. about our company2) Discuss prospects business situation3) Probe prospects needs4) Position solution to meet those needs5) Handle Objections6) Arrange next steps

- Questions to ask:

1) How are you organised?2) How does your process work?3) What are your challenges?4) Tried and failed with other solutions?

Pull Selling vs Push Selling - Don’t push the prospect - it can kill a sale & also end up with customers who aren’t a long term fit - danger of using traditional commission based structure around sales

- Need dedicated members of the sales team, each given specific roles eg. “Sales Development Team” - dedicated to prospecting & lead qualification “Account Executive” (founder’s role) - work relationships & close

- Give credibility to your offer - always give examples, don’t just tell them, show them eg. give free trials

Solution Design Workshop- After “best practice briefing” call, 2nd call is much more granular & specific

- Discuss exactly what you will do for them

- Go to their office, go and meet them, perform a tutorial or webinar - make it a unique experience where they learn a lot - in some industries you can charge for this

- Create a professional document, mentioning everything discussed - a formal proposal (only send proposals to prospects ready to receive them)

- Show how you will execute the solution

Case Study: HyperQuality- Seattle based contact center quality assurance solution provider

- Finding it hard to generate quality leads through inbound marketing, 1-2 inbound “qualified” leads per month

- Embraced new way of prospecting & outbound sales

- Within 90 days, the pipeline tripled (part time prospecting work done by one person)

Completing the Game - Gaining 1 sale is just getting to the next level of the computer game

- To complete the game in full, the aim (through constant testing/refining) is tocreate a:

1) Standard Procedure for generating sales

2) Standard Procedure for Processing

3) Sales Machine that will lead to Predictable Revenue for your business

Thanks Will Bagnall - Head of Business Development at SUSO Digital

- will@susodigital.com