Marketing needs to work hand in hand with Sales.
The problem you may well find is that Marketing says that Sales are not working the leads they send over, and sales say the leads they are getting are ‘not hot’.
The reality is that Marketing needs to work hand in hand with Sales to support the user journey of each and every lead, and use the software you have available to create a culture of ‘Ease’ in your business - this way Marketing and Sales can best work together to solve any problems.
What I would suggest though, is that in order to meet sales targets you should measure (for the sales team):
- Number of calls
- Number of emails sent
- Number of appointments made
- Number of Deals on the Board - supported by a note on a person’s contact record as to the nature of conversation that has lead to the Deal being added.
All of which allows us to manage the ‘input’ to drive the desired output.
Tip: when a prospect clicks on a link within an email it can be taken as an Indication of Interest. You will need some sort of tracking software to know though - as such you could use a unique Bitly.com link (e.g. making a unique link per person) or HubSpot Sales Pro, which automates the Process.
And if you recall from earlier, Marketing should have a target of e.g. MQLs.
Tip: your Sales Team members can break through the noise by using quick video introductions. ‘Vidyard’ has a great free version you can add to your browser, and that will notify you when someone clicks a link. (click the image below to access their free Chrome Extention)
Tip: ideally you want to be notified when a prospect revisits your database - this functionality will transform your sales people’s experience of supporting prospects to move toward ‘sale’.
30 POINT SALES CHARTER
When it comes to sales management, you will want everyone to be on the same page. As such, below you will find a robust example of what I call a Sales Charter - whereby everyone in the business knows the main principles to the Database/Sale/Marketing process.
Note: Look to adapt it to your own business based upon your own situation.
1. Contact Owner - the same person who is working a record owns the record
2. Contact Owner - Customer/Opportunity/SQL/MQL - anyone not part of the current sales team needs their leads at this status re-assigning to a current member
3. Customer - whoever owns the record has a future follow up task set, with firm intent of contacting them every 6 months (at a minimum) for a relationship call
4. Customer - no one should have more than e.g. 150 customers under management
5. Customers (with ‘Deal Lost’) - need a follow up task re: date of next sale opportunity
6. Opportunity - anyone with a deal on the Board needs a follow up task date
7. Opportunity - any deals that are past their close date need either moving to ‘Closed Lost’ or into the future
8. Opportunity - anyone at this lifecycle stage (i.e. not deal stage) needs to be moved back to SQL when the opportunity is ‘lost’, or forward to ‘Customer’ when it is won
9. Opportunity (with ‘Deal Lost’) - need follow up date to ‘check in’ OR reassigned to ‘marketing’ - this is done by changing contact ownership to ‘Marketing’
10. SQL - anyone at this lifecycle stage needs a future follow up date being set by the Contact Owner, OR re-assigned to ‘marketing’
11. MQL - anyone at this lifecycle stage needs a future follow up date being set by the Contact Owner
12. MQL - anyone with this lifecycle stage that proves to have no real interest (e.g. booked event/didn’t attend/failed to reply to emails or calls) should be reassigned to ‘marketing’
13. ‘Lead’ and ‘Subscriber’ - anyone at this status should not be assigned to a member of the Sales Team, but should be assigned to ‘marketing’
14. Customers/Opportunities/SQLs/MQLs - these figures should be ‘known’ by a sales team member at any time, the aim to move people from one stage to the next.
15. ‘Notes’ in your CRM system should be used by a Sales team member as a way to capture any pertinent information. A note can be edited by any team member, and ‘pinned’ to a contact record if you have that functionality. This makes it easier to a) see at a glance ‘where the record is at’, and b) handover the record if necessary to do so in the future.
16. ‘Log activity’ and other reporting functions should be used within a contact’s record - allowing for better tracking
17. ‘Tasks’ that are overdue by more than e.g. 30 days need resolving (marketing as ‘complete’ or moving forward)
18. When in a Contact Record - the names should be ‘Capitalised’ and the Gender, and City added to record (where ‘known’ or can ‘guess’)
SALES/PIPELINE MANAGEMENT
This is about managing the input, so you can manage the output/outcomes more clearly:
19. Sales - e.g. “we have a target of 20 sales units per week”
20. Opportunities - “we need a target of e.g. 40 opportunities to convert to 20 sales”
21. Appointments/Meetings and Call Tracking - “we need a target of e.g. 40 appointments per week, plus 120 connected conversations (over 5 mins each) to achieve targets”
22. Sales team member - explicit tracking of a) Appointments set, and b) Calls made/outcome
23. Specific Course Potential - “we should know, based on Opportunities (and SQLs?) the numbers in the pipeline for any upcoming course”
24. Deals at e.g. stage of Qualified Sales Leads will convert at a rate of 1 in 3
25. Deals at e.g. a stage of Opportunity will convert at a rate of 2 in 3 (both of these ‘Deals’ points are included to support you in ensuring your sales team use Deals as a target, and also ‘stand by’ adding a deal to the Board).
STATUS CLARIFICATION:
26. MQLs - this is the role of marketing, and you should have a target of e.g. 200 a month passed to the sales team
27. MQLs - should be valued as potential customers in the showroom, looking at a specific product
28. SQLs - should be seen as potential customers in the showroom, discussing price/location/availability of a particular product
29. Opportunities - should be known as potential customers with
an intent to purchase a specific product, at a particular point in time
30. Customers - during relationship calls (every 6 months, at a minimum) they should be invited to revisit programs already attended, as well as selling on to the next program, and asking for referrals.
Finally...
We can help shape up your sales processes, working directly with your team. Reach out to us here for more information.