Presentation Transcript:

1. managing a complex sales process
2. basic sales funnel
3. leads -> sales funnel -> orders
4. complex customer needs => complex sales process
5. a typical process
   1. requirements
   2. map solutions
   3. budget costs
   4. configure solution
   5. proposal
   6. order
6. complex sales process => workflow model
7. workflow model
   1. milestones – progress indicators – work hand-over points – business rules
   2. roles – organization structure – responsibilities – capabilities
   3. templates – fill-in forms – document formats – validation rules
8. example of workflow model mapping milestones, roles and templates
9. workflow model =>shared workspace
10. shared workspace
    1. people  - business entities  - contact details – responsibilities
    2. information  - requirements – solutions – budgets – time lines
    3. activity log – appointments – tasks – notes
    4. documents - proposals - diagrams - data files
    5. progress reports – milestones completed - key hand-over info - who & when
11. sharedworkspace => prioritized reports
12. prioritized reports
    1. alerts – when we are stuck – alerts for appointments and tasks – alerts for stuck leads – alerts for unattended customers
    2. funnel – where are we stuck? – idle leads – no sales activity – inactive leads – no progress – inactive customers – no open projects
    3. metrics – why we are stuck? – velocity – how long are we taking ? – volume – how many leads are we handling? – conversion – success and failure
13. On2Biz
    1. workflow models - milestones - roles - templates
    1. shared workspace - information - people – activity – progress – documents
    2. prioritized reports  - alerts - funnel - metrics
14. Sample screen shots
15. screenshot: shared workspace
16. lead = project (screen shots for a single lead or project)
17. screenshot: people - business entities – contact details
18. screenshot: information - requirements – solutions  - budgets – time lines
19. screenshot: activity log - appointments – tasks – notes
20. screenshot: progress - milestones completed – key hand-over info – who & when
21. screenshot: documents - proposals – diagrams – data files
22. screenshots of prioritized reports
23. screenshot: alerts – alerts for appointments and tasks – alerts for stuck leads – alerts for unattended customers – email alert – sms alert
24. screenshot: funnel - idle leads – no sales activity – inactive leads – no progress – inactive customers – no open projects
25. screenshot: metrics – velocity – how long are we taking ? – volume – how many leads are we handling? – conversion – success and failure
26. what next?
27. 1. quick start ! – sign-up for a free account – fill in workflow model sheet – start tracking your workflow
    2. consulting – interviews with all stake-holders – advanced customization guide – custom workflow model
    3. implementation – custom workflow implementation – training sessions – on-going support
28. contact us !

Related posts:

1. Using the sales pipeline report for key performance indicators
2. Managing Business by Remote Control
3. How effective is your sales process?

CJ Warstler, Director – Sr. Consultant, Sales Performance International Inc. helps answer this question very effectively in his post titled: “What does an ideal sales pipeline look like?” on their Solution Selling™ Blog.

He identifies the following three factors that determine the ideal pipeline:

• Sales Cycle Complexity (Quality)
  Complex sales cycles have more number of milestones in the sales cycle. When calculating the ideal pipeline, one needs to know the ideal number of opportunities at each stage or milestone in the sales cycle.
• Days in Stage (Speed)
  The longer it takes to close opportunities, the more the number of opportunities you need in your pipeline to achieve the target sales in a given period. The estimated average time taken at each milestone in the sales cycle is used to calculate the ideal pipeline.
• Yield Probability (Volume)
  As an opportunity moves from one milestone to another, the probability of closure keeps improving. The probability at each stage is used to calculate the ideal pipeline.

The following table illustrates the sample buyer’s process and the corresponding sales process, along with the two process parameters – the time required, and the probability of closure at each milestone:

The sum of the time required at each milestone then gives us the average sales cycle time, which in the above example is 120 days.

In addition to the sales process, the following information is used in the calculation:

• The sales target or Goal – for example, suppose this is 1.8 million
• The time remaining to achieve the goal – for example, suppose we are at the beginning of the year, so we have 365 days left

Then the ideal pipeline value at each stage is calculated using the following formula:

(Goal x (Average Sales Cycle / Time Remaining to Goal) x (Average Days in Stage / Total Days in Average Cycle)) / %Yield in Stage = Ideal Amount for Stage

So for the above example, we would get the following ideal pipeline:

The total pipeline value here is less than the total goal, because this is the pipeline at the beginning of the year. Assuming that new opportunities keep entering the pipeline as older opportunities flow out of the pipeline at the same rate, the pipeline over the entire year will achieve the required goal.

See the excellent explanation of this provided by Tim Sullivan in the comments on the blog.

All in all, a very well explained and simple way to ensure that the pipeline is kept at the optimal size.

Related posts:

1. Using the sales pipeline report for key performance indicators
2. Calculating the projected value of an opportunity
3. Sales Cycle Time – a critical metric for measuring performance

Rahul Jain, a highly successful business coach who has worked with several CEOs to help them effectively scale their businesses, asks some tough questions that helps a business owner evaluate their effectiveness in achieving business results:

• Is your business growing at the rate you wish it to grow?
• Are you and your business making the kind of money that you wish to make from the business?
• Do you still find time to do things you enjoy doing or your business is taking away all your time, leaving no free time?
• Do you spend most of your time working IN your business or are you working ON your business. (Are you spending most of your time solving the same every-day problems or are you investing your time uncovering new ways to grow your business.)
• Do you spend most of your time dealing with emergencies and fire fighting?
• Are you enjoying and having fun running your business or is it a cause for constant stress
• Are your employees working for you or are you working for them?
• Are you in control of your business, taking your business where you want it to go, or is the business driving you?
• Do you have self-sustaining systems in place that manage your business even in your absence?

Most business owners and manager may easily identify their situation with the above. But being caught in the trap of micromanagement, the solutions seems far from easy.

Nahid Casazza, another business coach who effectively combines her background in psychology and business expertise explains the root cause of micromanagement:

…micromanaging behavior is driven by the positive characteristics of conscientiousness, diligence, and responsibility; it’s just that they have been taken to an extreme. People often confuse themselves with the quality of the work they produce. As long as they can control the quality of their work, they are ok, but as soon as they have to depend on others for results, they are faced with the fear of representing sloppy or substandard output. Since putting out less than excellent work is SO personally humiliating, they need constant reassurance that the team is performing.

One way to escape this trap of micromanagement is to create a process documentation system that captures everything that is going on in your business and allows you to keep track of it from the outside.

Like Rahul says:

Documenting and setting up the required systems, -moving the business from people dependency to systems dependency. (It also ensures that when an employee leaves the organization, another person can quickly fit into the place, because of the systems.) A step by step program to take any function in your business and turn it into a scalable, replicable, reliable process, complete with checklists and full documentation so that anyone in your company can do it just as well, by following directions. (Putting it on Auto Pilot) having the business ‘work’…even when you’re not there, resulting in the biggest freedom which you have always dreamed of- the freedom of time.

Sounds simple. But implementing systems is by no means easy. As any business owner or manager who has tried to implement any business tracking software can verify, the biggest problem in maintaining a system is to get people to enter data in it.

The difficulty lies in the decision of how much data to capture. If you ask a manager to decide what to capture, you will tend to get an answer close to “everything”. From a manager’s perspective, the more data the better. And most software systems aim to please the manager by providing more features meaning more data to enter. This inevitably leads to a situation where over 90% of software implementation projects fail.

The approach that works is to provide systems that capture the progress of the business process automatically, without requiring people to separately enter any data. This can be achieved by providing a customized template that acts as a checklist for all tasks that are to be performed, and the person who finishes the task merely has to check off the tasks completed. The system should then automatically register the person who completed the task, the time spent, the next steps required etc. based on a pre-determined logic.

Process template - a simple checklist to track the progress of a business case

The adjoining sample screenshot is part of a process template designed for a subscription based software business. The template shared on the web and is available to all persons working on the specific business case, project or order. The process is broken down into milestones, where each milestone could have an associated set of questions that need to be answered or sub-tasks that need to be performed. The person responsible has to merely check off the tasks completed.

The system then automatically tracks the progress of all business cases, projects or orders and provides a summary to the manager. The following are two sample reports that the manager can see:

Live feed of ongoing business activity

The first screenshot is of a live feed of all ongoing business activity. This report picks up all live business cases, and lists all ongoing activity including milestones completed, messages exchanged, documents prepared or tasks completed.

This report is available for viewing from anywhere via the web, and is useful for the business owner to remotely track the business process. All activities are directly linked to the corresponding business case or project, allowing the manager to view the complete context of the specific activity.

Process Pipeline Report

The second screenshot is a performance summary report. This shows the pipeline of all business cases or orders, and tracks the velocity of movement of cases through the list of milestones in the process template.

This report provides a valuable feedback to the business owner or manager to identify possible bottlenecks or stumbling blocks. Any order that is not moving ahead in the milestones is highlighted, allowing the manager to investigate by simply clicking on the inactive projects and drilling down from the report to the list of projects and then to the individual project.

This simple strategy promises to provide the business owner or manager an effective tool to help manage the business by remote control, thereby creating more time to work on strategy to grow the business.

Related posts:

1. Managing a Complex Sales Process
2. Case Study: Insurance and Financial Products Sales
3. Why do you need a CRM or Sales Force Management System?

Step 1: Select the Workspace Tab in On2Biz

The On2Biz Workspace tab

Step 2: In the workspace menu on the right, select the sales workflow in the workflow selection menu, and then click on the link below it to “Create New Project”

Workflow selection menu and links to create new project or company

Once you click on the link, the New Project Form will be displayed in the central area of your screen.

This form contains various sections, each containing a template for entering information about your sales opportunity.

Step 3: Fill in the Associates section of the project form

Associates section of the new project form

The first box is to enter the name of the prospective customer’s company name. Once you start entering the name, On2Biz will query your existing customer database and find all matching names and show you a drop-down selection menu as shown below. In case the company already exists in your database, you can select it from the drop-down menu. If you would like to enter a new name, just continue typing the full name.

Enter End Customer name here. If End Customer name is already present in On2Biz then a drop down will be shown from which you can select the Name.

Below the company name, you have two tabs for entering a contact person, and an address. The default tab is for adding a contact. You can use this form to enter the details of the contact person in the new prospect. To add an address, select the Add Address tab next to the Add Contact. This will change the contact form into a form to enter the address.

Add contact and his address for associate.

In addition to the End Customer, you can also link this opportunity with other companies such as business partners, consultants or channel partners. These additional fields can be configured for your On2Biz account. It allows you to review your sales pipeline for any one of these partners too.

Additional associates linked to the opportunity

You can add contact details of the person by clicking on “more” link next to the input field.

Step 4: Fill the Overview section of the project form.

Overview section looks like following. Overview of project consists of a Title, Description, the team who will work on this project, start date of project and expected date of closure of the project. Basically, this section gives the Overview of this opportunity.

Overview section in On2Biz opportunity / project creation form

Provide a title to a project. Title is a searchable value i.e. you can search for title and find the project using On2Biz global search.

Title for a project / opportunity.

A short description should be entered in Description field. Description is also searchable using global search of On2Biz.

Enter short description for this project / opportunity.

Next is selecting a Project Manager and Project Team. Project Manager is a executive who is responsible for closing this project / opportunity, Project Team is a set of executives who will work with Project Manager. By default name of the executive who signed in is Project Manager.

Select Project Manager and Team.

The Project Manager and the Team specify the permissions for which users can view or edit the project page. This opportunity will also figure in their respective pipelines. Please note that for some On2Biz accounts, the Project team feature may not be activated. You can request support@on2.biz to get this activated.

Select a workflow, enter start and expected date of closure and if you want this project to be seen by the End Customer or not.

The Workflow selection box is not required to be edited. Only administrators and top management have the option to edit the workflow of the opportunity.

Select Start Date and Expected Date of Closure of this opportunity. By default the Start Date is the current date.

Also there is a option if you want to share this project progress with End customer of this oppoortunity. You can enable this option by selecting Yes for Share this project with contacts.

Step 5: Fill Values section

Values section allows you to select the product segments you will be selling through this opportunity. Product Segments are customizable, contact support@on2.biz to get it customized.

Value section of On2Biz add project form. Here you select the product segment you will be selling in this opportunity.

Also a more info OR product segment specific form can be added to capture more information on this product.

Customizable form to capture more information requirement.

To get a customized form please contact support@on2.biz.

Step 6: Fill Milestones Section

Milestones specified the stage which opportunity has completed. e.g. if you have provided Quotation to client then you select “Quotation Submitted” milestone. By default while adding a new lead, first milestone gets selected i.e. “Lead Captured” in this case.

Select a milestone which this opportunity has completed. e.g. "Quotations" if Quotation is submitted.

Similar to Product segment, each milestones can also have customized form to capture more information regarding selected milestone. Below screenshot shows a more information form for “Order Confirmed” milestone.

Capture more information on Milestone using customized more info form.

to get this customized form contact support@on2.biz.

Click on save and add this new opportunity to your pipeline.

Related posts:

1. How to: Update project / opportunity milestone.
2. How to: Create Task
3. How to: Add note

The secret behind effective sales management is simple: manage activities and measure results. Sounds simple but the misunderstanding lies in the fact that the link between activities and results is very short in demand fulfillment functions (entering customer orders today means shipping more orders today and tomorrow). However, that link for demand creation is much longer and tedious. It involves strategic selling, building relationship equity and the creation of tier level penetration strategies (relationships take months or longer to deliver revenue). In demand creation , attempting to manage results is like watering a plant after it has died from dehydration because the current results were determined by activities performed months in the past. The only way to create an effective sales program is to define the activities that will drive results and then manage those activities. This concept will also create discipline on the part of sales management on the back side of the performance loop.

On2Biz is a great tool to manage sales activity. Click here to sign up for a free account and find out how.

Related posts:

1. Why do you need a CRM or Sales Force Management System?
2. How effective is your sales process?
3. Lead Management: What is a lead and how to qualify leads?

Working on a product is different from working on a project. It is like the difference between running a marathon v/s running a short distance race. When you run a 100 mts race, you put all your energy into the race right from the beginning, and finish as fast as possible. In a marathon, you run as fast as you can without getting over-exerted. Your speed increases in stages, and as you come closer and closer to the finish, you run faster and faster. The problem is, in the product development marathon, you do not really know the terrain in advance – sometimes the road is a steep climb and sometimes it’s a nice downward run – sometimes the road is straightforward and you can see the way forward clearly, and sometimes its all curvy and every turn gives you a surprise. To win a marathon needs you to dynamically adjust your running style to the terrain, and most important, keep running come what may. So if you’re a short distance runner and are used to the short development cycles of projects, welcome to the world of marathons

Another important aspect in a long distance run is teamwork. You know how a flock of geese fly in a V formation? As each goose flaps its wings in its place in the formation, it creates uplift for the goose following it. By flying in a “V” formation, scientists have calculated that the whole flock adds up to 71 % more flying range than if the geese flew separately. Any goose that falls out of the formation quickly feels the drag and joins back. By working together in a team, we can fly much longer than if we were to do it alone.

But who leads the pack? When the goose in the lead gets tired, it rotates back into the group, and another goose takes it’s place in the lead. Now this is obvious – shared leadership ensures that no single person bears the brunt of leading from the front. But how do you think the geese decide who’s to lead at what time? The answer is that there is no “decision” – each goose flies thinking it is the leader. It’s speed is determined by the current energy levels. The goose with the most energy automatically flies a bit faster, and happens to become the leader. When it gets tired, it automatically falls back and another takes the leading position. If they had “decided” to follow the “mother” ( or father) goose at all times, they would not complete the journey!

When a goose gets sick or shot down, two geese will drop out of the formation and follow the wounded one down to help and protect it. They stay with it until it is either able to fly again, or dies. They then either catch up with their flock or find another formation to join. They never fly alone.

Welcome to the race!

Related posts:

1. On2Biz virtual development team, thanks to open source

The new method being implemented in On2Biz for calculating the projected or weighted value of an opportunity in the sales pipeline uses three components:

Weighted Opportunity Value = Effective Opportunity Value x Customer Grading Factor / Pipeline Velocity Factor

Effective Opportunity Value

The first component is the Effective Opportunity Value. This is calculated based on the value of the opportunity adjusted by the probability of closure. The probability is a configured standard at each milestone. However, the sales executive can over-ride it by an opportunity-specific probability.

Effective Opportunity Value = V x P
where:
V = Project Value
P = Probability of closure of the project assigned to the current milestone, or probability entered by the project manager

Customer Grade Factor

Customer grade factor assigns a higher weightage to an opportunity for higher grade customers – so as to reflect the projected customer lifetime value or customers with higher strategic importance

Customer Grading Factor = 1 + (C x f1)
where:
C = Customer grading factor (0 to 1) proportional to the expected customer life-time value
f1 = value between 0 and 1, used to adjust contribution of customer grade

Pipeline Velocity Factor

The pipeline velocity factor reduces the weightage for opportunities that are not moving at the stipulated velocity through the pipeline, measured by the delay beyond pre-defined lead times at each milestone.

Pipeline Velocity Factor = 1 + ((D/N) x f2)
where:
D = No. of Overdue days i.e. difference between Actual Lead time and Max Lead Time at current milestone
Actual Lead Time = time difference from project start date to current date
Max Lead Time at current milestone = Sum of stipulated lead times for each milestone up to the current milestone
N = Max Cycle Time i.e. Max Lead Time at last successful milestone.
f2 = value between 0 and 1, used to adjust contribution of pipeline velocity

The f1 and f2 are factors that can adjust the contribution of the Customer Grade Factor (CGF ) and Pipeline Velocity Factor (PVF) to the weighted value of opportunities. For example, if we feel that we want only 50% contribution from CGF, we can set f1 to be 0.5. Then for all opportunities. Similarly, if we want a higher contribution for the velocity, we can set f2 as say 0.75.

Milestone Configuration Parameters

For enabling On2Biz to calculate the above weighted value, we will need to do a one time configuration of assigning the following parameters to each milestone in the sales process:

1. Probability of Closure – value between 0 and 1 that represents the chances that the opportunity will close if it reaches this milestone
2. Maximum Lead Time – the maximum stipulated amount of time it will take (in days, hours, minutes) for any opportunity to arrive and stay at this milestone, beyond which it will either move ahead or get de-priotitized.

For example,

Customer Configuration Parameters

In On2Biz, each customer can be assigned a grade. The pre-configured customer grades are A,B,C,D. What we need to do is to set a grading factor for each grade. For e.g,
A=0.9, B=0.7, C=0.5, D=0.2.

Data to be captured for each opportunity

When we record a new opportunity project for a new customer, the minimum data we need to capture is the following:

1. Title or description
2. Projected or actual value
3. Milestone reached
4. Customer Grade (for new customers only)

Thereafter, the only data required to be updated is the milestone reached. On2Biz automatically tracks the date and time of completion of each milestone, thereby tracking the velocity of movement through the pipeline

As you can see from above, there is no additional effort required for every opportunity.
The above methodology will be implemented in On2Biz shortly. We will create a default configuration of the probability of closure and max lead times for milestones for all accounts. We will inform all users prior to release of this new version so that you can adjust the configuration according to your specific sales process.

Meanwhile, your feedback and comments are welcome.

Related posts:

1. The Ideal Sales Pipeline Value – solution selling expert’s view
2. Using the sales pipeline report for key performance indicators
3. Customer / Partner Relationship Management facilities in On2Biz

Anand Shrikhande is the owner, who wants to expand his business & wants to have a
professional setup for his general insurance business. He expects that once he’s successful in implementing this with general insurance business, then he’ll expand it to his other businesses.

Ace Money has a team of tele-sales executives who make calls to customers when their insurance is due to expire, and then give them options of various Insurance products just in time to consider new and better options. If the customer decides to opt for any of the proposals, then they send a field sales executive to complete the transaction.

So far in On2Biz, we have handled primarily field sales operations. This was a new and interesting case that would challenge the SaaS model, and we were keen to rise up to the challenge.

Expected Challenges

When our consulting partner, Arun from Solution Enterprises referred the case to us, we were concerned about the following challenges:

1. Transaction Load – So far in On2Biz, we have been handling companies who primarily have field sales executives. Even there are tele-sales executives, there are very few calls made per day. In this case, the tele-sales executives make an average of 20 calls per hour! We were concerned about how our system could handle such a large load and continue to serve existing users without affecting response time.
2. Connectivity – The company in question has multiple offices spread across A and B-level cities. We were concerned about whether we could manage enough last mile connectivity at all locations.
3. Leads Data Importing – Leads were to be captured from various source databases. This included purchased leads, external databases and spreadsheets.
4. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) – Previously, the tele-sales team operated on a manually recorded spreadsheet, and with rented computers. They were now planning to purchase new computers – in fact, they planned to purchase laptops for each user. Hence in addition to the monthly usage charges of On2Biz, the TCO would include the cost of the hardware, networking, Internet connectivity, and software for the operating system, web browser and for managing office documents.

Following our standard implementation process, our first step was to map the sales process into our workflow template.

The Current Process

The tele-sales team’s current working procedure was as follows:

1. Open the call sheet (spreadsheet). Check whether there are any follow-up calls to be done
2. If no follow-up call is due at that time, look at the list of fresh calls
3. Look up the phone number of the customer to be called from the contacts sheet
4. Call the customer
5. Discuss the offer (as per call script)
6. Capture data about the vehicle, such as the age, cubic capacity, seating capacity etc. and record into call sheet
7. Look up a Insurance premium calculation sheets (one for each option)
8. Prepare premium quotation using the calculators. If necessary, offer more than one insurance package for comparison
9. If any follow-up call is required, record the date and time for the follow-up call in the call sheet
10. After the call is over, update the status of the call in the call sheet

On2Biz workflow objects

1. Sales Project or Opportunity – a sales project or an opportunity is a single case of selling something to a customer. For example, an insurance policy. We may have more than one sales project for the same customer. Hence, it is important to differentiate between a customer and a sales opportunity.
2. Sales Milestones – Each sales project or opportunity goes through several stages of selling. Starting with a fresh call, the project may go through several follow-up calls and stages, including visits by field sales, and finally till the payment is collected and the order is closed. The project may also get aborted at any stage, with an unsuccessful outcome. Each stage of the sales process, where there is a easily measurable outcome, is called a milestone.
3. Sales Projects Pipeline – a list of sales projects at various stages of the sales process, is called a sales pipeline. A sales person’s primary responsibility is to move projects ahead in the sales pipeline from one milestone to another, till the order is closed.
4. Tasks and Appointments – the activity that a sales person carries out so as to move the project from one milestone to another is a set of tasks, phone calls or personal visits. The phone calls and personal visits are termed as appointments, while other types of activity which need to be done are called tasks.
5. Notes – these are remarks that can be added be anyone associated with a sales project. It could be remarks added by the sales person to record any important information regarding the project, or can be added by a manager to record suggestions to the sales person.

The new process using On2Biz workflow

The new operating procedure using On2Biz was designed as follows:

1. Check whether there are any follow-up calls to be done by looking at the “Pending Appointments”
2. If no follow-up call appointment is due at that time, look at the list of projects in the “Projects Pipeline”
3. In the project pipeline, click on the project title to open the Project page. The project page shows the entire case history of the sales project
4. Look up the phone number of the customer to be called by clicking on the contact name.
5. Call the customer
6. Discuss the offer (as per call script)
7. Select the type of policy to be offered by editing the Value section of the project. Then select the policy to be offered by selecting the checkbox on the left. It will also open the form to capture data about the vehicle, such as the age, cubic capacity, seating capacity etc.
8. Look up reference spreadsheet to get the IDV of the vehicle by clicking on the link “IDV Lookup”
9. Click on the “Premium Calculator” to prepare premium quotation using the calculators. If necessary, offer more than one insurance package for comparison
10. If any follow-up call is required, go to the Activity section, and add a new appointment to record the date and time for the follow-up call
11. After the call is over, update the status of the call in the milestone section.

The Infrastructure

Connectivity – They were able to arrange for a 512 Kbps Internet connection for every location

Computers – Each user was provided with a low-end laptop with a Celeron processor and 512Mb RAM. A Server was configured as a gateway and proxy at each location.

Operating System – All laptops and servers were equipped with Suse Linux.

Web Browser – Firefox

Documents Manager – Open Office

Read more about the setup at Arun’s blog

The Result

Ace Money is now using On2Biz for all their sales executives. Managers are able to monitor the flow of opportunities through the pipeline of every sales executive, and measure the sales effectiveness at every stage of the sales process.

Screenshots of Dashboard

Sales Performance in November 2007

Sales Performance in March 2008

Related posts:

1. Customer / Partner Relationship Management facilities in On2Biz
2. Why do you need a CRM or Sales Force Management System?
3. Managing a Complex Sales Process

In this presentation, we cover the challenges involved in complex sales from the view point of various stake holders, and uncover the needs to address these challenges

Related posts:

1. Managing a Complex Sales Process
2. The Secret behind Effective Sales Management
3. Why do you need a CRM or Sales Force Management System?

Across the tech vendor community, approximately 50% of marketing investment is allocated to demand generation and about one-third of that investment is ear-marked to directly support the sales force. New research from IDC shows that, for most vendors, this complex and expensive intersection of marketing and sales remains very much a “work in process.”

What are the main bottlenecks in managing this escalating cost of sales?
What are the best practices being followed? What systems and processes need to be put in place?

As the IDC’s CMO Advisory Practice points out and which resonates with our experience from the On2Biz community:

1. A consistent, global definition of a lead – We have seen with each business that begins to use On2Biz, that sales teams are often clueless on what a lead is. Some sales persons tend to consider every visiting card they collect as leads. While other more skeptical sales persons only register a lead when they are confident that the order will come through. This inconsistency in definition of what a lead is can only be corrected by a globally communicated definition of a lead, established as a standard company policy.
2. Lead Capture, Lead Qualification and Assignment to Sales – Leads could be captured from multiple sources. There needs to be a well defined qualification process, where certain minimum requirements for qualification are verified by the lead capturing team. Only qualified leads should be forwarded to the sales team. Bad quality leads wastes costly sales resources. And qualification done centrally keeps the leads qualification process under control.
3. Sales Performance Measurement – As we have discussed previously in various posts under “Sales Pipeline Management“, performance management is really the first step towards managing sales costs. In On2Biz implementations, we insist that our first users are managers and not sales persons. Unless managers are able to measure sales performance by using a clearly defined set of key performance indicators, sales effectiveness will never improve.

Carl quotes the recommendations offered in this study:

• CMOs must dedicate a lead management individual or team to develop and govern a marketing lead management process across the organization, ideally in collaboration with a similarly tasked sales lead manager. Senior management buy-in and support is required at process development, roll-out, and governance.
• Providing quality leads and establishing the ability to track leads will only be possible once marketers and other system users understand the need for a lead management process and its impact on the success of the marketing function. Many leading sales organizations tie use of their CRM system with compensation; it’s time for marketing to follow suit.
• Performance measurement in the lead generation process will enable marketing to quantify its true impact on the sales pipeline (e.g., marketing-generated and marketing-enhanced leads and deals) and lead velocity. This will also enable marketing to establish a direct feedback loop to improve its campaign effectiveness along the entire customer development lifecycle – from awareness through advocacy.

Related posts:

1. Lead Management: What is a lead and how to qualify leads?
2. Managing a Complex Sales Process
3. The Secret behind Effective Sales Management