The fundamental premise of the book is that the conventional wisdom of growing sales by solely growing the number of salespeople no longer works without having a highly structured and highly specialized sales process consisting of the following:
- Begin with inbound lead generation via referrals, Free Trials, Tools, Webinars, whitepapers, newsletters, live events, tradeshows, affiliate marketing (ex: your offer sent by another list owner to their audience). Use PPC and social media selectively.
- Employ dedicated Market Response Reps whose sole job is to qualify and pass inbound leads to Account Executives they are aligned to. “A rule of thumb is that for every 400 leads per month that require human attention, a company needs one market response representative.” Market reps should adhere to the following process:
- Pre-qualify / score leads to remove junk using demographic, behavioral, and ‘firmographic’ criteria such as employee size, industry, geography, engagement, etc. Implement a score decay after a month of inactivity.
- Respond immediately to “Contact Me” or “Request a Trial” leads. Respond within 24 hours to most other leads.
- Employ dedicated outbound Sales Development Reps whose sole job is to qualify dormant accounts or targeted accounts meeting you Ideal Customer Profile (see 3a). They should use the following process:
- Define an Ideal Customer Profile defined as companies most similar to your top 5-10% of customers
- Assemble lists consisting of 6-month or longer dormant accounts and/or those fitting the Ideal Customer Profile
- Each day before 9 am and then after 5 pm, send 50-100 short and sweet plain text emails to high-level executives simply asking either “Who is the best point of contact for …?” to get a referral, or “When is the best date and time for a quick discussion around…(something about THEIR business, not yours)?”. Offer credibility (e.g. examples of similar customers). Follow all applicable anti-spam laws.
- Follow up each email with a call. “Use voicemail as a tool to increase response rates from emails rather than to attempt to get people to call you back. Avoid sounding scripted, but use the following: “Hi [prospect first name], this is [your first and last name] from [your company name]. My number is [xxx-xxx-xxxx]. I’m calling to follow up on the email I sent you on [date/time sent] since I have not heard back and was hoping you could give me a quick courtesy response. Again [your first and last name and your phone number.] Thank you and have a great day.”
- Repeat the email + call cycle 3 to 5 times over 21 days until you set up a scheduled discovery/qualification call. After 21 days, recycle the lead.
- Once you reach the prospect, start with “Did I catch you at a bad time?” In most B2B situations, your goal is to schedule an appointment to talk to them rather than to try to conduct a discovery call or sell them right then and there. Note: Do your best to understand the prospect’s true business issues before you begin.”
- During the discovery/qualification call, your goal is to ask great questions and listen. How is your group organized? If you were me, how would you approach your organization? What is the decision making process? Do not disqualify a prospective organization until you get a no from the senior decision maker.
- Hot handoff leads to one of the 2-5 Account Executives they are aligned to. In most circumstances, this means kicking off a scheduled call to introduce the Account Executive to the prospect.
- Pay monthly commission as follow: 50% based on the number of Account Executive qualified opportunities generated and 50% based on closed business.
- Employ dedicated Account Executives whose primary job is to close qualified leads handed off by Market Response Reps and Sales Development Reps via the following process:
- After speaking to and re-qualifying the prospect, upgrade the lead to a qualified opportunity
- If you are speaking to an influencer/champion, figure out how you can help them sell to the senior decision maker.
- Only give out proposals when the prospect is very well qualified and ready to buy.
- During inevitable lulls (ex: no-show appointments), they should prospect: (i) A top 10 list of strategic accounts to penetrate; (ii) Their current customer base; (iii) Channel partners (though this is very high effort)
- Employ dedicated Customer Success/Account Management professionals whose who job it is to make customers satisfied, successful, and happy.
- Track and optimize (through experimentation), the following key result-based (not activity-based) metrics:
- Closed business per time period by type: new business, add-on business, renewals
- Conversion rates of qualified opportunities to closed deals
- Qualified pipeline generated per time period
- Conversion rate of leads to opportunities
- Qualification calls per time period
Finally, here are the recommended sales cycle stages from the book:
- Anonymous: Someone who is aware of you but not yet identified (ex: website visitor)
- Prospect: name you are marketing to but has not yet responded
- Lead: Prospect who has responded
- Opportunities: Sales qualified lead
- Client: They have given you money
- Champions: They actively support you and may provide referrals.