OUR APPROACH

GETTING CLARITY ON WHAT “SALES” MEANS TO YOUR FIRM

How We Deliver This Service

Our approach to helping you build a custom sales strategy that is a perfect fit for your organization includes these key phases:

• Client experience definition
• Analysis of current sales team structure
• Analysis of the sales funnel
• Review of sales best practices
• Definition of an improved sales strategy
• Definition of success metrics and measurement tools
• Roll out of new sales strategy

Client Experience Definition

In this phase, we interview a handful of clients who have come through your sales funnel within the prior 24 months. We seek to understand their experience, why they engaged your organization, the outcomes they hoped to realize from your services, the promises you made to them and how your firm handled them from first interaction to close. We ask the client to articulate the promise you made in their own words. The outcome of these interviews is a clear description of your current client experience. This analysis can often quickly identify problems with your sales funnel that you can address right away.

Analysis Of Current Sales Team Structure

In this phase, we come to understand how you handle sales at your organization. We examine who is involved with handling initial prospect inquiries, qualifying leads, managing discovery, building scopes, negotiating deals and securing signatures. We also examine your use of inside and outside sales teams, if you have these in place. We analyze how you’ve structured your sales resources to address your market opportunities: sales territories, named accounts, vertical disciplines and practice areas. Our review of your current sales structure can often result in a set of immediate recommendations about how to improve your outcomes. Some of our suggestions can be implemented in 30 days or fewer.

Analysis Of Your Sales Funnel

In this phase, we analyze your current sales funnel. Using the client interviews, we map the exact number of steps it took to close those deals. We seek to identify ways to cut down the number of steps to increase velocity in the funnel and a better client experience. The result of this phase can be a set of recommendations to quickly improve sales flow.

Review Of Sales Best Practices

In this phase, we analyze how your sales team practices compare to best practices in the industry. We identify a list of practices that have produced great results for our clients and for other successful service organizations. We present these practices for your consideration and review. The result of this phase is you will have a set of high-impact ideas which, in our judgment, are most likely to achieve your desired sales outcomes.

Definition Of An Improved Sales Strategy

In this phase, we help you select from among the practices we recommend and define how you will deploy these at your organization. In some instances, this can mean that certain people change roles, take on more responsibility or transfer responsibility to other team members. In some instances, it might mean that you’ll formalize responsibilities for inside and outside sales teams. In other instances, it might mean that you’ll need to hire new people. The result of this service is that you will have a clearly defined sales structure and a clearly defined process for expeditiously moving prospects through your sales funnel.

Definition Of Success Metrics And Measurement Tools

In this phase, we help you set new criteria for what sales success looks like at your organization. There are many things that you could measure, such as:

• Client satisfaction reports within 30, 60, 90 days of deal closure.
• Win versus loss rates.
• Lead quality for leads passed from inside to outside sales teams.
• Reduction in the amount of time it takes to develop proposals.
• Increases in dollar values of deals closed.

We will help you ensure that every metric you set is measurable with data and tools, such as from a CRM like Salesforce. The result of this phase is that you will know what metrics are most indicative of sales success and how you’ll measure your sales function over time.

Roll Out Of New Strategy

In this phase, we help you develop and execute a plan to roll out your new sales strategy. We help you graphically draw out the improved sales funnel, draft job descriptions, develop compensation plans, develop a hiring strategy and identify where sales training is needed. We also help you introduce the new sales strategy to your teams. The result of this phase is that everyone who is involved with sales will understand their roles, responsibilities, incentives and expectations. They’ll be ready to get to work.

See What Can You Expect for details about the outcomes of this service.

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