Summary
Good introduction to sales techniques. Downside is it may be a little outdated, or specific to certain situations.
Still definitely worth reading for any entrepreneur or sales executive.
Notes
Sales Machine
- Predictable lead generation: most important thing
- Sales dev. team that bridges gap between marketing and sales
- Consistent sales systems
Chapter 6: Lead generation and "Seeds, Nets, Spears"
- Spears: targeted sales, outbound
- Seeds: word of mouth, PR
- Nets: marketing programs
- Prospect: names or list you’re marketing to where people haven’t responded positively
- Lead: prospect that has responded positively
- Opportunity: after someone has qualified the lead
- Client: has given you some money
- Champion: client or non-client who has referred, supported or testified
- Give up trying to control how long it takes someone to move forward
- Design “layers” that they move through
- *free trial is key*
- Send email min 1/mo, max 2/week
- Do fewer things, better
- Check Marketo example for exact follow-up times, etc.
- Mistake: thinking “product-out” and not “customer-in”
Five metrics to track:
- New leads created/mo (and from where)
- Conversion rate of leads to opportunities
- # of, and pipeline $ value of, qualified opportunities/mo
- Conversion rates of opportunities to closed deals
- Booked revenues in 3 categories: new, add-on, renewal
Hold the hands of your first customers: give them lots of love
- Cold Calling 2.0: mass email high-level execs to ask who you should talk to
- Spend serious time developing ideal customer profile (ICP)
- Research rather than call
- Short and to-the-point emails
- Go beyond basic SFA
- Once ramped up, single full-time outbound rep can generate 10-20 excellent leads/mo
Cold Calling 2.0 steps:
- Specialize: dedicate one person to only outbound prospecting activities
- One sales development rep can usually support 2-5 quota-carrying Account Execs (but can be 1:1 or 1:2 if you have big deals)
- Market response rep qualifies incoming leads (1 per 400 leads)
- Prospecting cycle length: time between when prospect first responds to campaign to when quality opportunity is created or qualified (~2-4 weeks
- Sales cycle length: time from when opportunity was created or qualified to when it was closed
Cold Calling 2.0 Process:
- Get clear on ideal customer profile
- Build your list: don’t sell too low
- Run outbound email campaigns (8-12% response rate)
- Use phone to follow up
- 50-100 emails per salesperson, per day, 2-3 days every week
- Sell the dream: make contact with the correct person, then pain vision of solution with their key business issue
- Use Smart Targeting criteria (p. 128) to build customer profile
- Send 150-250 outbound emails per week over 3-4 days
- Before/after 9-5 or on Sundays
- If someone has opened email more than once, call them
- p. 155 - qualifying/discovery questions
- Schedule next call while on the phone
Improve call effectiveness: AAA call planning:
- What Answers do you want to learn?
- What Attitudes do you want the prospect to feel?
- What Actions should occur after the call?
Qualification call flow:
- Opening: (“did I catch you at a bad time?”) and intro
- Discuss prospect’s current business situation
- Probe for prospect’s needs (& confirm understanding)
- Position solution to meet those specific needs
- Handle objections
- Next steps
Voicemail (see example p. 171):
- Name and # at beginning and end
- Speak clearly and slowly
- Can be effective in combination with email
- Account status: p. 175
- Compensation: p. 180
- As an SDR, your customer is your account execs
- P. 188 - ideal “Day in the life”
Calls:
- “Did I catch you at a bad time?”
- “May I ask you how your ____ is structured?”
- “I’m doing some research on your company to see if we’re a good fit or not”
- P. 201: good daily sales goals
- “Pick a niche, get rich”
- Have a process
- Understand/learn their buying process
Creating free trials that maximize conversion rates:
- Design your trial with prospect and help them run it
- Do your best to understand prospect’s true business issues before starting
- Agree on where trial fits in the buying process (ie. what’s after)
- Better to nail fewer (or a single) key problem than try to solve every problem for everyone
- Define with client what “successful trial” means
- Create milestones for the trial
- Enroll the prospect (and their team); schedule follow-up meetings
- Simplify the trial process: do you have a step-by-step system?
- Set expectations: under-promise and over-deliver
3:15 sales process:
- First contact: is this a waste of time? (15 mins)
- Qualification/discovery call: is there a fit? (1 hr)
- Group working session: “should we work together?” (2 hrs)
- Find the root problem below “desired solutions”
- You should be winning at least 50% of the proposals you’re giving out
- Tell them you need a scoping call with them and key people
- Best question: “did I catch you at a bad time?”
Chapter 9: Cultivating Your Talent
- 1 part vet, 3 parts young
- Inbound (Mkt. Response Rep) -> Outbound (SDR) -> Closing (AE) (6-8mo to 1-3yrs to move up)
- p. 352, larger orgs.
- Do role-playing to train your salespeople (p. 365)
Chapter 10: Leadership & Management
- 6 Responsibilities of a Manager:
- Choose people carefully
- Set expectations and vision
- Remove obstacles
- Inspire your people
- Work for your people
- Improve it next time
- Retaining key employees and managing well: p. 281
- Managers focus on 1-6
- V2MOM planning:
- Vision: what’s the big picture? Vision for next 12 months
- Values: top general priorities? Top 3 business values?
- Methods: how will it happen? Be specific and clear.
- Obstacles: what is or could be in the way? Identify to plan ahead.
- Metrics: how will you measure success?
- Results-based metrics like: conversions per day, qualified opportunities/mo, new pipeline/mo, total closed bookings
- 3 ways to improve/inspire sales organization:
- Include salespeople in beginning of new programs
- Beta test new sales programs
- Survey satisfaction
- Designing self-managing teams and processes: p. 403
- Setting up sales force automation: p. 428
