Part 12 (2/2)
In its most basic form, a sales funnel consists of leads, prospects, and custoencies need to fill the funnel at the top, nurture in the ure 61 The Basic Sales Funnel Consisting of Leads, Prospects, and Custo a fore its new business developrowth in encies is driven by the need to attract and retain top talent So it is i their sales systerow too quickly, without the proper infrastructure and personnel in place, you run the risk of failing to deliver on pro account teae to your brand Meanwhile, if you struggle topipeline of qualified leads, you es that can lead to cash flow crunches, cutbacks, and talent turnover
The key is to concentrate on creating a sales systeeneration, and is scalable with your long-ter so your agency sales syste topics in this chapter: What are our top lead sources? Where are your leads co from now? This may include referrals, service marketplaces, website contact foranic search, networking events, paid advertising, andGaenerate the highest quality leads
How enerate per month? Know your current lead flow Based on your conversion rate, are you generating enough leads to sustain growth? Agency leaders, even if they are not responsible for business development, should have 24/7 access to lead volume and opportunities in order to effectively forecast workflow, staffing needs, and revenue
What percentage of those are quality leads? Qualified leads, also known as prospects, have appropriate budgets, authority to ency Unqualified leads, so ency resources away from more productive activities If the majority of your leads are low quality, then you ency is positioning itself
Hoe rank and prioritize leads? As your lead flow increases, it becorade your leads These h-priority individuals and reduce time spent on less desirable ones If you use sophisticated sales software, lead scoring may be a built-in feature Otherwise you can develop your own for sources, industry, size, and service needs
Hoe track their progress through the funnel? CRM systems have made it efficient to track and report on leads as they advance through the funnel Larger agencies with significant lead flow (and revenue) arCRM, whereas others are able to custohrise, which was featured in Chapter 4 The key is to have a reliable platform in which you can post activities, track opportunities/deals, and segment leads based on their position in the funnel
Hoe gain intelligence into our leads? If you have the rightsoftware, such as HubSpot, Marketo, Pardot, or Eloqua, once your leads have completed an online fores viewed, number of visits, foristered for on your site You can even have e-mail alerts sent to your teaency site All this lead intelligence can be connected to client conversions to give greater insight into the true ROI of yourand sales activities
Who is responsible for lead generation, nurturing, and sales? Whether you designate official titles or take a more informal approach, someone needs to own each element of the funnel It is common for the onus to fall on the founder or leadershi+p teaency, but that can becoency expands and other priorities creep into their daily routines
Are our sales people receiving the proper training and education? There is a rare breed of rainly born with the innate ability to sell, butto excel in this area Selling is both an art and a science that requires experience, education, and an intiency In order to create a scalable sales systeht people for the job We will review core competencies of top salespeople later in this chapter
What are we doing to nurture leads? Adding prospective clients to your agency'sInstead, use original content such as blog posts, ebooks, videos, and webinars to deliver value to leads and pull the automation solutions, which make it efficient to stay top of mind with prospects
How efficient and effective are your sales efforts? Do you kno much time it takes to convert a coenerated each year froht into your business develop principles we discussed in Chapter 1 Enter every lead into your ti platform, and track activities just as you do for clients This creates a wealth of infor processes, and the efficiency and performance of your sales tea Ga investments
People, Tools, and Processes
The three core eleency sales system are people, tools, and processes Let's exa101 professor challenged the class to name a profession that was not sales The roo in with careers such as doctor, lawyer, homebuilder, librarian, and professional athlete He proceeded to demonstrate how, in fact, every one of them was in sales He explained how their livelihoods depended on their ability to engage audiences and keep the is sales
The sa You are selling an idea, vision, service, agency brand, personal brand, and belief that your firm is more capable and qualified than the next one
However, in a professional service firm, sales happen at every level of the company It is often the account executives that have the most direct client contact, and therefore, whether they are charged with it or not, they function as the agency's primary salespeople They are the ones whose perfor client relationshi+ps deteroes, and whether clients provide referrals and testiencies are built on the strength of personal brands The presence and engagement levels of your team in social media are an enorreatest source of inbound links and organic traffic, and their networking at industry events creates valuable connections, which can lead to referrals and new business opportunities
In short, when building your sales system, your most valued asset is your teaer can possibly deliver the value and lead voluic effort
However, that does not eli point people whose value and perfor the agency, specifically their ability to convert leads into clients
Traits of Successful Salespeople Steve W Martin, who teaches sales strategy at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business and is author of the critically acclaiies, has interviewed thousands of top business-to-business salespeople He has also administered personality tests to y and business services
His findings indicate that key personality traits directly influence top perfor style and ultimately their success In a June 2011 Harvard Business Review blog post, ”Seven Personality Traits of Top Salespeople,” Martin detailed the key attributes: 1 Modesty
2 Conscientiousness
3 Achieveariousness
6 Lack of discouragement
7 Lack of self-consciousness
One of Martin'snotes was that there seems to be a correlation between athletics and success as a salesperson Top perforrounds ”are able to handle emotional disappointments, bounce back from losses, and mentally prepare the and Training Agency Salespeople Kurlan & associates was founded in 1985 by Dave Kurlan, a renowned expert in sales-force assessies, and author of Baseline Selling-How to Beco What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball2 The firrowth, ih-perfor sales professionals
For the last several years, Rick Roberge (RainMakerMaker) and Frank Belzer of Kurlan & associates have focused on evaluating and traininga proprietary assessment process, Kurlan & associates coency personnel to those of more than 500,000 salespeople who have previously been evaluated in the Objective Management Group Salesperson's Self assesse and Belzer shared sos, based on the evaluations of ency professionals: None of the professionals could conduct a consultative sales process or close sales consistently
Less than 3 percent could adequately qualify a prospective customer
Thirty-nine percent were not trainable Trainable e If there is no incentive to change, any training that is offered will result in a less than opti with cohty-nine percent were uncoht commission environment
Ninety-two percent could not be counted on to hunt up new opportunities
One hundred percent were unco with prospects that did not need their services nor want their services