Part 13 (1/2)

One hundred percent did not follow a sales process Salespeople that do not follow a process encounter and wind up accepting lots of put-offs, stalls, and excuses A well-designed process will raise and handle common stalls and objections before they beco a deal

All in all, Kurlan & associates' evaluations showed that, on average, agency professionals had 5 of the 23 skills that are required to sell, and on average they can expect to experience 17 of the 28 problee states that there are two priency salesperson does not do what needs to be done to get the business The first is that they may not knohat to do For exaood questions or that they need to qualify prospects based on their budgets and abilities todecisions They may never have learned how to conduct a consultative sales call

The second reason is that, although theyor read sales books, there is so as they were taught These are the self-li beliefs, the hidden weaknesses, that under and best intentions

However, Roberge says that all these challenges can be identified with the right kind of assessment, and once identified can be understood Then, with the proper training and guidance, you can prepare salespeople to excel and help your agency grow

Objective Management Group assessments were developed by founder and CEO Dave Kurlan and are used by more than 8,500 companies The assessths, skills, weaknesses, and challenges as they relate to 21 core competencies found in successful salespeople, which OMG defines as: 1 Has written goals

2 Follows a plan to reach written goals

3 Has positive attitude

4 Takes responsibility

5 Strong self-confidence

6 Supporting record collection

7 Controls emotions

8 Doesn't need approval

9 Recovers fro about money

11 Supportive buy cycle

12 Consistent effective prospecting

13 Reaches decision

15 Early bonding and rapport

16 Uncovering actual budgets

17 Discovering why prospects buy

18 Qualifies proposals and quotes

19 Gets co desire for success

21 Strong coencies that are integrating e over the coe lead intelligence at every stage of the funnel, and they use that infor efforts and dra is a snapshot of essential sales systeether, or find a single solution that does it all However, as we discussed in Chapter 4, be careful to liency's platfor unnecessary expenses for features that you will never use

CustoearCRM, or Highrise, is the foundation of a solid sales system You input leads into the platform as they enter the funnel, and you track and report activities as they progress Ideally, agencies use a single CRM solution for all contacts, including leads and clients This creates a eency websites need to be built on intuitive content-ency personnel the ability to easily add, edit, and es as needed, without the support of an outside web developer From a sales perspective, the CMS should include the ability to create landing pages and lead foreneration efforts

analytics Salespeople require advanced intelligence into their leads' online behavior Free solutions, such as Google analytics, are excellent for providing base-level inforencies should consider additional third-party solutions for in-depth lead intelligence Again, HubSpot, Marketo, Pardot, and Eloqua are platforranular lead details

Lead Nurturing Depending on your lead-nurturing needs, there is an array of SaaS solutions worth considering, fro auto platfor software platfor and sales activities

Processes Prototype hybrid agencies require standard processes to achieve success The saency and account ardless of your size, sales processes help define responsibilities, set perfore and resources to excel, and connect actions to business goals

Let's look at the five core areas of the sales process: lead qualification, lead ement, discovery, proposal, and presentation

Lead Qualification Whether you use softith built-in lead scoring, or develop your own internal for and prioritizing leads

Buyer personas are the foundation of any lead scoring systeies around buyer personas enable agencies to better target coeneration and conversion

Start by profiling your personas so that you know strong leads when you see the your personas and deter: Are they project or caets?

What metrics matter most? Hoill they define success?

What is the contact's title and responsibilities? Is that person the decision maker?

What are the problems, pain points, and obstacles to success?

What are the priority needs?

What is the account's growth potential?

Does the agency have experience in their industry?

At what stage in the business lifecycle are they?

Are they seeking priic support?

What are their internalresources and capabilities?