Friday Funnel Focus by EPOCH Sales Management Solutions
What are the right priorities to grow more new sales?
Send the right message
To the Right Targets
At the Right Time
Using the Right Channels
Simple, right? Let’s break this down into five priorities.
- Get the Messaging Right
- Get the Targeting Right
- Prospecting Priorities
- Right Salesperson, Right Sales Role
- Measure What Matters
Get the Messaging Right
Start with answering the question, “What problem does your business solve that people are willing to pay for?” Be clear, succinct and customer/prospect centric. (Feel free to reach out to us for our template for a “Why You Exist Story?” that addresses the question above.) Understand that you may solve more than one problem. Start with the most important one. You can add others, but be careful. When you try to be everything to everybody you end up being nothing to no one.
This “problem statement” is the core of your messaging. In a past blog article, we highlighted three of our most favorite messaging frameworks for marketing, tactical sales and strategic sales. messaging Check out this blog article: 3 Best Messaging Frameworks for Small Business and When to Use Them.
Get the Targeting Right
Make sure that you are talking to the people that have the problem you solve and can pay you for the solution. In a past blog article, we addressed these four questions in 4 Things to Know about Ideal Customer Profile(s).
- Why do you need Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs), Buyer Personas and Target Lists?
- What is an ICP (versus a Buyer Persona or Targeted List)?
- How do you define your ICP?
- How do you determine your ICP?
Prospecting Priorities
- Stop the “Roller Coaster” effect. You see it happen. Salespeople work their sales funnel from the bottom up until everything is closed (won) or closed (lost) and then they realize they need to prospect to build the funnel again. STOP! While the most important activity a salesperson can do is act on something that you can close today, this week or perhaps this month; after that prospecting trumps everything else.
- What are your New Opportunity Goals? Set New Opportunity Goals for your team and your salespeople. Make Weekly New Opportunity Goals a Weekly Scorecard Item. The math goes something like this.
- Quarterly New Revenue Goal/Average Sales Price (ASP) = # New Deals Won Goal for the quarter
- # New Won Deals Quarterly Goal/ Win Ratio = # New Opportunities Goal for the Quarter
- Quarterly New Opportunity Goal/3 = Monthly New Opportunity Goal
- Quarterly New Opportunity Goal/13 = Weekly New Opportunity Goal
- What channels are you using to reach your prospects? First, optimize the appropriate new opportunity process buckets to your selling objectives, as you align your sales strategy from business results goals to selling objectives to sales activities. Second, optimize channel usage based on the personas of your ideal customer profile(s) and be sure to use multiple channels.
- What are your meaningful selling interactions? Track Total Touches and Quality Touches that your sales team and individual salespeople do. Measure actual outreach activity by your salespeople. Include Meaningful Selling Interaction Goals (MSI Goals) on your weekly scorecard data and documentation are essential. Here are some sample Meaningful Selling Interactions:
- Total Touches
- First Appointments
- Connections (phone conversations or exchange of information online)
- Phone Calls (Dials)
- SMS Messages sent
- Comments on Prospect LinkedIn Profile Posts (Genuine and authentic)
- Do your salespeople use time blocking? Time blocking is the art of scheduling regular time on your calendar for prospecting and treating it like an appointment, structuring it so it is non-negotiable. Every salesperson should dedicate at least 20% of their calendar to creating new opportunities. (Chet Holmes said it should be a minimum of 2.5 hours per day.) Do “Pay Time” activities during “Pay Time”. Time Blocking is essential to good prospecting.
Right Salesperson Right Sales Role
To grow more new sales it helps to have the Right Salesperson in the Right Sales Role. Good Sales Development Reps create more new opportunities. Good Account Executives close more new business with new customers. Good Account Managers maintain and grow existing accounts. Know what role you need now. In a past blog article we answered the question, “Which Sales Roles Should You Hire Next?
Measure What Matters
We recommend the following Weekly Sales Dashboards.
Weekly Sales Results Dashboard
- Dollars Won last week by salesperson
- Dollars Won this month by salesperson
- Dollars Won this quarter to date by salesperson
- # Deals Won this month to date by salesperson
- List of Deal Won last 7 days
- List of Deals Lost last 7 days
Weekly Sales Pipeline Dashboard
- Dollars Closing this month by salesperson
- Dollars Closing this quarter by salesperson
- Dollars Closing this Fiscal Year by salesperson
- # Deals Closing this month by salesperson
- # Deals Closing this quarter by salesperson
- List of Deals Closing this month by salesperson
Weekly Sales Activity Dashboard
- # New Opportunities last 7 days by salesperson
- # New Opportunities this month by salesperson
- # Appointments last 7 days by salesperson
- # Connection last 7 days by salesperson
- # Total Touches last 7 days by salesperson
- With breakdown by type
- # Calls (Dials) last 7 days by salesperson
- With breakdown by outcome
Monthly and Quarterly Dashboards would be similar but also show items such as Average Sales Price, Sales Cycle for Won Closed Deals, Sales Cycle for Open Deals and Weighted Average Forecasts.
Many people ask us how we determine what an opportunity is? While there are over a half dozen acronyms such as BANT, MEDDIC, ANUM, PACT and others, we recommend that you keep it simple. A new opportunity starts when your prospect has a need, problem or issue that you can solve. Further qualify the opportunity to determine they want to do something about it and can do something about it.
Focus on these five priorities as you seek to grow new sales.
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While growing Small Businesses and Building Great Sales Teams is hard, the process to do this is simple. But, simple does not mean easy.
Want to explore the process further, schedule a free 30-minute consultation.
In the meantime, get our guide to the 3 Part Formula to a Healthy Sales Pipeline
