Sales are not by accident.
A successful sales team does not happen by accident. Instead, success comes from a constant evaluation of what is working or not working, documented in a sales playbook for the entire organization to benefit from, and weekly training is the foundation for sales success.
Since we are an inbound marketing agency, it's advantageous for us to look at the sale process from this point of view. For our example, we are going to look at the buyer's journey once they click a Google Ad.
During the evaluation process, we want to identify all of the different tools being utilized and determine Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each. Their journey is a series of steps 1) clicking the ad, 2) directed to a specific landing page, 3) with CTA’s (button, image, hyperlink, etc.), 4) form, 5) email marketing automation, and 6) the individual tasks during the sales process.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) should be defined for each step along the way and measured over a period of time. Once the KPIs have been established, do not modify your evaluation criteria, unless a critical error is identified.
Common KPIs include impressions, click-through rates, cost per acquisition, and cost per click.
Common KPIs include the number of views, length of time on page, and abandonment rate.
Call-to-actions can be a button (“Click to call now”), a logo leading to your website, a hyperlink to book a meeting or a form for a web visitor to complete. The most common KPI is click-through rate.
Evaluating form performance the following should be analyzed - number of fields the user must complete, number of submissions, and partial submissions.
The deliverability rate, open rate, and click-through rate of each marketing and sales email.
How many phone calls, one-to-one emails, meetings, proposals, proposal revisions, missed meetings, speed to lead, close percentage, and length of time in each deal stage.
If it’s not documented, then it didn’t happen. During the evaluation process, it’s important to create a template to document what you discovered, the recommended changes, if the changes were adopted or not, and when the next evaluation will occur.
In addition, creating a sales playbook creates a repeatable process for new sales professionals and a resource for coaching existing sales professionals.
Yup, weekly training. Each training session can be as quick as 15 minutes and then once a month maybe spend an hour reviewing the previous month and setting goals for the next. During the training, it's important to highlight what is working and - more importantly - what’s not working.
Once a routine has been established it’s a great idea to share the leadership of each meeting across the organization because everyone should be involved in sales.