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July 4, 2005
Insights for Marketers - What I learned as a Sales Rep
by Sridhar Ramanathan
I have been a high tech marketer for eighteen years, many of which were at Hewlett-Packard, and all this time I never walked in the shoes of a quota carrying sales rep. Recently I had the opportunity to do real, quota-carrying sales on behalf of some enterprise software clients of mine. In the span of twelve months, I closed over $1M while experiencing great wins and tough losses. And boy did I learn a lot about sales! More importantly, I learned about what we can do as marketers to increase our impact on sales. Here are a few nuggets that I took away from this experience.
1. Handing off leads --- A lead is not a lead
My key frustration as a rep occurred when Marketing folks acted as if their job was done when they had delivered a “lead” when it was really just an inquiry, a response to a marketing program, or even a raw contact. Conversely, as a rep I always gravitated to “warm” introductions instead of buckling down and burning through lots of cold calls. Some truths I learned:
- Reps will do anything to avoid cold calling and greatly value warm prospects
- Over 2/3 of so called “leads” are not ready for sales action
- A lead is almost never the ultimate decision-maker but just a door opener
- Reps do not and should not nurture leads into real sales opportunities. That’s a Marketing job
Marketer tip: Get agreement upfront on the definition of a “lead” that is passed to Sales and ensure commitment to action. How? Have a closed loop process which you track carefully. For example, look at the organizational hand-offs from raw inquiry (Marketing effort) to qualified lead (Inside Sales effort) to valid sales pursuit (Sales effort). Marketing automation packages can really help track lead progress from start to finish.
2. Qualification -- There’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip
A lot can go wrong between a customer’s intent to buy and the sales rep getting the purchase order. I led an aggressive sales cycle for a seven figure deal with a large enterprise software company. We went from being the #1 choice to losing out to another vendor for an ultimately far smaller project. What went wrong? Certainly I made some mistakes in this deal such as not getting enough executive relationship building. But here are some hard realities I also ran into:
- Seven figure budget was not really approved after all
- More players had an influence on the award then anyone realized
- Momentum is everything. Not closing quickly left the door open to competitive intrusions
- It’s crucial to create opportunities such as golf to have frank conversations with execs in order to understand business needs and the true buying process.
- Don’t believe what the customer says but what they do (e.g. is the budget really approved?, is the bake off really down to the final two?)
Marketer tip: help your sales team by mapping out the buying process in detail. List out the tangible customer actions and deliverables that must occur at each stage. For example, a qualified prospect can show proof of budget approval, point to an executive sponsor, share the project schedule, and document decision criteria. Help your reps sync up the selling cycle with the customer’s true buying cycle.
3. Closing Strategies -- The best product does not always win
Companies don’t buy products. Real people choose business partners that they trust. We had one sales cycle which started with a 30-page RFP chock full of requirements and technical specifications. Ultimately, I landed this one not because we had necessarily the best product offering according to the specs but because we addressed important buying factors such as:
- Executive level relationship/chemistry
- Ease of doing business (e.g. proximity to vendor, flexibility/responsiveness to contract terms and service levels)
- Services/support
- Financial stability of the vendor
Marketer tip: Produce customer case study vignettes reinforcing company level benefits not just listing product feature and benefits. Use quotes from customer executives that speak to the company’s way of doing business, why they value the partnership, and what measurable impact the vendor had on their business.
Bottomline:
Hand off leads to Sales only after Marketing has qualified them to a level agreed-on by Sales. Continue qualification throughout the sales process, focusing on budget approval, the decision-making process, and the underlying business need. Close quickly to minimize competitor opportunities to change the conversation. Use everything at your disposal to close. If you have reasonable parity with the product, emphasize the soft components: company strengths, exec relationships, and extra mile service.
I hope you found these insights and tips useful to you as a marketer or a business person. The tighter the partnership between Sales and Marketing, the better the results will be for both organizations. We’re happy to have a discovery session with your sales/marketing management to identify high impact opportunities for teamwork.
Posted July 4, 2005 | Permalink
Posted to Marketing Management