Paras Chopra

Pallav Nadhani

Dancing with the elephants

SALESBOOTCAMP

Sales is the lifeblood of any organizationIt fixes everything!

Pre-requisite to online salesProduct and Positioning

Know thy customer• Have the discipline to answer which kind of customers do you want to serve?

• Know the size of customer you want to serve, what people in a company that size do, the problems they have, the features that will resonate & the channels needed to reach them

• For the most part, avoid the low end of the market. It’s too elusive and hard to shake enough money out of them.

• Understand customer’s pain points & position your product benefits against those pain points

Now answer the question, and keep repeating it, till you can say it in deep sleep

Why buy mine?

Selling through the web, your goal is to get email address of prospect through various means,

segment them, qualify them, nurture them, close them, and then up-sell/cross-sell.

Customer Acquisition Funnel• Awareness (ads, blog, event, word-of-mouth…)• Initial Visit• Different channels / different ROI• Best channels = low cost, high ROI

• Engagement • Trial, case study, whitepaper, anything that could give you

email AND other information• Nurturing• Mix of product, marketing and sales• Sales job: get the customer on the call and do aggressive follow

up• Closing• Handover from sales to client success. • Repeat business through subscriptions, up-sells or cross-sells.

Pillars of online sales• People • Hiring• Training & coaching• Compensation • Incentives

• Tools • CRM• Marketing Automation• Content distribution• Data on prospects

• Process • Metrics-driven• Qualification• Culture

Evolution of sales teamStage Sales Composition Qualifying criteria Objective

Validation Sales team == YOU Zero revenue Validating the product. Product Management.

Babysteps Couple of sales reps 15-25 new leads per day Establishing sales process. Lots of experimentation to figure out what works.

Growth VP/Director of Sales, Multiple Sales reps, Client Success Reps

- Metrics for sales productivity established- More leads than sales reps can handle

Growing revenue aggressively. Increasing sales efficiency through automation.

Scale VP of Sales, multiple directors (regional/vertical bifurcation), sales reps performing different roles (generating leads, closing, appointment setting). Partnerships/Alliances/Channels head.

- Optimized sales metrics available- Market large enough- Revenue continuing to grow

Finding new channels for revenue

Sales compensation• You do not have any data to start with. So start with industry benchmarks and then customize it to suit your requirements• VP / Director of Sales: fixed + variable based on overall company revenue (say 20L + 10L)• No upper limit to what s/he can make. Have an accelerator on

overachievement (Say 150% of variable, once quota is surpassed)

• Sales reps : 2L + 1L x number of years of experience• Depending on role, quota could be based on appointments set,

calls made, revenue, number of closures or a mix of all of it• Initially, quotas could be set based on historical data. Later,

they can be revised (quotas could be revised quarterly)• Sales operations team : depending on city• To enable sales team to focus on what they do best – selling;

and to abstract everything else (agreements, invoices, mundane stuff) from them.

Some industry metrics• Ramp up period: 3-6 months (you cannot have a sales rep productive ASAP)• Fixed / Variable ratio: anywhere between 50:50 to 80:20 (in India, 70:30 is common)• Annual Quota: $600k-$800k annually, or $5000 Monthly Recurring Revenue • Percentage of sales reps who achieve quota: 70%• Average number of dials per day: 39• Average conversations per day: 9• Number of touches before moving on: 5

(Source: http://www.bridgegroupinc.com/resources/InsideSalesReport.pdf)

Tools of the trade• CRM e.g., SalesForce or SugarCRM. The most important investment in your sales process. • Implementation and adoption of this tool is very important, as it

has to support you during scaling up of sales engine. • Brings visibility into entire sales process and for individual reps.

• Marketing Automation e.g., Marketo or Pardot for automated nurturing of leads, segment them, doing A/B testing of content (and use, cough.. cough.. VWO!)

• Data directories like Jigsaw or other tools that give additional information on prospects to sales team

• Social media mining tools for similar purpose• Webex / VOIP for calls• Inbound US number / online chat tools

Sales Mantra

Higher Sales = Volume x Productivity

● Better qualification● Better closure rates● Metric driven

pricing ● Better routing of

leads to right sales reps / partners

● Due diligence on lost deals

● More leads in funnel

● Better leads quality● More leads handled

per sales person● Enough sales

people to handle all leads

The most experienced sales reps are the ones who know that the 3 most important things to do with a

sales lead are to qualify, qualify, qualify

Though, what really is qualification?

Typical sales cycle• Lead generation through: marketing / database / outbound prospecting

• Qualification and appointment setting: role typically requires calling and qualifying and setting appointment

• Closing - also called account executives or hunters

• Nurturing - called client success reps, account managers or farmers

Things that help your sales cycle• The goal in your early meetings is to get the customer to trust you enough to talk about their existing problems

• Ensure that your sales reps understand BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Time)

• You can only sell effectively when your sales cycle matches the customer’s buying cycle

• Do SOMETHING that makes you stand out. Learn how to tell stories…for every type of engagement. They stick.

• Create artificial accelerators for closure, and reward if done within that milestone.

Sales culture• During induction, make organizational philosophy very clear• When not to sell products to a prospect • How to approach competitive products • What takes priority – customer or numbers?

• Make everyone’s performance public• Sales people are competitive. Let them compete• Track aggressively and do random audits

• Always set aggressive quotas, the best ones will prove it can be done• Keep small contests to drive team behavior• Lunches, holidays, etc.• Money and gifts really drive sales people

• Recognize that sales people are different• Don’t expect them to behave like engineers or marketers, and

don’t ask them to design their collaterals (they suck at it!)• Remember that sales people WILL ALWAYS ask for a better

product, or more discounts, or more marketing or …

Customer reference-ability• Get testimonials, case-studies, even better customer videos

• Having reputable people from reputable businesses reference your company makes all the difference in the purchasing decision

• Customers like to compare your solution to something else on the market

• Customers seldom like to buy unless they perceive they have options

• Building reference-ability in pricing as well

Perception• A company that looks and sounds good inspires confidence

• So don’t be cheap about getting a professionally done:• Website• Logo• Collaterals• Voice Mail / IVR

• Ensure that your communications and touch points look global

• Invest in good web design, sales collaterals and professional sales pitches• (Unfortunate) fact is that customer form perceptions quickly

which are hard to shake later on, and those perceptions linger on to product / service as well

Pricing – your product can actually be “too cheap”• Use pricing as a signal• Some customers (particularly enterprises) will not even try your

product if they feel the product is priced too cheaply

• Just because our services economy works on cost arbitrage, doesn’t mean products have to work this way

• Customers like price anchors to be able to compare

• Pricing more important in B2B• A $2000 deal v/s $10,000 requires the same process, so why

leave revenue on the table

Partners• 2 types of resellers: vanilla resellers, who will only fulfill demand, or resellers who can generate demand for you. Use vanilla resellers in non-English speaking countries.

• Implementation partners who can add value to your product. Use them for large orders like government tenders etc.