Running a unified sales playbook
Prospects expect a solution driven and professional interaction to earn their business. Part of this lies in the actual step by step motion we ferry our prospects through. Customers find us from a multitude of sources including paid ads, search engines, word of mouth, and many other sources. When they interact with us they’re looking for solutions that intersect across three core tenets:
Strategic relevance
Tactical readiness
Payback timeliness
If the prospect aligns across those dimensions then you’re that much closer to bringing them into the fold. But that’s the rational argument for buying your product or service. The emotional element cannot be overstated. People buy from people and companies they feel connected to.
One of the first things a CRO can fix in any company is their GTM process. It should be seamless. Information flows from one person to the next. From a raw lead enriched automatically by a data provider to the time it’s fielded by a Sales Development Rep the relevant information should be collected once. Only once.
After that the AE likely takes over. Prior to the meeting he or she reads through the thoroughly prepared notes their SDR captured in CRM. At the second meeting the AE dutifully recaps their understanding of the customer’s situation. The requirements are not asked for a second time. The moment is about deeper understanding through clarification. Asking would only annoy your prospect.
There is no statistical math that I have come across that proves this but I suspect the math behind winning deals does not look like below.
Chances of Winning x (1 + % Benefit of Asking) ^ (Number of Times Asked)
Instead, you’re likely to see an inverse of that formula. Voila! Good bye deal!
1 / (Chances of Winning x (1 + % Benefit of Asking) ^ (Number of Times Asked))
Congratulations! We’ve managed to appear tone death. The active listening successful reps bring to the table has just been taken off. To remedy this I suggest the following:
SDR goes through call prep with light research and scanning the enriched data in their CRM. SDR captures notes from the pre-qual meeting in CRM.
AE goes through meeting prep with in-depth research and transfers notes from the CRM into their opportunity worksheet. In the course of their Discovery they captures notes into the CRM.
AE and SC convene for a strategic preparation session. Incorporating the notes from the Discovery into their Solution Demo (not be confused with a Product or a POC Demo).
Prospects receiving this type of preparation are the exception, not the norm. We should demand better out of ourselves as revenue engineers. Aligning processes is actually a light lift and requires just a few minutes of everyone’s time. Just putting in a little more time can yield results in a huge way.
So cheers. Cheers to being better at serving our customers.
