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Discovery: HT Sales Process

Outcome: Dee has requested a deal stage for target accounts in the high touch sales pipeline as qualification to current standards of deal creation has been to rigid. To help solve this, it was decided:

Jim to create a deal stage called target accounts which will populate deals based on high touch tier 1 accounts being set (through a workflow). Jim will isolate existing deals on mass creation.

Jim will set the stage gate for the target accounts stage as a meeting being booked (not held) which will take to form of a Y/N checkbox (a N will still allow movement to next stage).

Jim will set the stage gate for the discovery stage as the SPI (Situation, Pain & Impact) having been completed (any SPI outcome will allow movement to next stage).

Jim will set the stage gate for the qualified stage as full SPICED (Situation, Pain, Impact, Critical Event & Decision). Any SPICED outcome will allow progression to the next stage.

As agreed, the other pre-existing stages will stay the same until we reconnect after we see some movement through the pipeline.

Max and Maria are responsible for creating more pipeline and moving it through the initial stages. Maria will ensure all tier 1 accounts are set for creation by friday. Jim will mass create tier 1 accounts deals on monday afternoon.

From “The Qualified Sales Leader” Book:

“Unsuccessful companies do not know who their ideal customer profile is, let alone how to pursue them; are not clear on the type of salespeople they should hire; have not built a prescribed sales pipeline with measurable steps; have no measurable qualification methodology to understand where a deal is or how much work is left to do; and do little to hold salespeople accountable to completing each step in the process, so they cut corners and end up with bad outcomes.”

- Dev Ittycheria, MongoDB

(Current) High Touch: Qualification

(Current) High Touch: Qualification

Question?

Measurement

Responsibility

Inspection (Cadence)

Should this deal be created?

any company int team

Sales

How do we keep this deal moving?

Sales & Management

Should we forecast this revenue?

Sales & Management

How much revenue should we be forecasting?

Sales & Management

Should we continue working this deal?

Management

There are no rows in this table

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(Current) High Touch Deal: Pipeline Stages

(Current) High Touch Deal: Pipeline Stages

Stage

Entry Criteria

Process (Jobs to do)

Exit Criteria

Target Account (Deal created)

maria qualified on target list

Book a meeting

meeting booked

Discovery

meeting booked

Complete meeting

SPICED (SPI)

Qualified to buy

SPICED (SPI)

SPICED (SPICED)

Proposal sent

TBC

Implementation started

Decision maker buy in

Final proposal sent

Contract sent

Closed lost

Closed won

There are no rows in this table

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Benefits of a Sales Process:

Beneficiaries of a sales process and following them:

Sales Reps: - Results in higher win rates, larger deal sizes and increased deal velocity.

Sales Managers: - Consistency across the sales force - Having a common playbook with a common language to discuss accounts - Setting tangible evidence necessary to complete each step - Seeing which step the sales rep is facing difficulty completing —> understanding the knowledge/skill gap that needs to be addressed

Executive Management - More efficient use of resources, increased productivity - More accurate revenue forecast, consistency, predictability - Gain insight into people/process/product issues that affect the sales org

The Customer - Understands how the product solves their pain, and difference with other products

The sales process needs to be a functional part of operating the business. Each sales stage needs to have defined, tangible action steps. Each stage should have exit criteria based on verifiable customer events. To move to the next step of the process, reps need to accomplish the exit criteria to open the next “gates”.

Entry & Exit Criteria (Stage Gates) can have KPIs to measure effectiveness and deal velocity, e.g. percentage of deals from one stage to the next, and how long the transition takes. Without a coherent sales process, inaccurate forecasting quickly balloons up. e.g. 5 reps each misrepresent 1 forecasted deal at $100k, totalling to $500k. Assuming 3 first-line managers and 15 reps, that adds up to $1.5M misrepresentation per quarter, which may influence the decision made at the CRO & CEO level.

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