ROI & Sales Force Automation Building a Closer Partnership

By Michael J. Nick 1/1/2013

ROI & Sales Force Automation Building a Closer Partnership

Michael J Nick Author Version 2.0 Copyright ©2012

May not be copied without permission of author.

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There are many reasons to implement Sales Force Automation (SFA) programs. We have seen everything from “we need to get organized” to “we want more accurate forecasting”. SFA projects to date have focused primarily on collecting customer data, tracking trends and reporting it back to sales management to complete their forecasting. What is missing in many of the implementations of these programs is a tool to help drive the sale and keep the sales force focused on moving it through the sales process…as opposed to just tracking the progress of the sale. Everyone that has put in the effort to build SFA into their sales force DNA knows the challenges of success. The issues you face range from non-acceptance to bad or inaccurate data being entered. As a sales manager it is frustrating to get the information and try to build accurate forecasts. Often times it is costly to rely on the data because you are submitting inaccurate forecasts to the rest of the management team. They don’t believe it, and your credibility is shot. Sometimes it is a career ending move. Hence the challenge you face and the backlash of an unsuccessful SFA project implementation. By building ROI and Value Estimation tools into the SFA implementation plan, you are forcing your sales professionals to gather more accurate information, monetized value and establishing the foundation for building a Business Case. These activities will drive the sale forward, not just track it. Let me explain how this works. Let’s begin with a simple sales process. Theses phases will represent the sales professionals steps to closing a sale: Target, Qualify, Meet & Greet, Presentation or Demonstration, Proposal, Due Diligence, Pending sale and of course the Close. (See below)

Stages in the Sales Process

Target

Qualify

Meet Greet

Present

Proposal

Time

2

Due Diligence

Pending Sale

Close

Note: I realize not everyone who has implemented SFA have an objective or credible ROI program in place. If you do not, there is still value in what I am going to tell you in this paper. I suggest you read on to better understand the advantages of using ROI in the Sales Process and building ROI into the DNA of your SFA. For a prospect to move from a Target to the Qualify stage you ask a series of “qualifying” questions. These questions must become gates to moving a prospect to the next stage in the process. A gate is defined by The American Heritage dictionary as “A device for controlling the passage of…”. This is exactly what I mean by a gate. Begin with your qualifying questions and build them into your SFA system to control the passage from one stage to the next. In other words, before a Target can be moved to the Qualify Stage, the sales professional must document the answers to your qualifying questions. This process should then automatically update the percentage chance the opportunity will close. Qualifying questions will include value based questions like how many? Or how much? And some that are not monetized like “Do you use a formal sales methodology in your sales process?” By controlling the questions, you control the outcome. Forecasting is now based upon the answers to the questions in each gate. You are able to determine the forecast based on the answers documented in your SFA system by the sales professional. Each stage should have a series of questions (preferably ROI questions) that must be answered prior to moving from one stage to the next. Below we show this concept graphically.

Gates in the Sales Process

Target

Demo

Qualify

Meet / Greet

Gate 1

Gate 2

Gate 3

Gate 4

Required

Required

Required

Required

Proposal

Check list

Due Diligence

Pending Sale

Check list Legal

Close

Notifications

Sign offs

Time As you can see from the chart above, I have defined four gates (Target, Qualify, Meet / Greet, and demo / Present). Each gate is a series of value based questions that will enable the 3

sales professional to better understand the prospects needs and build a credible Business Case. When creating the questions assign a weighted value on each. Before a prospect can move from one stage to the next they must accumulate a certain amount of points by completing each gate. By assigning a weight to each question, you are not forcing a positive response for every answer. In other words if they skip a question or two you still see a result. As an example let’s say you have 5 questions, and each is worth 5,4,3,2, and 1 point respectively. The total amount of points available is 15. To move from Target to Qualify they must accumulate 12 points. As you can see it is not required that every question be answered to move forward from one stage to the next. Rank your questions by the importance of each. The other key to remember is each question asked requires a simple yes, no or a quantity type answer. This will force the sales professional to gather data to be used for an ROI or Value Estimation type calculation later in the process. To further the value of your SFA system each of these gates need to interact with other parts of the prospects organization. For example, when the sales professional qualifies the target, an email notice should go out to Marketing for statistical analysis. When the prospect moves from Qualify to Meet & Greet, notifications should go out to sales support and perhaps regional management. Graphically it looks like this:

Stages in the Sales Process / Notifications

Target

Qualify

Meet Greet

Demo

Gate 1

Gate 2

Gate 3

Gate 4

Required

Required

Required

Required

Notify Notify Marketing Sale support

Notify Demo Group

Notify Proposal Group

Proposal

Check list

Due Diligence

Pending

Close

Sale

Check list Legal

Notifications

Sign offs Confirm Notify Customer Legal References

Notify

Notify

Marketing Mgmt.

Post Sls. Support Marketing Management

Time Each gate that you pass should trigger a series of proactive actions to take place. The action furthers the sale through the process. If you assign percentages (i.e. percent chance it will close) to each of the stages, they too will be updated throughout the SFA system. Your forecasting should be far more accurate with the addition of gates to control the movement of a sale through the process and not the “gut” feeling of the sales professional. 4

Finally, when all the gates are complete, the data is used to publish a Business Case that can be used in conjunction with your proposal. The chart above displays the automatic notifications / triggers that could take place throughout the sales process. I believe the pieces that are missing are the tools sales professionals need to perform discovery, discuss threshold for pain, and secure agreement from the prospect on the current and on-going cost of status quo. Below is an example of some of the tools from ROI Selling that can be utilized throughout the sales process. Take note how each available sales tool is assigned to a stage in the sales process. Also, I have added some percentages to each of the stages to show you how to increase your forecasting accuracy. Each gate will control the movement from stage to stage. Automatic triggers or notification will keep each department in the loop and build your forecasting credibility. The tools will give your sales team comfort and confidence in the process and encourage them to use the SFA system as part of the sales process, and not just a tracking tool.

Stages in the Sales Process / Resources

Interest in Product

Target 0%

Qualify 15%

Gate 1 Required

Gate 2 Required

•Brochures •Data Sheets •Hoovers •Qualify

•White Paper •Sales CD •Articles • ROI •Questions •Document

Question document

Pending Sales

Meet Greet 25%

Demo 50%

Proposal 60%

Due Diligence 80%

Gate 3 Required

Gate 4 Required

Proposal Check list

Due Legal Diligence Sign offs Check list

•Pitch Deck •Partner • Profiles •Case Study •Competitive • Analysis

•Demo / •Proposal •Marketing •Script – PPT. • Department Reference Script •SOD’s Checks •Pitch Decks • Executive •ROI Docs •ROI •Summary

Close

95%

•Legal

Review

Notifications

•ROI •Follow up Document

•Complete Sale Form

Time Often times I get asked if the sales force “buys into this concept”. Yes, they do, for many reasons. First, they have a guideline to move the sale through the process and are aware of the tools and resources available at each stage. Second, there is little room for guess work. We have built in numerous checks and balances at every gate. Third, it is not threatening, it is a tool and process that makes them more productive and clearly defines what is expected of them. Lastly, there is no more forecasting on the part of the sales team. If implemented

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properly the system produces the forecast based upon the gates achieved on accounts in the pipeline. (Note: You will need some historical data to assign accurate close percentages) Sales Force Automation and ROI need to be implemented hand in hand together. Without ROI, your SFA system is just another tracking tool. Without the use of an SFA system you have no control over the ROI process.

About the Author

Michael J. Nick is president and founder of ROI4Sales, Inc. and author of ROI Selling (Dearborn ©2004), Why Johnny can’t sell (Kaplan ©2008) and The Key to the C-Suite (Amacom ©2011). He is a nationally recognized expert in ROI, TCO, Value Estimation and conducts several public workshops and seminars throughout the year. He has published several white papers on ROI including; ROI in your Sales Process, ROI after the Sale (360 Degree ROI), The ROI on ROI, and the most popular paper and title of his book, “Why Johnny Can’t Sell. Michael’s work has been written about and published in national publications including Software CEO, Software Success, Sales Recruits.com, Sales and Marketing Management Magazine, Selling Power, and The SalesAdvantage. His internationally acclaimed book ROI Selling received rave reviews and was translated into several forms or Chinese, Russian and Spanish. As a member of the National Speakers Association, he is a featured speaker at major industry events including Software Business, SLAM, Integrity Selling, Marketing Executive Networking Group (MENG), Software University, Chicago Software Association, Marketing-Profs, Software Success Selling series, Selling Across America, Sales Rep Radio, NetBriefings, CanDoGo Radio and a frequent guest on several SPI sales seminar workshops.

Michael’s expertise has extended internationally with companies like Oracle, Great Plains, Hewlett Packard, AutoDesk, Compuware, Rockwell Automation, Silanis, CheckFree Corporation / Fiserv, Bomgar, and S1 Corporation and has thousands of sales professionals worldwide using ROI Selling techniques from ROI4Sales, Inc. Michael can be reached at: ROI4Sales, Inc 3355 Quaas Drive, West Bend, WI 53095 262-338-1851, [email protected] or visit the website at www.roi4sales.com. Michael’s Blog is www.roi4sales.com/blogs and you can follow Michael on Twitter at @mjnspw.

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