Death of a Sales Process

Having spent 10 years in enterprise sales and 5 years working with scale up companies to grow revenue from millions to tens of millions+, I couldn’t help but notice a pattern. 

Despite the vast differences in the product or service they were bringing to market, for the most part, they all sell the same way. Let’s call this process the “Waterfall” sales approach. 

‍

Step 1

Marketing run campaigns via google, linkedin, mainstream media outlets and publications in the hopes that somebody leaves a digital footprint on their website. The good marketeers will rank order the intent or “propensity to buy” based on how they interacted with marketing’s content. These leads then get shipped to an SDR/BDR call list.

‍

Step 2

With their MEDDIC, MEDDPIC, BANT etc list of questions, a youthfully exuberant SDR/BDR, typically with a tenure of under 2 years, will call the prospect, who tends to have decades of expertise within this given field. The interrogation lasts for about 20 minutes, where the prospect typically won’t be told anything they couldn’t have found on the website. The SDR/BDR having dutifully gathered metrics, pain, and timeline, creates an opportunity in the CRM in the hopes that it will not be discarded by the Account Executive until after it passes the “Qualified” stage in the leaky sales funnel.

‍

Step 3

Assuming this opportunity has been accepted, the Account Executive (AE) will set up another call with the prospect. Unfortunately, they tend to repeat a similar process to the BDR, much to the frustration of the prospect who, in all likelihood, was a lot further down the sale funnel given the fact that they already researched the product, and just wanted a simple demo to answer a few specific questions.

‍

Step 4

At last, the stage the prospect has wanted from the moment he/she filled out the request form, the demo is upon them. OK, they may have had to have 2 needlessly repetitive phone calls up to now, and tell the salesperson what they wanted to hear, but now they get to the good stuff! The Solutions/Sales Engineer joins the call dutifully on time, the Account Executive a few minutes later, but no matter. The AE introduces everybody before fading into the virtual background of zoom, while the SE shows their demo prowess in a 45-minute monologue. At last, as the SE wraps up, the moment the prospect has been waiting for arises, “Any questions?”. A brief wall of silence is met before the prospect tentatively asks their first query. Immediately, the Solutions Engineer launches into a long-winded explanation as to why that particular feature is not available at present but is on the ever changing “innovation roadmap” and should be available towards the end of the year. The prospect has many more questions, but alas, time has alluded them, the call is wrapped up and the prospect is left slightly more confused but needs at least 3 quotes so will continue the “buyer – seller” dance.

‍

Step 5

The validation of the business case- a bunch of financial wizardry that will state in no uncertain terms a “historical, evidence-based approach” to illustrate how over a 12-month period, this solution will actually make you money rather than cost you. Ignoring the fact that a cheque still needs to be written and budget allocated etc, a minimum of a 5X return over a 3-year period is often illustrated, regardless of the technology in front of you. It’s a magic number!

‍

Step 6

Having given all kinds of arbitrary agreements, the prospect hopes to have all their remaining questions answered via a “proof of concept”. The software installation is turbulent to say the least with many compatibility issues but eventually after many man hours, something resembling the digital tiger on their marketing material turns out to be more akin to a timid kitten, prone to collapse at the slightest abnormality. Any remaining questions are answered, and a decision made, however, due to internal procedure, the prospect still needs those 3 quotes. “Let’s give them the feedback they want so we get the quote”.

‍

Step 7

The moment the saleperson has been waiting for, everything has been going smoothly, albeit a bit of turbulence now and again, but for the most part, this has gone well. Surely the prospect wouldn’t get us to do all this work if they weren’t serious! Time to get it into the forecast, best case, and low ball it to be safe…

‍

Step 8

The negotiation. All good salespeople know you always lead with your best and final price, commit to it, do not blink… until you get to end of quarter, have missed your target on the previous 2 and have a sales manager breathing down your neck. In this case, as the prospect is perfectly aware of, the price drops faster than a toddler’s ice-cream on a sunny day.

Using this waterfall sales methodology, which may have updated the “User Interface”, but under the hood remains largely unchanged since the 1990’s, salespeople have trained buyers to:

• Tell them what they want to hear.
• Wait for the end of quarter, or end of year, if possible, to get the best price
• Limit their contact with the buyer’s colleagues as much as possible, and never risk introducing them to the boss, lest you suffer damage to your professional reputation.

For a scale up company to sell in this way is akin to driving a speedboat like and oil tanker. Many other professions have adopted a more “agile” way of accomplishing a mission. From the Navy SEALS to software developers, many teams have recognized that in a disruptive world, where the situational landscape can change on a dime, small, diverse teams united with a common goal can be far more effective than siloed monoliths. This is the superpower that scale up companies have not tapped into. I believe it is time for Revenue teams to evolve and lean into the agile way of selling.

It can generally be agreed that every customer challenge is different. While there will always be commonalities and trends, the nuance on the fringe is what creates true differentiation. Allow me to invoke Parato’s Principle briefly to support this theory. Salespeople will know this as the “80-20” rule and assert that 20% of their customers will make up 80% of the revenue. This universal law of nature can also be applied to activities. It is the tailored, nuanced approach to each customer, and how they buy that will have a far-reaching impact on the bottom line.

Instead of the previously mentioned waterfall methodology, imagine your revenue organisation was made up of separate teams with complimentary and strategically important goals, but goals that are none the less, different. 

An agile sales process might look something like this:

‍

Step 1: Research

Timeframe: 2 days
Objective: Shortlist of key accounts from addressable market

The BDR, AE and Marketing professional need to build the ideal customer profile and, using a graded scoring system, generate a list of 30 key accounts.

‍

Step 2: Messaging

Timeframe: 0.5 day per account
Objective: Customized messaging

The BDR will need to research the key strategic priorities of each account. Collaborating with Marketing, they will create a customised message that illustrates technological alignment with these key priorities succinctly. Once reviewed and approved by the AE, this messaging can be adapted depending on the outreach strategy.

‍

Step 3: Execute

Timeframe: Perpetual
Objective: Booking an executive discovery call.

A multi-threaded approach that reduces the risk of overlap is best used. Marketing is responsible for a broad approach, such as sponsored linkedin, google and email campaigns targeting a specific account. The BDR should be encouraged to connect with junior people in the organisation, but it is the tenured Account Executive that takes the sniper approach to the executive suite with highly customized, personalised messaging that illustrates timely relevance. I have found with this approach, a scale up company can hastily work its way from the periphery into the central focus of an enterprise organisation’s view.

‍

Step 4: SCRUM

Timeframe: TBD
Objective: Executive Discovery call prep

Having connected with the Executive sponsor, and booked a discovery call 2 weeks from now, the AE convenes an internal team scrum. This will include Channel/Alliances, BDR, Marketing, Solutions Engineer, etc etc. In this meeting, the BDR will present their research, and the team will pool their collective knowledge about this account to eliminate any pockets of tribal knowledge. Topics would include any personal connections that work in the target account, previous sales cycles, overlapping VAR’s/outsourcers etc. The AE should leave this meeting with a clear blueprint on potential challenges their target faces and what solution orientated messaging is most likely to resonate.

‍

Step 5: Discovery Call.

Timeframe: 1 hour
Objective: Progress or decline collaboration with prospect

While the AE must always lead the call, who they decide to accompany them is at their discretion. It may be the BDR to ensure they are getting the appropriate exposure for their development. Perhaps it is more appropriate to team up with the solutions engineer. The main priority is that the prospect leaves the call having decided with confidence that they can or cannot help them. Knowing, as all salepeople do, that we make decisions emotionally and justify it retrospectively with facts and logic, the team need to decide what 3 adjectives they want the prospect to associate them with once they end the call.

‍

Step 6: Scope

Timeframe: TBD
Objective: Understand extent of challenge.

This will be a collaborative effort between the AE, BDR, Solution Engineer and Marketing personas. This will involve a series of interviews with key stakeholders to understand the extent of the problem. However, keeping in mind that we are emotional creatures, the team must identify key moments within which they have an opportunity to build an internal advocate with the prospective organisation. Marketing will need to be able to provide highly bespoke content to supplement and enhance BDR/AE conversations. Each PDF/PPT that is shared needs to speak specifically to that individual and the challenges in their world. 

‍

Step 7: Demo

Timeframe: 1 hour
Objective: Go/No Go decision 

The demo is another pivotal moment to re-enforce the 3 emotionally linked adjectives referenced in step 5. Again, the make up of participants should be decided on a case-by-case basis. Below is a high-level example of an executive demo, but you might decide to include channel alliances if your prospect uses an outsourcer, or in an effort to build interest and momentum, do a series of shorter demo’s to mid-tier stakeholders that are highly specific to their priorities. This is not, under any circumstances, a 1 hour templated monologue lead by the solutions engineer.

Stage 1

Start with a brief introduction to the customer success professional who spends 5 minutes explaining how this prospect would be onboarded in a time efficient way to ensure minimal friction, and maximal efficacy of the technology.

Stage 2

This is the responsibility of the Solution Engineer and Account Executive, to illustrate how specific scenarios/challenges would be resolved and how this impacts the macro strategic pillars in an organisation.

Stage 3

Include a brief discussion on the innovation roadmap, giving the prospect an opportunity to highlight any current or future divergences from their technological perspective. This high-performance unit will go through continuous improvement cycles as they try to maximise win rates and optimise their processes.

‍

Step 8: Business Case

Timeframe: TBD
Objective: Review financials

Instead of typing heavily massaged numbers into a template and presenting back to your audience of stakeholders, I would strongly recommend building the business case over a 2-day workshop. Be sure to include a financially literate professional in the conversation. Your prospect cannot argue with their own data, but they can disregard yours all day long. They need to figure out, with guidance, how much your technology will save them. Not all workflows are equal and not all employees are paid the same. The cookie cutter approach kills trust and authenticity. I guarantee your buyer has seen at least 3 other business proposals that illustrate a 12 month or less payback period and 5X ROI over 3 years. Be different by being precise. A collaboratively built business case presented to your executive influencer and economic buyer by their team alongside a financially fluent professional will undoubtedly tilt the odds in your favour. 

‍

Step 9: Pricing Negotiation, Legal and Signatures

This conversation needs to be led by the account executive, legal and, depending on the size of the opportunity, the CFO or CEO. Having laid the groundwork, What AE’s often get wrong about this stage is that the actual price is not what you are negotiating. It is the payment terms that determine where this transaction sits on your prospect’s balance sheet. Any issues surrounding the subscription amount, or total cost of ownership should have been proactively addressed when building and reviewing the business case. 

‍

By now, I am sure you have noticed this step by step “waterfall” sequence of events bares some similarity to the start of this blog. However, it is its application in the real world that make it agile in nature. These steps do not need to be completed in a linear fashion. In fact, quite the contrary. It is imperative that the sequence of events align with the different approach each prospect has when buying software. While it is highly unlikely that a legal conversation would be a precursor to a discovery call, it might make sense, as part of a fair exchange of information, that you do a micro demo at the scoping or discovery stage of the conversation. Similarly, every tenured sales profession should know that “discovery” is a key element in every communication with the prospect. Everybody in this high-performance revenue pod should have complete visibility into the dates, topics and participants on every call and be ready to contribute at a moment’s notice. 

Above all else, this unit must instil an inclusive culture of trust, support, accountability, transparency, and learning. 

The aim with this structural and operational shift to an adaptable culture of change and creativity is two fold: 

1. To disrupt a prospect’s stereotype of a salesperson and create authentic relationships based on a mutually beneficial outcome. 
2. To eliminate the siloed friction and dereliction of duty between revenue generating departments due to continued individual compensation justification.

‍

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”
– Aristotle