Creating opportunities that generate forcastable revenue is no different.

An organization must have a process for creating opportunities in place that creates a framework for success.

I have found that the most successful organizations that I work with are ones that take a look at the entire process and evaluate each piece of the puzzle.  Below are a few of the steps in the process of creating opportunities that generate forcastable revenue.

• Messaging
• Marketplace Awareness
• Lists of Prospects
• Marketing to the lists
• Tracking and Nurturing of MQL’s (marketing qualified leads)
• Following-up on MQL’s (teleprospecting)
• Determining when the MQL is ready for transition to sales
• Transitioning MQL’s to sales as SQL’s (sales qualified leads)
• Feedback on SQL’s
• Conversion %’s of SQL’s to forcastable revenue
• Sales Process/Cycle

Again this is a list of items off the top of my head, each one of these has a number of moving pieces that need to be planned for and evaluated as well.

I believe the bottom line is this, if you want to employ a successful process around opportunity generation you need to look at every piece of the puzzle and make sure they are all lined up to support and drive the success of the process.

In this case producing forcastable revenue!

“My 2 Cents”

Okay, so I think most folks are familiar with the idea that every person is an individual and that we all have personalities that are unique.  This is what makes the world great, but this also raises a number of things that we can clash over or miscommunicate on.

What I am saying is that we must keep this in mind when we are managing a team.  Each team member is an individual, each team member has their own personality, each team member has their communication style, each team member has strengths and weaknesses, each team member may learn differently – I think you probably get the picture.

An item that I find critical is that regardless of personality or trait – if we struggle to communicate and we meet resistance due to these differences – we as managers must take an approach that works for the individual we are addressing (remember each team member is unique).

I know that folks may read this and say “well that is common sense” – well it may be but in many cases we do not practice this and therefore we need to be reminded of this – so here is my reminder for us both .

“My 2 Cents”

It seems odd to say this – how can you have autonomy (??) inside a process that is expected to be followed without deviation?

Well I believe that it is quite simple – trust.  Huh?

If you trust in the individuals you are managing and their ability to think outside of the box in an attempt to be better, then giving them a level of “autonomy” on a daily basis is something that can not only lead to better performance and higher job satisfaction, but it could ultimately lead to a more efficient and effective process.

For example – we work with a call plan, or to elaborate, a call approach that we teach our reps and look for them to follow.  This call plan is not something that we just put together because it looks nice, but rather, it is a philosophy on cold calling and how to effectively and efficiently penetrate an account. 

A couple of years ago a rep on my team approached me with something that he had been working on – it was a definite deviation from the call plan he was taught.  My first knee jerk reaction was that he was trying to get out of making phone calls and perhaps was not aggressive enough to be successful – without divulging to much – this idea is something that we have adopted company wide and has lead to a dramatic increase in opportunities produced.

Just a quick snapshot of the value of affording a person some “autonomy” inside a rigid process.

“My 2 Cents”

That being said, a critical piece of my job is training a new employee on what my clients are looking for in a qualified sales opportunity and what we need to do to achieve this deliverable, while at the same time, make the opportunity extremely appealing to the client’s sales rep.  A concept  I have deleveloped, perhaps concept is not the right word, but approach that I take and find extremely valuable is to relate the process of uncovering that opportunity to the creation of a painting.

What do I mean?

Well frame it like this – my clients look for us to deliver qualified sales opportunities – what is a qualified sales opportunity?  This includes all the information that we think about that is relevant to any sales process – pain/need, current environment, budget, decision making process, and timeframe.

When I describe to a rep what I would like them to uncover while qualifying a prospect, I use my “painting” analogy:  imagine if I showed you a painting of a beach, a nice white sandy beach, with rolling waves, a bright clear blue sky, and warm sunshine – this is probably pretty appealing !  But I then ask the question – what if I showed you that same painting of the beach with a chair and umbrella, perhaps a cooler next to the chair, a surfboard, and a seagull flying.  How much more appealing is this painting – the answer is “much more.”

How does this tie to opportunity generation – the more details around an opportunity the more appealing it is to a client’s sales rep, the more excited they are to follow-up on it, and most importantly, the more likely that opportunity is going to become a piece of forcastable revenue.

“My 2 Cents”

Sometimes it seems like the most simple interactions are the most valuable.   I sat at my desk this morning and sent over an opportunity that had been uncovered for a client.  Before I continue let me take a quick step back and explain part of the process I use:

In all of my client engagements I connect the teleprospector that uncovered the opportunity with the sales rep that is responsible for the corresponding account to have a brief discussion on the opportunity and help answer any questions the sales rep may have.

Back to my story, I included this step this morning while delivering the opportunity.  A few email replies followed and I watched the connection for a brief chat occur.  I always ask my team members to come and debrief with me after they have chatted with a client’s sales rep.  During these conversation there are a few comments made about the call itself, did they have any questions on the opportunity, were they happy about the opportunity, etc. (first piece of value – name and voice have been associated with the “magical” opportunity that appeared in the sales rep’s inbox).

Inevitably, and this is the second piece of value that comes from the interaction, the conversation between the two heads to a discussion about a number of things, such as other qualification information that may be of value or a recent call the sales rep had that would be an example of why they “won” the deal, etc.  From this portion of the conversation comes valuable anacdotal information that the teleprospector can use moving forward in there messaging.  After the debrief I ask the teleprospector to recap the anacdotal information in an email and send it out to other members of the team. 

I conclude my debrief with a simple question – “was the call valuable for you?” – the answer is always a strong – “definitely.”

So what happened next is what made me smile……..

45 minutes later a teleprospector walks into my office with a new opportunity they uncovered and they state – “I’m fired-up!  That email that was sent?  I read it and then jumped on this call, leveraged some of the information, and things just fell into place and the conversation took off!”………..and this is the third piece of value!

“My 2 Cents”

Regardless of the process or criteria an employee is evaluated on – one thing must be present – the employee must understand the expectations they are being evaluated on.

Imagine walking into a room with your supervisor for your evaluation and not knowing what you were being evaluated on – talk about a frightening experience (regardless of your self-confidence or a proven track record of success)

Something that I believe is critical in being able to set expectations is a formal process for evaluations. 

The process should include -  framework for the timing of evaluations, items to be covered, specific numbers pertaining to the expected levels of achievement, goals set for next evaluation, ongoing check in points before next evaluation to ensure on path to achieve goals, and an formal plan of repercussions if they are not achieving goals.

Following this simple process or a similar process that has clearly defined items will lead to not only an efficient evaluation process but a more productive and happier organization.

“My 2 Cents”

While this concept is valuable, it has been my experience that each problem or process is unique and that trying to “fit a round peg in a square hole” can lead to a number of pitfalls.  Most importantly the assumption that the problem or process is taken care of by just this simple application of past experience.

I do not want to come across as saying that past experience is not valuable, in fact quite the opposite, I believe that it is not only critical but required to be successful.

One area where this resonates with me is in managing my team of “BDR’s” or Teleprospectors” depending on who you ask.  As many of us are aware “problems” arise constantly when managing a team.  They can be problems that the entire team faces or an individual on the team is faced with.

An approach that works for me is as follows:

• First identify the problem (who, what, why) – this includes the very important step of having a dialogue with either the entire team or the individual faced with the problem. 
• Next is to draw on past experiences with the specific team or individual or experiences that are similar outside of the current team.
• Next step is to create a unique solution plan for the problem or process in question.
• Execute on this solution or process
• Finally, and most importantly is to follow-up on the solution and measure the outcome.

One note, during and after this follow-up it is critical that you have the ability to objectively look at the outcome and evaluate if it has worked to solve the problem or created a process that is efficient.

“My 2 Cents”