Tapping Inside Sales to Address Pipeline Dysfunction - Televerde

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Tapping Inside Sales toAddress Pipeline
Dysfunction

• Presenter
• Donna J. Kent
• Senior VP of Global Sales,
• Marketing Services
• AAISP Leadership Summit Presentation April 17,
  2012

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What Is Pipeline Dysfunction?

• Meet Brian Sufferer of PD
• BEFORE AFTER

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What Is Pipeline Dysfunction?

• PD A symptomatic set of issues that
• negatively impacts sales pipeline health.
• The Bad News
• We all have sales pipelines and theyre
• not in perfect working condition.
• The Good News
• The symptoms are all treatable by tapping into
  the strength of the inside sales immune system.

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Breaking Down PD

• Common Symptoms
• Lead leakage or lead waste
• Stalled leads
• Poor lead quality (so low volume of SALs)
• Inaccurate targeting (top of the funnel weakness)
  
• Incomplete and inaccurate contact data
• Un-nurtured sales leads
• Poor visibility into sales opportunities
• Insufficient lead intelligence and insight

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Possible Causes
Sales process complexity
Average sales cycle length between initial
contact-closed sale
Discrete steps in sales process
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Possible Causes
Distinguish between Marketing Qualified Lead and
Sales Qualified Lead
Single or multiple stakeholder sales engagement
Process to obtain useful feedback from sales team
on lead quality and quantity
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Possible Causes
Account-Based Marketing programs for targeted
strategic accounts
Do you segment data for various marketing
objectives
Contact data challenges
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Possible Causes
Most significant contact data challenges
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Possible Causes
Distinction between how leads are nurtured based
on buying cycle stage
Ability and skill sets within your organization
to properly analyze the relevance and
effectiveness of your lead nurturing process
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Symptom Lead Leakage

• Leads and opportunities that fall through the
  cracks
• due to poor follow-up, irrelevant messaging, lack
  of
• ongoing contact, insufficient quality and
  quantity
• of contacts.
• Impact
• Lost revenue and market share
• Impact on brand image
• Inside Sales Treatment
• Training on message alignment
• Alignment with field sales
• Disciplined, integrated workflow (digital and
  dialogue)
• Strategic roadmap and multiple entry points

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Symptom Stalled Leads

• Dormant leads/opportunities that lose momentum
• due to lack of solution alignment, lack of sales
• visibility, decision postponement, wrong
  contacts,
• budget loss, competitor positioning.
• Impact
• Competitive displacement
• Loss of future revenue opportunity
• Inside Sales Treatment
• Ongoing opportunity analysis
• More contacts go deeper and wider
• Discover solution alignment in other places
• Long-term nurture keep it alive!

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Symptom Poor Lead Quality

• Unqualified leads delivered without sufficient
• insight, outside lead definition scope, incorrect
• contact, no solution match.
• Impact
• Wasted sales time
• Distracted focus from better leads
• Inside Sales Treatment
• Collaborative lead definition
• Acquire the RPC (right-party contact)
• Know the solutions and find alignment

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Symptom Inaccurate Targeting

• Insufficient quantity and low-quality leads at
  the top
• of the funnel due to poorly targeted lead gen
  efforts,
• solution misalignment, incorrect personas,
  strong
• competitive position, unknown insight.
• Impact
• More wasted sales time
• Inefficient use of marketing budget
• Time not spent on real opportunities
• Inside Sales Treatment
• Leverage skills to beta test markets, accounts,
  personas
• Use dialogue skills to discover insight and
  filter in/out
• Knit one pearl two

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Symptom Bad Contact Data

• No purchasing committee contacts, inaccurate
• contact information, no role-based intelligence,
• insufficient account insight, no
  relationship-mapping.
• Impact
• Sub-optimized lead conversions
• Closed-won revenue deficiency
• Unnecessarily lost opportunities
• Decreased program ROI
• Inside Sales Treatment
• Acquire the right contacts
• Map relationships and buying committee positions
• Identify personas/roles and value prop alignment

All other sales lead conversion practices being
equal, 90 contact record usability rate vs. 75
contact record usability rate yields a closed-won
delta of approximately 30. (Within our client
base we observe usability rates below 75.)
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Symptom Poor Visibility

• No insight into the status of the open
  opportunity, its
• momentum, its probability, competitive
  positioning, its
• alignment with your value propositions.
• Impact
• Inaccurate forecasting
• Unresolved issues (sales rep, pricing, etc.)
• No prescribed next steps
• Inside Sales Treatment
• Get inside and stay inside
• Identify, communicate, analyze and resolve issues
• Use dialogue to eliminate blind spots

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Symptom Un-Nurtured Leads

• Insufficiently touched relationships due to lack
  of
• contact discipline or irrelevant messaging.
• Impact
• Deals go dormant or to competitors
• Loss of sales rep and brand integrity
• Decelerated revenue and pipeline momentum
• Inside Sales Treatment
• Design and execute an integrated touch workflow
• Sustain communication with multiple contacts
• Align the messaging to distinct personas

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Symptom Insufficient Insight

• Lack of understanding about a prospects
  behaviors
• and interests individually and holistically
  across the
• entire account.
• Impact
• Missed opportunity for full deal value
• Unknown contacts deficient mapping
• Misalignment of messaging and solutions
• Inside Sales Treatment
• Look for cues via website behavior tracking (MAT)
• Get access to same BI given to sales rep and
  marketing
• Use the BI to inform your dialogue

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Key Take-Aways

• Pipeline perfection isnt the goal, but the
  conditions can be significantly improved
• Inside Sales has unique talents and capabilities
  that Sales and Marketing can leverage to improve
  the pipeline
• Its not just about the immediate lead its
  about insight, nurturing, and focus on long-term
  opportunities
• Contact data challenges are at the source of many
  symptoms Inside Sales can help resolve

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For More Information
Discussion Questions
Do you have Pipeline Dysfunction? Which of the
symptoms cause you the most pain? Can your
inside sales team help resolve the symptoms?

• Donna Kent
• Senior VP of Global Sales, Marketing Services
• 1 888-787-2829
• Donna.kent_at_televerde.com
• www.televerde.com