In this series we are discussing straightforward actions that selling organizations, management and sales people can take to better deliver corporate and individual results.  

ACTION EIGHT - Equip Sales To Have Success at Key Inflection Points

A sale, like any other endeavor has key milestones that can be used to judge progress and to measure effectiveness along the way.  At ShadeTree, we call these milestones "inflection" points.  Examples of inflection points in a sale are:

• Initial call
• Presentation
• Demo
• Proposal
• Approval

Are you unable to do the following in Salesforce.com?

• Run a report on how many of your Leads and Contacts have never responded to a campaign.
• Send nurtured Leads and Contacts back to sales when they view a webinar or respond to another high-value campaign.
• Sort your Leads and Contacts so you can see which ones acted most recently.
• Report on how many of your Leads haven't received a follow-up since they responded to a campaign?

If so, you're not alone. Several of our customers have asked about ways to do things like the above. And unfortunately, the answer is to write some code. Fortunately, it's very simple code in the form of an Apex Trigger, and I've written it out here to show you how to do it.

In this series we are discussing straightforward actions that selling organizations, management and sales people can take to better deliver corporate and individual results.  

ACTION SEVEN - Work on Something Game-Changing

Too often the drift of sales management and sales performers alike is to hammer away at our rock pile... which we call a pipeline... searching for, qualifying and developing new prospects into completed deals each quarter... and then repeating the process over again... for years and years.

"Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing."
Albert Schweitzer (1875 - 1965) 
Alsatian theologian and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize

Every team looks to its leader for guidance, inspiration and strength.  A big part of that responsibility is to lead by example.  So what does leading by example look like in a sales organization? 

We've already talked about how to define your lead qualification process, set it up in Salesforce, and prioritize your calls. Here's a list of key metrics that will help you make important decisions, keep your data clean, and make sure your company is successful.

Lead Pipeline

Just like field sales keeps an eye on their Opportunity Pipeline, inside sales should keep an eye on their Lead Pipeline. Salesforce has some great new funnel charts which make this really easy. Or you can use a bar chart and color code it by who owns the leads. Use this chart to make sure that Leads aren't getting stuck or piled up in one owner. For example, in the chart below, there are almost 1,000 Targeted Leads assigned to one person (represented by the blue section). We may need to see if this person is going to be able to follow up with all of these Leads in a timely manner, otherwise we can redistribute some of them.

In this series we are discussing straightforward actions that selling organizations, management and sales people can take to better deliver corporate and individual results. 

ACTION SIX - Use a Powerful Story to Selling Advantage

As we have discussed previously, selling based on product capabilities and features is rarely successful.  This approach has little to offer the salesperson striving for excellence and an extraordinary paycheck, the sales organization striving for better margins or the companies that desire to reach "key supplier" status with their customers.

In the selling process, the sales conversation is one of the most important ingredients, yet it’s given very little attention.  When following up with a new lead, how much preparation is really made in your organization?  How much preparation should be required?  What can be done to make that a relatively easy process?  And who’s responsible for this preparation - does it go beyond the salesperson?

Earlier in this series we showed you how to define your process and setup your process in Salesforce. If you're like most companies, each rep has hundreds or thousands of leads, but only has enough time to make 50-100 calls per day. In this post we'll discuss how to prioritize your calls to make the most out of each day.

When planning for a day, here's a list of things each rep should go through to figure out who to call:

1.  Calendar: This ones fairly obvious, but when setting up views and dashboards for your reps, it's important to keep in mind.

In this series we are discussing straightforward actions that selling organizations, management and sales people can take to better deliver corporate and individual results.  

ACTION FIVE - Start Being More Consultative - Today

Want to know the best way to get a prospect to call you back or respond to an email?

Communicate in simple language how your solution helps your prospect: 

• Improve or better execute their business strategy
• Lower the risk of achieving their business strategy
• Solve a problem that is impacting their business strategy

Since the Salesforce Spring '10 release is coming out this Friday, February 5th, I decided to take a break from my Lead Qualification in Salesforce.com series and talk a little bit about the features that are coming out.

 Like most of the Salesforce Spring releases, this one isn't too heavy on functionality, but here are 5 things that might help your sales organization.

Read the full release notes for all the new features, and details on how to set these up for your organization.