When partnering with companies facing stalled sales growth, we typically find a single commonality: these organizations do not have an infrastructure to optimize marketing and sales efforts, and to measure their progression to revenue.
Infrastructure and processes are critical in aligning all functions towards a unified, jointly owned pipeline that is deliberately built, measured, and optimized.
The first step is defining a process that will be consistently followed across the entire revenue pipeline – from marketing to inside sales to sales. Everyone in these functions must commit to the process – so ideally, they are all involved in defining it. This process includes stages, unsuccessful stages, feedback loops, handoff protocol, qualification criteria, and more.
The initial model of your pipeline is based on your defined process and estimates – from your sales target backward. The initial model will tell you what volume of leads and opportunities you should have at every stage of the pipeline to hit your sales target. Goals are set from this model, and it will be validated and optimized over the course of a few sales cycles.
Implement or, if you already have systems in place, architect them to reflect and ensure your desired process, while making them easy to use for your teams. During this phase, it’s important to make sure key characteristics and variables in sales processes, opportunities, and marketing campaigns are captured for performance reporting.
With your process defined in your system, you will now be able to track results. Key here is developing a meaningful and manageable set of reports and dashboards that give visibility into the most important areas of performance. See important metrics such as
The ultimate goal is to understand the marketing investment required to hit your sales goals. That begins and ends with a STRATEGIC ENGINE, bolstered with a commitment to process by marketing, inside sales, and sales teams.
