In under 5-years time I had spent 20+ weeks being trained to be a super-human sales machine using methods from the premiere training programs of the day, SPIN, Relationship-selling, Major Account Management, etc. etc....I could profile accounts using "blue-sheets", cold call my way into almost any account, handle every objection, and track all my opportunities using activity driven sales stage definitions from a variety of sales methodologies (see below).
SALES STAGES:
- Prospecting
- Qualification
- Requirements gathering
- Solution Development
- Proposal presentation
- Negotiate & Close
- Recycle and expand
At the time I had everything I needed to be a successful individual contributor and could ask for nothing more.
As is often the case, as a successful individual contributor I was promoted to manage a sales team, then a region, and eventually rose to the ranks of Director, VP of Sales & Marketing, etc. in various organizations. It was not until my responsibilities grew to combine Sales and Marketing that I realized what the best sales training programs, pipeline management systems, CRM tools, etc were missing. No one was tracking, or for that matter even responsible for, strengthening the inactive prospect relationship. In today's marketing lingo we call it Lead Nurturing, Lead Recycling, etc. Whatever you label it none of the sales processes and tools of 5 years ago provided a way to systematically drive and track "strengthening the relationship" with non-active prospects. Even today most of systems and processes organizations employ simply have an option to select "Inactive" in the CRM drop down menu for prospect disposition.
In defense of the sales trainers, sales managers, and sales force automation software firms, sales has been, and always will be, about the here and now. Active, accurate, and full pipelines leading to quarterly sales plan achievement is what it is all about. In defense of marketing; brand, lead generation, and positioning drive the day. What is indefensible is that people like myself, and people much, much, smarter than I, have let "strengthening inactive prospect relationships" fall through the cracks of our multi-million dollar systems, PHD driven processes, and continuous eduction programs.
To use a farming analogy, as sales and marketing leaders we are guilty of spending ever increasing amounts of time, money, and intellectual resources to increase the size of our fields in order to harvest a larger crop YoY. We spend money on better chain saws to clear cut more forest, we spend on new irrigation systems to get water to the new field cut from the forest, and we spend more on equipment and people to ensure we can cover our ever increasing acreage. Unlike real farmers of today, we spend very little of our resources on processes, systems, and technology to increase the yield from our current acreage by strengthening the relationship with the prospects and "lost" opportunities we already have.
Of course many of you reading this with a marketing background/role are now shaking your head at me saying to yourself, "my organization has been investing heavily in the area of lead nurturing, recycling, and profiling to increase our yields." The problem, until Marketing and Sales, together, have defined metric driven success measurements, implemented systematic processes that encompass both organizations, and defined end-to-end operating methodologies to execute prospect strengthening activities you will not succeed. Your intentions to increase yield per acre are there but you are, to go back to farming, like a farmer who has laid down the best quality seed and fertilizer to ensure yield increase but not necessarily selected the right crop to grow based on the market conditions or ensured the irrigation system will work when you need it to.
A quick test to know if you are there? Look in your CRM system with a sales rep at your side and ask him/her to show you the pull down menu for prospect disposition. If they do not have an option to select (STRENGTHENING RELATIONSHIP), (NURTURING), or something very similar your are not. You don't have to go look to know the answer do you? You have a slight variation of the (7) steps listed in the top of this article just as I use to.
