Acquiring Customers

The topic of acquiring enterprise customers has many facets.

Perhaps the first question is: where is your company or department in its quest for new customers? Are you an established provider that has a proven repeatable model? In that case, you should be able to add sales & marketing resources and predict the incremental revenue in a known time frame. This is the Execution Phase. The goals of the Execution Phase are revenue growth and market domination.

If you are just entering a market, it is important to understand that your goals for new customers must be very different. The most important contribution that first customers in a new market (for you) can make is to give you their time to help you develop your technology into a product/solution/service that the market needs. More information on Entering New Markets.

Your value has been proven and reference-ability established with your Development Partner Customers in the Learning Phase.

As Geoffrey Moore has pointed out in “Crossing the Chasm”, the Majority in a market do not buy on features. They make purchase decisions according to need and the relative value (not price) of the project alternatives available. The transition from features-oriented selling to solution / value-based selling is critical for success in the Execution Phase. The transformation has to occur throughout the organization. It should be driven out of Marketing and executed by both Marketing and Sales. More information on Developing Clear Value Propositions.

In the Execution Phase, you are seeking revenue growth and market domination. Sales is very transaction-oriented with repeatable models and measurement is according to key metrics. You are cross-selling and up-selling, as well as acquiring new customers. Typically, Enterprise Sales teams are organized into Hunters for new account sales and Farmers for existing account expansion. Another common approach is to use Inside Sales for smaller accounts plus renewals and some expansion sales. Field/Major Account Sales are focused on larger strategic accounts.

Growth Process Group offers a Sales Assessment service to identify the strengths and weaknesses in your capabilities for adding new customers. All major areas affecting sales are examined, including: value propositions, sales process, target market focus, sales organization structure, positioning, sales resource quality, marketing program effectiveness, new product introduction process, sales rep characteristics, team chemistry, customer support, infrastructure, etc. Contact Chuck DeVita for information on the Sales Assessment.

Lead generation and qualification according to your Target Markets and your Ideal Customer Criteria is very important. Many organizations require their field reps to generate their prospects. This is very costly and demoralizing to sales reps. There are several new technology approaches for generating new opportunities. Refer to Anneke Seley’s book “Sales 2.0”, for insight on these. We find that companies often do not adequately understand the number of suspects required to meet the sales goals. This results in high selling costs. We have developed quantitative models to define customized Pipeline Requirements for each client. To learn more, contact Chuck DeVita.

Selling Methodologies have to be implemented so that there is a common vernacular and understanding of the sales process by the various entities that engage with prospects. We are often “asked what is the right methodology for our company?” Any methodology, when consistently applied, can yield significant sales productivity benefits. The challenge is the consistent application. VPs of Sales are often unable or unwilling to be passionate missionaries for a new approach. This is primarily due to the focus on short term bookings. When the top executives are not committed to the new approach, sales reps quickly sense that and do not pay attention to it. For more information on sales methodologies, contact Chuck DeVita.

Sales Enablement and CRM: While companies have typically implemented some kind of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution, there is a growing awareness that while CRM provides information to management, it does little to help the sales person sell better and faster. Sales Enablement is a new concept that is focused on improving the productivity of individual sales people. Several SaaS (Software as a Service) companies are working on approaches. These are mostly point product/service offerings (sometimes described as “Sales 2.0) at this time, without sufficient emphasis on sales process and workflow.

Sales Process: You have likely seen or developed a Sales Cycle Model that looks something like the example below. In it, several steps are listed with the sales objective and perhaps assumptions on close probability.

Sales Cycle Model

A better approach is to measure position in a sales cycle according to customer commitment. With this approach, the “Sales Action” is shown and as well as the desired “Buyer Action” at that step. When you measure deal status according to Buyer Commitment, you get much clearer visibility into your pipeline and improved Forecast Accuracy.

It is important to acknowledge that not all sales processes are the same. There are dependencies, delays and loops. An approach for expressing these issues is the Sales Process Flow Chart. The acceptable alternate paths for proceeding to a Close are described. The conditions for stopping the sales process are also defined. Implementing rules for when and how to stop unlikely sales cycles is a key to increasing sales productivity.

For a discussion on improving your Sales Productivity, contact Chuck DeVita.

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