The Road from $0 to $20 Million: Refining the Sales Process
Ricky Cookson
Foundational sales processes are a cornerstone of successful sales teams. But too often, the necessities of expansion and speed-to-market hinder the ability to scale processes in succession with a company’s growth. The saying “what got us here won’t get us there” is as relevant to sales processes as it is to any other aspect of business growth.
The companies that continuously adjust their sales processes and operations in conjunction with their development are en route to revenue growth.
In our series on The Road From $0 to $20 Million, Skaled hosted three webinars that focused heavily on process needs at each stage of growth. Joined by our incredible team of consultants, Jake Dunlap ran through a series of hard-hitting questions to shine a light on the critical needs for fulfilling and executing successful sales processes.
As we say in The Road From $0 to $20 Million, “evaluating your sales process and the efficacy of your sales team is a central part of scaling your business.”
But, how is the sales process defined? What are the distinguishable qualities that set apart great processes from faltering ones? Our conversations with each consultant highlighted the differences and targeted essential topics, including:
- How sales teams can better understand their buyers and build playbooks around them
- Incorporating the right channels for modern outbound
- What it takes to execute an account plan that incentives your sales team from top to bottom
Related Content: The Road from $0 to $20 Million: What Breaks Along The Way & What to Do About It
Defining the Sales Process: Sales Playbooks
Guests: Deb Berman & Taylor Davis
Your sales playbook defines your sales process step by step and includes every document your sales team needs to sell. It’s also your best tool to get new sales reps up to speed.
A typical playbook may include tactics for approaching customers at every stage of the funnel and information on ICPs, buyer personas, and sales enablement content.
“Your playbook allows you to own the sales process, own the calls, and guide your buyers through the funnel and close deals.” – Deb Berman, Founder and Advisor at DB Sales Coaching
If your sales playbook is merely a gathering of buyer personas and email messaging, you need to rebuild it.
A sales rep should have their playbook as their go-to roadmap for all things company, product, and sales. It’s not simply a list of best practices or preferred outreach methods; your playbook is the practice.
Taylor and Deb also emphasize the importance of fluidity and adoption in playbooks. Buyers change, available technology changes, and so should your playbook.
After developing a playbook within your sales org:
- Be on the lookout for optimizations and improvements (yes, managers, we’re looking at you).
- If certain activities aren’t working, pinpoint the issue and find a solution.
- If adoption is low, find a new format that’ll increase awareness and applicability.
Playbooks are all about function, but they’ll fall short of their purpose if they’re just another deck in the drive.
Defining the Sales Process: Modern Outbound Sales Plays
Guest: Hannah Ajikawo
Hannah and Jake dove right into one of the most influential drivers of modern outbound sales plays: creativity. Engaging with buyers today revolves around approaching your buyers in innovative ways. Although cold email and calls have their place, the rise in digital selling has pushed salespeople into untapped areas of the game. In many ways, modern outbound is one of the most exciting aspects of sales today.
“Buyers don’t want to talk to salespeople … so we need to get creative with how we’re doing outbound to try and break through the monotony.” – Hannah Ajikawo, Founder & Sales Consultant at Growth Mode Ltd.
Traditional tactics still work; we don’t want to knock tried-and-true sales plays. But the reality is that buyers are looking for people who
- understand their business,
- and 80% of interactions between sellers and buyers will occur in digital channels by 2025.
Buyers expect sellers to have taken the time to research themselves, their role, and their company and then find the modes that appeal to them the most.
Hannah and Jake ran through numerous ways to meet buyers where they’re at with modern digital selling plays: LinkedIn posting, video, Clubhouse Rooms, direct sending, and more. Understanding your customer’s needs is the first step. Understanding how to deliver value to them is the next.
Defining the Sales Process: Account Segmentation & Territory Planning
Guests: Krissy Manzano & Mike Racz
Account planning and territory planning are central to growing your business. For sales teams growing beyond the benchmark of $5-10 million, both approaches to segmentation help align an organization’s sales team with growth targets.
“Territory planning ensures that sales folks are focusing on addressable markets within a region or an area so you can scale without getting caught up.” – Krissy Manzano, CEO and Co-Founder at Blueprint Expansion
Not only does territory planning open an avenue of opportunities across regions, but it also helps with customer service and workloads among reps. Similarly, account planning builds consistency for sales reps at every level. It gives them a clear understanding of what accounts they’re going after, day-to-day activities, key messaging at different account levels, and more.
“Without account planning, you really don’t have an understanding of what you’re doing on a day-to-day, week-to-week, and month-to-month basis. Contact strategy, multithreading strategy, attack process, cadences — all of that is rolled up into your account strategy.” – Mike Racz, Consulting Operations, Skaled
Both account planning and territory planning play a key role in well-designed sales processes. As a company grows from one revenue stage to the other, both of these become increasingly important.
Refine Your Sales Processes and Hit Your Targets
The sales process can be defined as the interlacing of playbooks, outbound, and account segmentation. However, the true essence of each of these strategies and practices are incredibly dense with numerous facets attached to each. These pieces of effective sales processes are merely touched on here.
In the Road from $0 to $20 Million Playbook, we’ve delved deep into each part of successful sales processes, offering templates and examples along the way. If you’re on the road from $0-5 million, $5-10 million, or $10-20 million, we have the resources to get you to your destination.
