Sales Enablement Lessons on How to Improve Revenue Predictability
A few years ago, IT outsourcing company CompuCom had a pipeline problem. Its sources of potential new business were in decline making it increasingly difficult to predict revenue and plan for the future. They came to DSG needing a solution to implement and improve their sales enablement efforts. You undoubtedly encounter the same situation in your industry—struggling to forecast revenue one quarter to the next as solid prospects for sales decline. Fortunately, CompuCom implemented a solution that not only grew their pipeline, but also increased their win rates. The lessons learned from their experience are instructive for us all.
3 SALES ENABLEMENT LESSONS FOR IMPROVING REVENUE PREDICTABILITY
Define the Sales Process It’s common to be so focused on getting deals done that a company neglects the creation of processes to make sales efforts more efficient and effective. One such process is the implementation of qualification questions—a defined set of questions your salespeople can use to qualify a prospect. Such a process shifts the sales team to a proactive approach and makes it possible to create a robust pipeline of opportunities in prioritized target accounts. CompuCom created a set of 8 qualification questions in their sales process.
Focus on the Right Sales Deals Within the pipeline, it is critical to discern which deals are valuable and deserve more resources rather than wasting time on deals that are not going to close. A simple way to do this is to rate deals to determine the priorities. Then, each of your salespeople can focus efforts on their top opportunities. For CompuCom, all reps focused on their Top 10.
Deliver the Right Sales Message A prioritized pipeline of opportunities still falls short without delivering the right message. Differentiating your company at the conversation level requires a strategic approach to engage customers in a compelling way. For CompuCom, that meant getting the entire sales team on the same page with playbooks focused on what to say, what to ask, and what to show in a customer meeting. A primary tool with each CompuCom playbook was a “whiteboard” for leading an interactive discussion and “solving problems with a picture.”
In our next post, Implementing Sales Enablement to Improve Revenue Predictability, we’ll look at the results CompuCom enjoyed through the implementation of the process. This week, consider what it would take to get your company applying these three lessons for improving revenue predictability?
