No matter how amazing your product is, without adequate marketing and proper sales funnel your start-up will be as good as a boat in open waters with a tiny hole in the bottom. A clearly defined sales process that can be repeated time and time again to convert leads into paying customers will drive steady revenue growth.
In a startup, you will likely have to build your sales funnel from scratch. But that’s okay! By implementing some of the practices used by experts, you can quickly develop a repeatable sales process that gives your team the tools for creating a result-driven funnel:
DISTINCTLY DEFINE THE QUALIFYING CRITERIA FOR LEADS.
Most startups have a niche for audience that they are looking to target. But for a successful sales process, one must take it to the next level by determining the qualifying criteria for leads. In a survey hosted by BrightTalk, 68% of B2B professionals cited “increasing the quality of leads” as their top priority.
The criteria of defining a quality lead should focus on key question like if the product/service solves the customer issues, helps them save time and money, benefits them and is available to them when ordered. These traits indicate that a lead is more likely, a good fit that will benefit from your product or service. Entrepreneur and author Ksenia Andreeva recommends scoring leads on a scale of one to five in the categories of need, interest, decision timeframe, budget and authority role. Leads with scores over 20 are considered a “Hot Lead”, while those with score of 6 or less should be ignored.
IMPROVE FORECASTING ACCURACY BY DEFINING SALES STAGES
Predicting accurate forecast revenue can make a huge difference for your ability to manage cash flow. But unfortunately, many startups struggle to generate an accurate forecast when revenue is dependent on closing deals. Therefore it is crucial to define each stage of sales process, as well as the “exit criteria” that indicates when a lead has moved on. Doing so can efficiently streamline sales forecasting.
Well-defined exit criteria can help your sales team know the initial stage at where the lead is. With this information in hand, it can become easier to forecast revenue.
CONTINUE TO NURTURE EVEN AFTER CONVERSION.
It might feel flattering after converting a lead into a paying customer, but that is not where the sales process ends. Retaining and nurturing a customer can be beneficiary to the company in the long run.
Nurturing converted leads improves retention, creates new up-selling opportunities and can even fetch some qualified referrals. Studies from Harvard School of Business have found that as low as 5% increase in client retention can increase profitability by 25%-95%, depending on the industry.
Retargeting existing customers can boost the sales as there is already an established trust when it comes to products/services. Helping relationship can subconsciously trigger into helping a customer becoming a repeatable buyer, and this can ultimately allow you to close for more sales than if your efforts are focused on acquiring new clients.
REFINE YOUR SALES PITCH BASED ON THE CUSTOMER FEEDBACK.
There is no guarantee that a hot lead will turn into a paying customer. Your sales process is never truly “finalized”, as there will always be areas which you can improved to better conversion rates. The sales process is the one under constant iteration, with everything from emails to sales scripts, decoding the latest trends, visual appeal and mouth of word; it is never a straight line.
Different products require different methods to get a quality feedback that fuel iterations. Knowing what the customers liked or disliked about the product, can give crucial insight on areas of improvement. Quantitative data (such as A/B split testing emails) will give a big picture of what’s more appealing to the lead for future reference.
Always make sure that the data collected is viewed from a proper perspective. In a blog post by Cameron Chapman says that “If one email leads to 15% of readers clicking through to your website and another one leads to 18%, then the second email can fetch 50% more leads/conversion than the first one. But that’s not always the case.
It is important that your message in the mail clearly depicts and correlates the one on your website. If you have an ongoing special offer in your mail but not the same on your website, chances are you will lose the customers trust and sale.
