The Sales Acceleration Formula

Sales face unprecedented challenges for organisations and salespeople. 

• One reason is the massive increase in competition. The average company today has twice as many competitors as five years ago.
• The other reason is that relying on innovation to beat competition has a diminishing window of opportunity. In previous years, innovation could give you a year or two advantage. Now, you’re lucky if you have a few months at most.

That is why many leading companies focus on organic growth by using sales and marketing. However, the trick is how to pull it off successfully.

1. “Hire the same successful salesperson every time.” (The Sales Hiring Formula)
2. “Train every salesperson in the same way.” (The Sales Training Formula)
3. “Hold our salespeople accountable to the same sales process.” (The Sales Management Formula)
4. “Provide our salespeople with the same quality and quantity of leads every month.” (The Demand Generation Formula)

• Create a theory of the ideal sales characteristics, then score every candidate for each characteristic on a scale of 1 to 10.
• Define an evaluation strategy for each characteristic. Consider what behavioural questions to ask.
• Score candidates against the ideal sales characteristics. For example, fill out the interview scorecards after each interview.
• Learn and iterate on the model while engineering the sales hiring formula. Which characteristics do top performers have in common and will it predict success at your company?

1. Coachability: The ability to absorb and apply coaching.
2. Curiosity: Understanding a potential customer’s context through effective questioning and listening.
3. Prior Success: Does the candidate have a history of top performance or remarkable achievement?
4. Intelligence: The ability to learn complex concepts quickly and to easily communicate those concepts.
5. Work ethic: Pursuing the company mission with a high degree of energy and activity.

• Find quality passive sales candidates on LinkedIn. Use filters to improve search results, such as Zip code, job title, school, company. Screen the search results using the candidate’s LinkedIn Profile. Look at longevity at their employers, alignment between the prospect’s current buyer context and our buyer context, school and major, quality of the LinkedIn profile.
• Engage with the prescreened candidates.
• Understand the sales talent pool in your area. Find all the companies with inside sales teams in your area. Interview at least one person from each team.

Three elements of the sales methodology:

• The buyer journey: It increases the likelihood that the buyer’s need will remain centre during all aspects of the selling process. 
• Sales process: The sales team can step back and reflect on how to accelerate the buying journey.
• Qualifying matrix: It defines the information you need from a potential buyer to understand if you can help the prospective buyer. Use the BANT matrix (Budget, Authority, Need, and Timing)

Sales coaching is vital to drive sales productivity.

• Start with the buying journey. Look into examples of the questions buyers ask at each stage of the buying journey.
• Add exams that focus on factual information, such as product knowledge and certifications to the training process.
• When a hire is on the job for six months, ask him to complete a review of the sales training program. 
• Give salespeople an in-depth understanding of your buyer’s day-to-day existence.
• Salespeople should take some time to engage in social media.

Metrics-driven sales coaching. Pick one skill at a time to focus on. Use metrics to find which skill will have the biggest impact on a salesperson’s performance.

Motivate through sales compensation plans and contests. There are many ways you can develop your commission plan. However, it is best to let it evolve as your business grows. To keep salespeople motivated, run monthly contests.

Convert from cold calling to inbound. To make this transition, salespeople should position themselves as thought leaders using blogs and social media.

Once the leads come, do not send every lead to sales. Instead, create a buyer matrix to understand who is interested in your product and how they journey before purchasing. When you understand your buyer's journey, you can create a customised experience.

Marketing and sales can measure their performance and hold each other accountable.

• Marketing teams should define how many leads in each buyer persona they are passing on to sales and should be able to calculate the implied value.
• The sales team must decide how to follow up with each lead and work toward the conversion goal.