In today’s edition, we explore why you HAVE to get clever about measuring the different stages of the sales journey that your prospects go on and where in the pipeline you have the sales problem. Let’s get to it.
Hello Reader,
We lost a customer a few weeks ago, and it annoyed me. I have a business which provides calling services to companies who want to generate new leads (contact me if that’s something you need help with 😊), and we are good at what we do.
The guys have been trained by me, and they know how to generate meetings with cold prospects.
But when I spoke to the customer, they said to me that they had been unable to close 7 of the meetings that were booked for that month and therefore things weren’t working.
I was a bit shocked.
We had worked hard to generate these meetings, and I had listened to some of the calls myself. It wasn’t a slam dunk deal, but the prospect was intrigued as to what our client could offer and had agreed to a 20-minute meeting.
If you aren’t aware, this is good.
No prospect is generally going to buy straight off the bat, and so the best you can hope for is ‘more time’ to get to know them better and develop the relationship.
But the prospect said that the leads weren’t of good quality, and they weren’t converting, so they were going to stop.
Frustrated, I decided it was time to do a bit of digging.
I asked my team for a recording of the 20-minute call that had been set up and watched to see how it went. Mainly so that I could provide some feedback to my team on how they could improve.
When I started to watch the call, though, I realised that we WERE NOT the problem.
The problem was with HOW the call was being handled.
After 30 seconds of saying hello, the salesperson at our customer launched straight into full-on sales mode.
He started with ‘Let me take you through our solution and what we offer’ , and after 10 minutes of talking, he asked the prospect, “What do you think? Could this work for you?”
I cringed. I felt embarrassed for him.
I saw the prospect politely say that he thought the meeting was an exploratory one so that he could understand more about the solution and talk through where it could POTENTIALLY fit.
He wasn’t against buying, but he certainly wasn’t going to be buying there and then.
Feeling disappointed that he wasn’t going to get a sale there and then, the salesperson looked frustrated and ended the call within a few minutes.
I was stunned.
It was clear.
We weren’t the problem.
I listened to another meeting just in case this one meeting had been a blip, but no. Different lead and person, but the same blunt and (quite frankly) terrible approach to discovery calls.
The 7 leads we had created were decent.
The problem was lower down the funnel, and in how the salesperson had engaged with them.
I thought I had to share this with the MD. I called him and said that the problem was not with the leads but in how they were being handled. Sadly, though, by that stage he had lost interest and still wanted to cancel.
I was frustrated and told him he would get a lot of failures unless he fixed this, but it was too late.
We hadn’t fixed the RIGHT problem, and it cost us.
So, what’s the moral of this story?
You should have a very clear sales funnel and process, and you should spend time looking at and measuring each step in the funnel.
It could be that the problem is with the quality of the leads, but it could also be in the way in which discovery calls are being handled, or how the stage after that is being looked at.
Within so much of the work I do, I see that salespeople handle new leads poorly.
They don’t ask questions, dig into what the prospect wants to see and find out what made the person want to have a meeting.
I estimate that around 90% of salespeople go straight into Sales-Mode, which means pitching and talking rather than asking and listening.
This approach will cost you more often than not, but the key is to find out where the problem is in your funnel.
Measure and review what’s happening at each stage and see where you can make improvements.
If you don’t, you could end up making a huge mistake as this MD has. He was not focusing on the right area. We weren’t the problem, but his sales team were.
How can you fix this?
- Be curious to know what your conversion rate is for each stage of your funnel.
- Be curious as to what the averages are for each stage.
- Be curious and listen to your own sales team’s calls.
- Be curious and ask experts to review your calls and process if something isn’t working.
The key is don’t ASSUME you know where the problem is. Do the work and FIND OUT where the problem is. Otherwise it can cost you in the long run.
Have a brilliant week ahead and see you next Saturday.
Remember, you have a choice. Eat or be Eaten.
James
