Key learnings heading into 2024

In the last 12 months we’ve worked with 20 customers on improving their sales leadership capability and enabling them to have predictable, sustainable revenue.

We've presented at countless events on Sales Leadership or Growing revenue.

We’ve also run two separate surveys.  The first was with a large group of Founders looking for capital and the second has just been done on LinkedIn.

Some fascinating results.  Firstly a summary of the two surveys then we'll look at the impact on revenue and conclusions to help you into 2024.

LinkedIn Survey Nov-Dec 2023

Question 1 – What is your perspective on your own sales team’s capability?

Question 2 - How do you use templates for customer presentations and proposals?

Question 3 - How easy is it to get a demo or a proposal from you? (Are you busy or effective?)

What we did not do on the LinkedIn survey is try ask about the performance of the sales teams in those that responded. It’s a public environment and asking that type of question is not appropriate on that platform.

Founder Survey Mar-Apr 2023

In the first survey, it was much more private and we did ask about performance and we were able to get some strong correlations that we can apply retrospectively to the LinkedIn responses.

Question 1 – What is the lowest level of sales planning in your business?

Question 2 – Do you have a structured methodology for analysing an opportunity? (The difference between a Sales Process, Sales Methodology and Sales Framework)

Question 3 – Do you demo the product/solution in the first meeting?

Question 4 – Do you have a standard demo/preso/proposal template?

Question 5 – Did your revenue increase in the last 12 months?

SDC Customer Benchmarks Jan-Dec 2023

In addition to these surveys, we also do a 70-point benchmark on our clients at the start of our engagement so we can set a baseline and diagnose the priority areas to work on. In the 20 customers we’ve worked with in the last 12 months, the following stands out.

Finding 1 – What is the lowest level of sales planning in your business?

Finding 2 – Is there a structured methodology for analysing an opportunity?

Finding 3 – Do they demo the product/solution in the first meeting?

Finding 4 – Do they use a standard demo/preso/proposal template?

Relationships with the data

What do we learn from these behaviours, habits, processes in relation to performance?

Relationship 1 - Sales Plans

If you have specific sales plan there is an 80% positive correlation to revenue growth.
If you do not have a specific sales plan there is a 50% correlation to revenue growth.
The conclusion is you have an 80% chance of revenue growth if you plan for it, but if you don’t you are only a 50% chance of revenue growth. So have a specific sales plan for next year.

Relationship 2 - Sales Methodology (Qualification)

If you have a structured qualification/deal methodology there is an 70% positive correlation to revenue growth.
If you do not have a structured qualification/deal methodology there is a 50% correlation to revenue growth.
The conclusion is you have a 70% chance of revenue growth if you qualify deals properly and use the methodology to have a structured approach to any deals qualified in, but if you don’t you are only a 50% chance of revenue growth. So implement a structured sales methodology.

Relationship 3 - Demo on the first date

If you do not demo in the first meeting there is an 95% positive correlation to revenue growth.
If you demo in the first meeting there is a 40% correlation to revenue growth.
The conclusion is you have an 95% chance of revenue growth if you don’t demo in the first meeting, but if you do you are only a 40% chance of revenue growth. So make it harder to get a demo from now on.

Relationship 4 - Templates

If you do not use templates there is an 65% positive correlation to revenue growth.
If you use templates there is a 33% correlation to revenue growth.
The conclusion is you have an 65% chance of revenue growth if you don’t use templates, but if you do you are a 33% chance of revenue growth. Stop using templates, or at least include configuration for each opportunity in the template.

Conclusions and Learnings to take in to 2024

Conclusions from the surveys and our experience over the last 30 years as sales leaders and the last 4 years in Sales Director Central working with over 80 companies in that time.

Conclusion 1 - Sales Plan

Hope is not a strategy. Many sales teams and individuals in those teams hope to make their number. High-performance sales teams plan to make a team number, plan to make each individual’s target, and plan on success in key accounts and key deals.  High-performance sales teams plan for sales success at all levels in the sales hierarchy (down to target accounts at least).

Conclusion 2 - Help customers buy

No-one cares about your product or service. They have a problem, a pain, an issue that needs to be fixed. They will exchange money with you if you solve that problem – the sales value exchange. Don’t lead with a product demo as this only does one thing – it shows how much you know about your own product. It makes the customer guess how it applies to their specific issue.

Our job as a sales team is to help the customer make the right buying decision. And if we understand their problem better than they do, we have the right to help them make that buying decision. This does not come from doing a demo up front.

We also show how much we know about our product or service by using a template proposal. We built that template to make OUR job easier. It makes the sales team “customer lazy”. Roll out the standard template demo/preso/proposal and it shows the customer how much we know about them – nothing. Templates are about US. Selling is about the CUSTOMER. Have re-usable components but don’t let templates make you “customer lazy”.

Conclusion 3 - Don't be easy

If we bring all this together, we are best to make it hard for a customer to get a demo or to receive a proposal. It’s not about making the customer work harder, it’s about us working harder. We need to be sure the demo is fit for the specific customer problem. We then need to work hard to understand their problems, understand they have a budget, need to do something now, and can make a decision now. Then prepare the right demo.

Same for proposals. If all this is not satisfied, and if the customer hasn’t told you that the value is there in your solution, then why are we doing a proposal? Often, it’s to tick a box in your own sales process – Proposal Submitted. How about changing that to “Proposal requested by a qualified customer”?

High-performance sales teams are effective and do not measure “busy”. One of our customers told us “I am now doing half as many demos and twice as much revenue and I’m no where near as busy as I used to be”. That could be you.

Please contact us if you need help with any of these areas. A proven sales framework is the key to building and managing a high-performance sales team.