Go To Market Checklist to create a scalable sales engine.
Every business wants an up-to-date scaleable high-performance sales engine.
The game’s rules change rapidly as your ideal buyers become more educated and sophisticated and increasingly decline to meet people face-to-face.
Focusing on your potential buyers’ business outcomes (how much you will save them or increase their margins and revenue) is essential – now, to achieve new revenue, an understanding of how the market has changed in new ways is critical.
I’ve compiled a checklist for your review and comparison with your team.
How do you know you have problems?
- Declining win rates, Rising churn,
- Can’t get the attention of your ideal buyers – case studies and sales content not being read,
- Low engagement with potential ideal buyers,
- Can’t get your foot in the door – not on the buyer’s consideration list,
- Repeating the same tedious steps and getting little interest,
What do top-tier buyers want?
McKinsey reports that all five of these must-dos in combination must be present today,
- Performance guarantees – 78% of buyers want this,
- Real-time, always-on customer service – 72%
- Product availability online – 74%
- Consistent experience across all channels -72%
- Ability to purchase from any channel – 72%
It is reasonable to assume all buyers, regardless of size, will want these five steps – is your business providing these steps?
How do you find more ideal buyers?
- Move beyond traditional buyer data to find trigger moments to engage with potential buyers at the right time,
- Tracking potential buyers hiring patterns indicate new discussions, new insights opportunities,
- New data sources include geospatial, tracking changes to consumer locations, customer and competitor traffic numbers, and financial, consumer, and business data – there is no shortage of data available,
- A deeper understanding of your potential buyer’s regulatory, technological understanding and sophistication, recent acquisitions, and publicly announced strategic initiatives.
- A better understanding of their buyer personas and market dynamics impacting them,
What’s more critical – marketing or sales?
It’s the wrong question – research consistently shows that combining marketing and sales into a single unit Revenue Operation (RevOps) will likely drive higher performance.
Has the sales funnel concept changed?
From a sales funnel to a customer buying journey mindset, sales and marketing teams work together and understand where buyers are in real-time and the following steps to assist in their journey and influence their decision-making process. With
- Personalised value propositions,
- Tailored pitches
Increased market share results – increasing personalised marketing content.
1) The more personalised the marketing content, the better. McKinsey reports that there is a clear performance link between the two.
2) The bar for B2B content that lifts revenue is higher today. It captures attention and engagement – it’s visually attractive and exciting, removing complexity,
3) Building more trust by displaying credibility and deep expertise, building a bridge with your potential ideal buyers – they get an end-to-end partner helping deliver their future outcomes (rather than a shopping list of features or capabilities)
Is your business multichannel – your buyers are.
McKinsey reports that B2B customers now often use more than nine and up to 20 channels on their buying journeys.
- Email, phone, SMS, websites, social media channels, web chat, mobile apps and many more,
- Many will close deals over $500,000 without meeting the seller in person.
- Buyers now self-serve – choosing the speed and the direction of their self-education about your industry, competitors and your products and services,
- It is now critical to learn to read buyers’ physical and virtual signals as they self-educate and understand what content and interventions might assist further at each stage of their journey,
Have you got the best talent?
McKinsey reports that Companies with the best sales talent demonstrate four to five times higher market growth.
Changes in learning and development to assist upskilling include
- Integrating micro-learning—snackable content that has immediate relevance,
- Move away from lengthy and often dull sales training,
- Training via virtual platforms is successful,
- Changes in the way buyers – buy – changes the skill sets of salespeople – now, they need to be more analytical and strategic, with more profound technical skills,
- Able to find insights, stay ahead of the buyer, strategise next steps, and provide the best solutions often in real-time,
- Capable of explaining to a potential buyer how your products and services will enhance their profit and loss statement,
Is your business excelling at each step?
Capturing more demand today relies on capturing more attention and engagement of your ideal future buyers.
This two-minute video explains how to achieve this quickly – build attention, trust, credibility and revenue.
VIDEO
More ways to lift demand generation
Regards
David
