Companies invest heavily in CRM and sales automation technologies, yet the B2B sales process often remains disjointed and opaque. Sales leaders must prioritize closing the current quarter (CQ) and CQ + 1 while also ensuring their teams cultivate a robust pipeline that yields results in 9-24 months.
During periods of corporate transformation, such as the adoption of new solutions or the reshuffling of priorities – a common occurrence for nearly all companies – leaders often find themselves in the dark about whether their teams are executing these strategies until several months or quarters later. This results in missed opportunities, revenue loss, and decreases predictability in pipeline conversion.
Another common scenario is the pursuit of revenue expansion through mergers and acquisitions. When companies or portfolios unite due to synergies, teams often struggle to generate new pipelines promptly, primarily due to disparities in culture and go-to-market (GTM) approaches.
In a company where I had the privilege of working, it grew rapidly thru multiple acquisitions. Each business group (BU), responsible for its portfolio of products, approached field sales with its distinct GTM strategy. Each BU’s priority ranked high, driven by the desire to maximize its P&L, often leading to a lack of alignment around a unified, customer-centric approach across the entire organization.
The implementation of a Sales Plays System can address these challenges. This system brings coordinated efforts across corporate and field functions including products, marketing, sales, finance, operations, customer success and partners, to devise and execute sales plays.
Successful sales plays bring clarity to how employees convey the company’s value proposition to customers, simplifies the task of coaching sales teams for leaders, and generates reliable leading indicators and detailed guidance on the optimal next steps.
A survey published by Bain & Company reveals that companies consistently excelling in revenue growth and market share gain are 2.7 times more likely than the laggards to outperform. Here are share five critical aspects implemented at my company relate to sales plays.
Data Precision
Rather than assessing the potential upside for a product in aggregate, focus on examining the current and potential spend for each customer account. At my company, we implemented Customer Journey Analytics, tools or dashboards that consolidate disparate data from multiple data sources, enabling sales rep to analyze a customer’s past spending, current install base, usage or consumption data, and the likelihood of upgrades or purchase based on several indicators. Specific data, such as a ranked list of accounts with a high propensity to upgrade, is far more productive than a generic ‘sell to all accounts’ approach. Additionally, aligning with customer’s business objectives through a Business Alignment Document (BAD) (coming soon) can facilitate stakeholders alignment, both internally and with a customer, to achieve desired outcomes.
Command Center Establishment
Leading sales operations teams attribute 60% or more of their total pipeline in any quarter to actively designed and deployed sales plays, according to Bain & Company. A command center plays a vital role in tracking and managing these sales plays while providing reports and dashboards for visibility and uniform communication to stakeholders. Aligning sales plays with known opportunities offers a reliable gauge of whether sales teams are on the right track. If successful, effective plays can be repeated and shared broadly, and if not, alternative, targeted plays can be recommended.
Sales Plays Factory or Orchestration
It’s essential to get product, marketing and sales to form working groups and meet regularly to plan a set of prescriptive sales and marketing actions. This collaboration, or orchestration, is key to success. The sales plays factory team is responsible for assembling the components of a sales play, such as customer pitch decks, objection handling cheat sheets, customer demos, and workshops. These plays also include guidance on when and how to leverage these resources throughout the customer engagement journey. In our company, we align sales plays with sales stages in Salesforce, from Prospecting to Closed-won.
Field integration
Depending on the organization’s size and complexity, dedicated field integration headcount and resources, oriented by geography or segment, can make a substantial difference. These resources are designed to evangelize, coach and drive day-to-day adoption in the field. Often, corporate transformations fail due to a lack of buy-in from the field. While the command center and plays factory can cook up valuable tools, their usefulness ultimately hinges on whether sales teams find them valuable. This article (coming soon) delves into strategies for maximizing field adoption of new sales plays.
Sales coaching
Effective coaching is pivotal for sales success. A survey conducted by HBS found that over 50% of sales reps would not pay $1 for an hour of their manager’s time, but 10% would pay $150-$500 for that same hour for effective coaching. Sales plays simplifies coaching for managers, allowing them to guide their teams through detailed data analytics for each account and territory. Managers can provide guidance on bill of materials and next steps per the plays factory, enhancing coaching effectiveness.
At the end of the day, a well-implemented Sales Play System benefits not only the company but also its customers. Sales plays enable employees to convey the company’s value proposition consistently and coherently. Customer intelligence and account analysis empower sales teams to address customer needs, pain points, and possibilities for expanded partnerships more effectively. Lastly, the plays factory provides simplified and robust customer-facing resources such as trials and proof-of-concepts that sellers can execute with ease, ultimately contributing to a more successful and streamlined engagement experience for customers.
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