PATRICIA WATKINS

Services and Best Practices
To Accelerate Sales

“Spend a lot of time talking to customers face to face. You’d be amazed at how many companies don’t listen to their customers.” – Ross Perot

SERVICES

MORE Sales Advisors offers both advisory services and consulting services. A consulting engagement includes an exploratory audit where time is spent assessing issues as understood by the company’s management team and then providing counsel based on the MORE framework as well as benchmarks and best practices.

A more comprehensive consulting engagement includes an in-depth audit that relies on direct interviews with company management, stakeholders, customers and prospects. Consulting engagements also provide customized recommendations, process development and implementation assistance. Engagements include Part-Time VP of Sales, Interim VP of Sales and / or project-based consulting.

“On average, loyal customers are worth up to ten times as much as their first purchase.” – White House Office of Consumer Affairs

MORE Sales Advisors focus on several areas including:

The MORE Sales Framework™

Know your

Markets
Messaging
Metrics

Build Solid

Operations
Optimized Processes
Outcomes

Provide

Resellers and Channel Partners
Rewards & Recognition
Retention & Referrals

Ensure

Enablement
Essential Sales Tools
Execution

MARKET

Research your market
Understand your competition and what makes your offering unique
Build an economic model
Define your ideal customer profile
Conduct pilots and select lighthouse accounts
Be prepared to adjust when necessary

MESSAGING

Remember WIIFT
Define and refine your elevator pitch
Broadcast accolades
Create a call to action
Leverage digital, social, mobile, and content marketing
Align sales and marketing

METRICS

There are many metrics that can be applied to measure sales activity
Focus on three of the most fundamental metrics
Focus on the sales opportunity pipeline
Increase close rates
Expand average selling price
Align sales and marketing

OPERATIONS

Forecasting
Dashboards
Pricing
Contracts
Revenue recognition
Internal company alignment

OPTIMIZED PROCESSES

Suspect identification
Prospect qualification
Proposal responses and bid desk
Contract negotiation
Closing the sale
Customer delight after the sale
Renewals, Up-sell, and Cross-sell

OUTCOMES

Focus on important customer outcomes
Align your resources around customer outcomes
Use an outcome-based framework
Ensure that desired customer outcomes are met
Recognize the importance of customer success teams
Consider outcome-based pricing

RESELLERS AND CHANNEL PARTNERS

Establish executive relationships as well as field relationships with ownership and accountability
Create the initial market presence
Ensure your agreements are win-win
Develop lead generation programs
Create sales tools that keep things simple and differentiated
Institute deal or lead registration
Establish clear rules of engagement
Ensure channel neutrality and manage channel conflict

RETENTION AND REFERRALS

Retention:

Provide superior service
Focus on feedback
Set up a customer-centric organization
Create loyalty programs

Referrals:

Establish internal referral metrics
Make referrals a component of your qualitative compensation plans
Make it a daily activity—ASK!

REWARDS & RECOGNITION

Commission plans that drive the right behavior
KPIs, SMOs, MBOs to drive specific initiatives
New account bonuses to emphasize new account wins
Regular sales or all-hands recognition meetings
Sales contests to drive specific results
Annual sales clubs for top performers
Employee recognition programs

ENABLEMENT

Solution training
Skills training
Coaching and mentoring
Onboarding

ESSENTIAL SALES TOOLS

Software sales tools
External sales tools
Internal sales tools including
- Success stories
- Battle cards
- Qualifying questions
- Sales playbooks

EXECUTION

Owning your success—accountability and dashboards
Sales and account plans
Sales reviews
Weekly forecast reviews
Inspection and cadence
Bid desk (big deal reviews)
Close plan reviews

The Land and EXPAND Sales Framework™

Land and EXPAND

In the book “Driving MORE Sales” the above 12 essential elements to driving more sales are discussed. (See also Driving-More-Sales.com)

Now to drill a bit deeper. Are you accelerating sales in the most efficient way in your company? Don’t overlook the fastest path to growing sales – your current customers!

Many companies focus, in some cases exclusively, on new customer acquisition – and that’s essential when you are working in a greenfield territory or market. You have to start first by acquiring new customers – but your focus should be equal to or greater on providing exceptional service and delighting your customers – after the sale! Doing so will lead to the fastest ways to grow your revenues – expansion in existing accounts and referral selling.

Land

The key is to first land your customers, no dispute there. But the key is not to move to the next customers without continuing to focus on the customers you just landed. The key is to meet the outcomes that your customers purchased and expect to achieve. The key is to meet those outcomes, resolving the pain they purchased your solution to alleviate, and meeting the KPIs they partnered with you to deliver. It is important to deliver exceptional customer service and customer delight as the foundation of your relationship with your customer.

How much business is being lost due to poor service – billions or trillions?

Per New Voice Media “Businesses are losing $62 billion per year through poor customer service.”¹

Per Accenture “In the U.S., the estimated cost of customers switching due to poor service is $1.6 Trillion.”²

Those are two incredibly powerful and disparate quotes. The statistics are overwhelming in either case! Excellent customer service is the foundation for additional business. In this new world of subscription-based and cloud-based solutions, social media, always on media, information overload, and lots of competitors all vying for your customer’s business, you must provide exceptional service. The stats alone tell the story.

To expand your wallet share, a solid foundation must be built. Excellent customer service is absolutely the bottom line. Once you are delivering exceptional service, you have earned the right to expand your business.

EXPAND

Have you heard that it costs 5X more to sell to a new customer? I’ve also heard 7X and 9X, and I’ve even heard 25X.

Have you heard “On average, loyal customers are worth up to 10 times as much as their first purchase³ ”?

The key to growth is expanding your current base – not only do they have a lower cost of acquisition, they are more likely to buy, and they are more likely to buy more than a new customer!

There are 6 elements of the Land and EXPAND Sales Framework:

E –	Provide Exceptional Customer Service
X –	eXpansion Revenue – with White Space Analysis, Up-sell and Cross-sell
P –	Once you have defined the opportunities above – develop Promotions and Programs
A –	Knowing your customers and becoming a trusted advisor is key – prepare Account Business Plans and conduct Quarterly Business Reviews with key customers
N –	You must listen to your customers and act on their feedback. Conduct NPS and Customer Satisfaction Surveys.
D –	Delight your Customers Daily!

Once you’ve provided exceptional customer service and you are delighting your customer, you can ask for Referrals. Referral Selling is the MOST efficient way to acquire NEW Customers. Embracing the elements of the Land and EXPAND Sales Framework will not only expand your wallet share in existing accounts, but you will also drive new business in new accounts.

From high tech companies to healthcare, to banking to legal, to service companies, and more, the Land and EXPAND Sales Framework exhibits the key areas to expand your business.

What are the elements of the Land and EXPAND Sales Framework? Let’s start with the “E” in EXPAND.

E - Excellent Customer Service / Customer Experience

Excellent customer service is the foundation for additional business – for both expanding existing business and acquiring new business. Companies and sales reps who embrace this key element have a higher probability of both short-term and long-term success!

In this new world of software as a service, subscription models, cloud anywhere and everywhere, social media, always on media, information overload, and lots of competitors all vying for your customer’s business, you must provide exceptional service.

To expand your current customer base and receive referrals from those customers, there is one basic tenet, one sure fire way to accomplish both – create an exemplary customer experience.

X - Expansion Revenue with Up-Sell and Cross-Sell

The next element, the “X” of the Land and EXPAND Sales Framework, is generating expansion revenue with cross-sell and up-sell opportunities. Understand your market and your customer’s additional needs and how to help them solve them, as well as or better than the competition. Focus on ways that you can expand your footprint by assisting your customer in solving additional business problems.

To solve additional business problems, first, you need to map what the customer is using today, what their incremental needs are, and what else you might offer to fit their needs. Map all of your solutions deployed, and not deployed, within your accounts – this is also known as mapping the white space – of potential opportunities. Once you see where the gaps are, you can up-sell and cross-sell your other solutions.

There are many methods to offer up-sell and cross-sell opportunities or campaigns to your customers. One method is via one-time Promotions and ongoing Programs.

P - Promotions and Programs

The “P” element of the Land and EXPAND Sales Framework is to get the word out in the form of promotions and programs. You want to make your existing customer base aware of the additional problems you can help them solve. You need to deliver ongoing messaging often in the form of digital or content marketing or social media to communicate how you can address key business problems and solve them more creatively and effectively by offering better service and support, with uniquely differentiated solutions. Your differentiation might even be in the form of delivering more creative promotions and programs than your competition.

Promotions and programs run the gamut from buy one, get one free, buy at a special discount, bundled offers, try it / buy it programs, early adopter programs, loyalty programs, reseller programs, user groups and customer advisory boards, plus many others.

A - Account Business Plans and Quarterly Business Plans

The “A” element of the Land and EXPAND Sales Framework includes Account Plans and Quarterly Business Plans. On an ongoing basis, you need to gather continuous intelligence around your customer’s business so that you can better understand and fulfill their needs.

There are two keys ways to better understand your customer’s business – Account Business Plans (ABPs) and Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs.) Account Business Plans give you an overview of your account to ensure you have a more thorough understanding of your customers, what their key initiatives are, and where you can better support them. Quarterly Business Plans are conducted with the key stakeholders of your accounts and has the benefit of positioning you better than the competition as a strategic and trusted advisor.

N - Net Promoter Scores and Customer Satisfaction Surveys

The next element of the Land and EXPAND Sales Framework is “N” – conducting Net Promoter Scores and Customer Satisfaction Surveys. Be sure to ask your customers to give you a report card on how you are doing! Ensure you ask your customers informally and formally what they think of your solutions, and how you are meeting and supporting their needs. Gather their feedback with BOTH Net Promoter Scores and Customer Satisfaction Surveys. Ask them how you are doing, and not only do something about it, be sure to communicate to them, your progress and commitment to their customer delight!

D - Delight your Customers

The “D” in the Land and EXPAND Sales Framework is Customer Delight. Bottom line: Success starts with Exceptional Customer Service and is expanded as you delight your customer. Businesses today successfully expand their revenues based on their ability to meet and exceed customer expectations. One of my favorite books is “Raving Fans” by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles. In their book they note:

“Just having satisfied customers isn’t good enough anymore. If you really want a booming business, you have to create Raving Fans.”

“The key is to set realistic customer expectations, and then not to just meet them, but to exceed them―preferably in unexpected and helpful ways.”
―Richard Branson

Referral Selling

Key is I am NOT removing the need to acquire new customers. You do need new customers! It’s just that many companies need to spend more time on retaining and EXPANDING their customer base than they are today.

The last component of the Land and EXPAND Sales Framework is Referral Selling. And it relates to both existing and NEW customers! The most cost effective and highest probability of close of gaining new business and new customers is referral sales. And where do your best referral sales come from – from delighted customers where you are delivering exceptional service.

What makes a healthy, sustainable business? What do investors want to see in assessing the value of a company? High retention rates, selling more to existing customers, and new customers. Embrace the Land and EXPAND Sales Framework and accelerate your results!

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