This document discusses sales effectiveness analysis, which involves analyzing five dimensions - prospect behavior, sales rep performance, marketing, product offerings, and barriers - to understand what is working and not working in a company's sales process. The analysis provides benefits like increasing win rates and improving efficiencies. It delivers individual and summary reports on deals as well as insights into what drives wins and losses. For changes to be effective, managers must act on the data-driven recommendations.

1. Sales Effectiveness Analysis
Isurus Market Research and Consulting | www.isurusmrc.com | 617-547-2400

2. Why Sales Effectiveness Analysis?
Improving your sales effectiveness requires a systematic understanding of your
strengths and weaknesses across all of the factors that influence the outcome of
an individual sale; before you can improve your sales process you need to know
what is working and what is not.
Sales Effectiveness Analysis

3. Framework

4. Framework
Isurus’ sales effectiveness analysis framework focuses on 5 dimensions that can
be measured, managed and improved.
-------Vendor plans for---------
Prospect
Purchase Trigger Purchase Process Decision
Barriers: Inertia Competitors External Factors
-----Vendor controls-----
Offering
Sales Rep Performance
Marketing
Product knowledge
Corporate Field Product Pricing
Identifying needs
Responsiveness Qualifying deals
Training
Compensation
Sales Effectiveness Analysis

5. 1. Prospect behavior
Improving sales effectiveness requires understanding 3 key elements of prospect
behavior.
Prospect
Purchase Trigger Purchase Process Decision
Sales Effectiveness Analysis

6. Prospect behavior: Purchase trigger
Understanding what triggers the purchase process enables you to target prospects
more effectively throughout the marketing and lead generation process.
A number of factors can provide the trigger for a prospect to begin evaluating new products
and vendors, for example:
A change in management often drives a review of all systems and vendors.
The failure of an existing system makes prospects more interested in other options.
Competitive pressures may force prospects to change the way they do business and
the systems they use.
Management consultants often identify specific systems or processes in need of
improvement.
Sales Effectiveness Analysis

7. Prospect behavior: Purchase process
Understanding the typical purchase process enables you to create more effective and targeted
corporate marketing efforts, lead generation, sales presentations, and field marketing materials.
How are potential vendors identified initially? Who are the decision makers, influencers?
WOM, market knowledge Titles/functions involved
Trade publications Functional roles and responsibilities
Trade shows Number of decision makers
Analyst reports Evaluators, influencers, decision makers
Consultant recommendations
How formal is the process?
What criteria are used to create the short
list?
Documentation
Reputation
Timeline, milestones
Initial pricing
Use of decision matrices, score sheets
Macro features and functionality
Consultant assistance
Basic technical infrastructure issues
Sales Effectiveness Analysis

8. Prospect behavior: Decision
Sales effectiveness analysis provides the prospect’s viewpoint on why they selected your
company or a competitor.
What drove the final decision?
Offering Brand perceptions Sales tools and tactics
Specific features and Sector experience Results of site visits, customer
functionality references
Confidence in the vendor’s ability
Integration to deliver Product demonstrations
Pricing Belief the vendor understands the Vendor-provided ROI analysis
company’s business needs
Vendor attitude; belief the vendor
truly cares
Sales Effectiveness Analysis

9. 2. Sales Rep Performance
In complex purchases, sales effectiveness depends heavily on the sales rep’s performance.
Successful sales reps:
Qualify opportunities Successful reps assess opportunities correctly and allocate their time to legitimate
prospects, rather than those with little real likelihood of buying.
Prospects expect sales and technical reps to know your product inside and out, be
Know the product
able to speak to how it will work in their environment and how it is different from your
competitor’s product.
Sales reps must understand the prospect’s business and processes, identify the
Connect business
problems the prospect wants solved and make the connection to your offering.
needs to the offering
The level of responsiveness and attention prospects receive in the sales process
Deliver a high level
influences their perception of what it would be like to work with your organization.
of service
Compensation program structure can create incentives or barriers to sales force
Receive the right effectiveness.
kind of compensation
and training Sales performance can fall short if training is inadequate, particularly when the sales
force is being challenged with a new set of offerings, changing markets, or new types
of buyers.
Sales Effectiveness Analysis

10. 3. Marketing: Corporate
Sales effectiveness relies heavily on corporate marketing.
Corporate marketing activities help Sales gain initial consideration, establish credibility with
decision makers, and defend against competitors.
Successful corporate marketing:
Creates awareness of the company and its offerings
Shapes the market’s perception of the company
Differentiates the company and its offering from competitors
Generates sales leads
Sales Effectiveness Analysis

11. Marketing: Field
Sales effectiveness relies heavily on field marketing.
Field marketing support and materials—demos, fact sheets, case studies, ROI calculators, play books, etc.--
play an important role prior to, during, and after a sales presentation.
Successful field marketing:
Demonstrates the technical qualifications of the product
Provides proof points of where the product has been successful elsewhere
Enables the rep to do ROI calculations, estimate maintenance fees, etc.
Compares the product to competitors
Field marketing materials must appeal to both prospects and to sales reps - the most carefully crafted field
marketing materials do no good if the sales reps do not consider the material useful.
Sales Effectiveness Analysis

12. 4. Offering: Product
Sales effectiveness depends on how prospects evaluate the product.
The degree to which the product or offering itself influences a sale varies by category and individual deal. In
many cases, all of the vendors being considered meet or exceed the prospect’s needs.
Evaluation criteria include:
Features and functionality – Not which has the most, but which best meets their specific needs
Manageability (perceived)
Integration with other products and systems
Fit with existing business processes
How it compares to what they are currently using--why is it better than the status quo
Sales Effectiveness Analysis

13. Offering: Pricing
Price always factors into the decision; the key is to understand the true importance of
price relative to other factors.
Price dimensions include:
Initial license or purchase price
Implementation and professional services fees
Ongoing maintenance and support
Cost of upgrades
Financing options
For most prospects, the ROI of potential solutions is not a key driver of the decision. They are skeptical of
anyone’s ability—including their own—to accurately estimate the long term cost and return on any
technology investment.
When prices fall within a range of tolerance (which varies by product, market, etc.), price is typically not a
key factor. When prices among vendors are perceived to vary considerably, price becomes more of an
issue.
Sales Effectiveness Analysis

14. 5. Barriers
Understanding the common barriers to sales effectiveness enables both marketing
and sales to anticipate and react more efficiently.
Your product or offering not only needs to be a better fit than your competitor’s, it must also overcome all of
the barriers to switching from the status quo.
Common barriers include:
The perceived value of addressing the business issues
The pain and suffering of switching (e.g. data migration, training, downtime, integration)
Existing contracts and relationships
Preference for suite or best-of-breed solutions
Delivery preference
External issues such as the economy, market trends, mergers, regulations, etc. also affect the sales process.
Products that have exceptionally long sales cycles—and which are more expensive and complex--are more
likely to be effected by external issues.
Sales Effectiveness Analysis

15. Outcomes

16. Outcomes: benefits
A systematic Sales Effectiveness Analysis provides benefits across the organization.
The benefits of sales effectiveness analysis:
Increase win rates A systematic approach to understanding why deals are won or lost increases the
probability of winning each individual deal.
Allocate sales and marketing resources optimally.
Improve efficiencies
• Where and how do prospects get information?
Inform marketing
• What are there current perceptions of your brand? Competitor brands?
efforts
• What value propositions resonate with them? Why do they buy?
• What are your strengths and weaknesses? Competitor’s?
• What is the market currently buying?
Inform product
• What do they ask about? What do they create on their own?
development efforts
• What do competitors have?
Sales Effectiveness Analysis

17. Outcomes: deliverables
What are the deliverables in Sales Effectiveness Analysis?
Sales effectiveness deliverables include:
Individual reports Reports on individual deals.
Summary reports Reports that look across multiple deals to identify patterns and look across time to
gauge trends and measure improvements.
What drives wins? • Statistical tools to identify key drivers of wins (and losses)
• In-depth qualitative interviews explore the factors and dimensions of wins and
losses
Generally, companies should not expect immediate or short-term improvements—changing
the sales process can take as long as the sales cycle.
For sales effectiveness analysis to be valuable, managers need to be willing and able to act
on the data to make changes in the sales process.
Sales Effectiveness Analysis