Best Practices for Managing Inside Sales with Salesforce.com

Salesforce
Inside Sales
Best Practices
August 2012

Copyright © ShellBlack.com

Agenda

•  Have a Call Strategy
•  Leverage Salesforce
•  Measurement and Management
•  Other Items to Consider
•  Appendix

2

| Copyright © ShellBlack.com

Call Strategy

•  For this team, since the main method of engaging
contacts will be by phone, it is important to have a
Call Strategy in place

•  Your Call Strategy should be designed to accomplish
these three things:
1  Increase contact rates
2  Know who to call (and something about them)
3  Have a goal for each interaction (what to
accomplish)

3


Things that can increase Contact
Rates
•  Quality Lead sources

•  Speed to respond to a new Lead

•  Timing - Time of Day & Day of the Week

•  Persistence

•  Having a Direct Dial Number

•  Calling from a Local Number

4


Speed Matters (Immediacy) When
Responding to a New Lead

Call new Leads
quickly – it’s
really that
simple

“The Lead Response Management Study” by Dr. James Oldroyd. MIT

5


Timing Matters – Time of Day

Optimize your
call times if your
reps can only
dedicate a
limited amount
of time each day
to outbound
calls.

Not a good time
to talk? Ask your
contact when is
a good time to
call back.


6


Timing Matters – Day of the Week

People are busy during the beginning of the week, and by the end of
the week they are not interested in starting new projects.


7


Be Persistent

The average
sales rep only
makes 1.3
phone
calls on a lead
before giving
up.

If the contact
ratio is 10%,
then 10 calls =
1 contact!


8


Direct Dial Numbers Help

Google with a wild card search on
the phone number and the
person’s name – for example,
“Joe Contact (214) ***-****” –
will often return results with
direct phone numbers. Other
tools that can be used to find
direct dial numbers include:
LinkedIn, Zoominfo, InsideView
and Data.com

Also, don’t be afraid to leverage a
cell number!

TIP: Next time you hear “Your call is being answered by Audix,” punch in **6. It will say “enter last name, followed by pound
sign.” Put in the contacts last name (e.g. Richard), and it will say “Steve Richard, extension 4237.” Now that you have that magic
10 digit direct dial number!

9


Use a Local Number if Possible

Source: “31 Sales Must Haves” – InsideSales.com

10


Don’t Waste a Call Attempt

•  Do some research upfront (next slide)
§  Know who to target (roles in the organization)
–  Try to identify Contacts with the budget, authority, need, and
timeline (BANT)
§  The goal is to know something about the contact and their
company in order to build rapport quickly

•  Know how to disposition calls that do not result in a
contact

•  Have a call script and an objective for each
interaction

11


Buy or Enrich Existing Lead Records

Data.com /
Jigsaw allows you
to search for
Contacts by
Company, Level,
Department, Title,
etc.

Check to if you
have missing or
out of date
contact
information
12


Do your homework in advance
Leverage Salesforce
“Social Contacts”:
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Facebook

Visit the company’s
website:
• What do they do?
• Read their press
releases

The more you know,
the easier to build
rapport & credibility

13


Have a plan on how to disposition
each unsuccessful call attempt
Example: After the first call, be sure to leave your first voicemail and email.
You should not leave another voicemail or email until after the fourth and the
sixth call

Source: “31 Sales Must Haves” – InsideSales.com

14


Call Scripts – Make the Most of
Each Interaction
Example six step process to ensure a productive and successful first call:
• Step1: The Opening – This is where you introduce yourself. Tell them who you represent and why
you’re calling. Reinforce what the lead expressed interest in.

• Step2: Establish Trust / Build Rapport – Do some research in advance (look at the company’s
website and your target contact’s LinkedIn profile) so you can demonstrate you know something about
them and their company (see previous slide).

• Step 3: Positioning – Where do you stand in the race? What does your company offer, and how is it
different from competitors in your industry?

• Step4: Cool Feature and Key Benefit – What can you do and, more importantly, what can you do for
me? It’s great if you can state a quantitative benefit.

• Step 5: Proof Story – Why do you have credibility? What proof can you impart that indicates what
you’re telling me is accurate? This is where you tell the success story of another customer, quote an
article, a piece of research, something outside of what the company itself is saying.

• Step6: C2C (Commit to Continue) – Do you have time right now for me to show you how we can
make your business more successful? Set the appointment as early as possible in order to maximize the
percent of appointments held.

15


Your Contact Strategy can be
replicated over multiple channels
(don’t limit yourself to email and
phone)

16


Agenda

•  Appendix

17


Help Reps Manage Their Day
•  Don’t let the day rule the rep (don’t be reactive)

•  Organize data in Salesforce to support a rep’s call
strategy, account planning, and pipeline
management

•  Ensure reps know how to leverage:
§  Tab Views (“My New Leads”, “My Open Opportunities”)
§  A Lead Scoring system (later slide)
§  Dashboards (later slide)
§  Activities (Emails, Log-A-Call, Tasks and Events)
§  Stage, Close Date, Contact Roles, and “Next Step” on
Opportunities
§  Console View or a Dialer (later slide)
§  Chatter (for deal collaboration)

18


Lead Scoring
•  A Lead Scoring system answers the following question quantitatively – “Who
are my hot Leads?”

•  The higher the score, the farther along the Lead should be in the evaluation,
and ultimately, the buying process

•  Three basic questions that should carry a lot of weight in your score (1) is
this the right contact (2) are they a good fit and (3) are the interested

•  Lessor weighted, but can incrementally adds value over time, is the lead’s
continued engagement with the salesperson (e.g. responds to emails, phone
calls, requests information, agrees to meetings, etc.)

•  How complete a record can impact your lead score (e.g. do you have a direct
dial number, their title, department, etc.)

•  Points can be added for the right company demographic (size, industry, Lead
Source)

•  Leverage Workflow and formula fields on the Lead record to calculate the
score for the rep

19


Benefits of Using the Console

•  The Console is a multi-pane view that allows a rep to step through a targeted list based on a
View of either Leads or Contacts and log activities from a single screen - thus reducing clicks

20


Benefits of Using a Dialer

•  Measure the amount of time reps are on the dialer
•  Voicemails can be pre-recorded so a rep can start
to leave their voicemail and move on to the next
call, increasing call efficiency

•  Management can set the dialer to record a percent
of calls over a certain duration (e.g. 60 seconds)
to inspect call quality and rep knowledge (great
for managing remote reps)
•  Ability to dial from a bank of local numbers

•  “Screen pop” incoming calls (matching on the
phone number of the Lead or Contact record)

21


Voicemails and Emails can be
queued up with a Dialer to
disposition call attempts quickly

22


Agenda

•  Appendix

23


Measurement Best Practices
•  Use the same metrics up and down the organization
§  If it is important to the manager to track, it’s important to the rep

•  To avoid surprises at the end of the month, give each rep their own
Dashboard so they can track their progress towards goals

•  Leverage the “Running User” on Dashboards and set the underlying
reports for “My Records.” This will make it easier to clone Dashboards
for new reps
•  Use the Gauge metric to track attainment towards goals (or conditional
formatting in tables - i.e. shade the number red, yellow or green)

•  Show them the money! (self motivate) If possible, have a rep’s
dashboard show commission obtainment MTD / QTD based on closed
deals

•  Know which Lead Source (list) produce the best quality leads. Track
contact, conversion and win rates by marketing source

24


Management Best Practices
•  Run your weekly sales meetings from your Salesforce
Dashboards. No need to have reps submit a weekly forecast – it’s
in Salesforce!

•  Don’t allow reps to talk about deals that aren’t being tracked in
Salesforce. If it’s not in Salesforce it doesn’t exist

•  Promote friendly competition with “Leaderboard” Dashboards with
user profile photos (no one wants to be on the bottom of a list)

•  Spotlight reps hitting their objectives to demonstrate to the rest
of the team the goals are obtainable

•  Spend the time needed to educate reps on how to read pipeline
metrics to understand concepts like pipeline health and stage
aging

25


Easy things to measure in
Salesforce
•  Activities
§  Dials, Emails Sent, Meetings created
§  Use a custom “Type” field for further
categorization (e.g. presentations made)
§  “Last Activity” on a record (activity aging)

•  Adoption
§  Login frequency
§  Records created

•  Sales Process
§  Leads converted
§  Opportunity Stage Aging
§  Close rations (win ratios)

•  Quota Attainment
§  Sales MTD, QTD vs. Goals
26


Agenda

•  Appendix

27


Don’t Recreate the Wheel

•  Leverage the knowledge from other sales groups to
increase effectiveness early
§  What is the typical buying cycle (3 mo, 6 mo?)
§  Is there seasonality to these services (e.g. tax time, end
of year)
§  What’s the average size deal
§  How do they overcome objections
§  Who do they target (role in the organization)
§  How do they position themselves against the competition
§  If contact attempts are unsuccessful, is there a handoff
back to marketing for continued lead nurturing
§  Who can the rep engage if they have a question

28


Establish Ground Rules up Front

•  Are reps able to call on existing contacts?

•  Establish when a sale should be handed off to
outside sales
§  What makes a deal “too complex” (e.g. delivery across multiple
locations, services that are tied to other operating companies)

•  Establish rules for channel conflict and sales
crediting
§  When is a Contact “free game” (e.g. no interaction with an
existing Contact for six months, or no sale to that company in
over a year)
§  Use Salesforce as the system of record
§  If a sale has to be handed off, is there any sales credit for the
originating rep?

29


Provide Marketing Support

•  Don’t allow reps to create their own marketing
materials. Create a content library of approved
customer facing materials that adhere to brand
guidelines
§  HTML Emails
§  Presentations
§  White Papers
§  Proposal Templates and Contracts
§  Testimonials
§  Approved List of Client Referrals

•  With the exception of email templates, store
resources in Documents or Files in Salesforce

30


Staffing Considerations

•  Align comp plans with the desired results

•  A new team will need intensive training and
coaching (system, process & product)

•  Partner new reps with sales leaders

•  Learn quickly what profiles are successful for future
hires

•  Always have a pipeline of potential new hires – you
will have turnover

31


Appendix

32


Top Problems for Inside Sales
Managers

Source: January 2012 – InsideSales.com - 608 respondents, 350 were sales managers and 258 were sales reps

33


Top Problems for Inside Sales
Reps

Source: January 2012 – InsideSales.com - 608 respondents, 350 were sales managers and 258 were sales reps

34


ShellBlack.com, LLC

•  ShellBlack.com, LLC is a Salesforce Cloud Alliance
Partner located in Dallas Texas

•  Our goal is to help companies maximize their CRM
investment by providing elegant Salesforce
solutions that facilitate how you market, sell and
support your customers

•  For Salesforce news, updates and information
follow us on Twitter: @Shell_Black

•  Learn more about us online at:
www.ShellBlack.com
35


Best Practices for Managing Inside Sales with Salesforce.com

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