The document discusses architecting an inside sales engine. It begins by defining inside sales and the sales funnel process. It emphasizes hiring the right salespeople and defining clear support. Red flags in managing the team include lacking qualified leads and not documenting experiences. The triggers to scale include having enough traction, leads, and predictable sales. It outlines metricsizing the sales process and increasing efficiency by documenting FAQs. It also provides tips for innovating in a cluttered market like finding early solutions and creating a replicable model from initial success. Metrics to increase velocity include deals, size, conversion ratios, and pipe growth.

1. Architecting a Sales Engine
-By Kiran

2. Architecting a Sales Engine - Overview
 What is Inside Sales
 Source of leads
 Hiring and handholding your first IS
Rep
 What are the issues in managing IS
Team
 Triggers to scale the team
 How to scale it up
 How to make it an engine
 Science behind the sales engine

3. Inside Sales – What is it?
 Done In-house by sales people remotely via
Phone, Email, Web and Chat.
 Once the leads come inside, this is put through a
structured sales funnel
 Done by managing a deal through a multi stage
process, multi touch points with customer,
establishing value and ROI all without visiting the
customer
 Face to face only when either the sales person or
the customer deems so.

4. Hiring and Handholding your first sales
person
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•
•
•
Be clear about the KRA’s of this person
No compromise on fitment to job and experience
Don’t hire a brand, hire to fitment.
Define the support system around the sales
person
• CEO should sell , the last thing to delegate
• Cash flow issue is because of no customers
• Initial success is not a sales process – not one
dot..

5. Red flags - Managing IS team
•
•
•
•
•
•
Finding the right sets of qualified leads and positioning
for quick wins
Prospects don’t understand value and hence interests
don’t end up into engaged conversations
Lead nurturing not efficient and hence losing out on
leads in the first few stages
Not documenting earlier experiences and repeating
failures
Gut feel for projections giving no lead indicators
Not able to leverage existing skillsets and relationships
into sales

6. Triggers to scale the sales team
• Enough traction to justify scaling it out
• Leads in ideal customer profile
• When sales are predictable, todays funnel should
predict next few months
• Initial few successes out of the model
• Entire sales process has been documented
• When the dots have become a trend

7. Metricizing the Sales Engine
Dials
Contacts Spoken
Interests shown
Test
Detailed discussions
Needs Analysis
RFP
Test
• Drive traffic from all lead
sources
• White paper, email blasts
• Talk about solutions, services
• Qualifying customers
• Issues of customers
• Needs Analysis
• Solutioning and
Credentialization
• Educational content conveying
YOU
• Shortlist of Vendors
• Proposals
• Negotiation
• Closures

8. How to make the sales team very efficient
• Free the sales people to sell and only sell
• Entire Frequently Asked Questions/Objections to
be documented
•
•
•
Company
Services/Products
Case Studies
• Constant training and assessment of the sales
people
• Consistency of message across collaterals,
departments etc

9. How to innovate in a cluttered market
• Find a solution few quarters ahead of time
• Get the first few customers – sacrifice margins
for acquiring experience
• Make a replicable model out of the initial success
• Use the initial success to create a niche for
yourself
• Create a sales and support process to make it an
engine
• Slap the other services behind your niche service
entry

10. Metrics to increase sales velocity
• No. of deals
• Average deal size
• Average age of lead to closure
• Conversion ratios across the sales cycle
• Pipe increase month on month
• Total customer revenue
Sales Velocity = No. of deals in pipe *
Average deal size * Conversion Ratio %
Length of Sales Cycle