MarketStar Blog

I’ve been spending a lot of time supporting demand generation efforts for several large B2B and B2C businesses – with lead nurturing center stage. When organizations hear the value proposition behind nurturing, they can’t hold back their excitement and jump blindly into the initiative.

Most people can agree that the sales environment has become more competitive, and more complex, to the point that sales require more than a good call list and a plane ticket. In order to solve a customer’s problem and drive more revenue, marketers and sales leaders need to consider outsourcing some or all of their market development, lead qualification, appointment setting, and end-to-end sales activities in order to not lose sight on developing great products and services. 

Key Takeaways

• Implementing RevOps to unify and streamline your GTM operations can have numerous benefits for your organization–from increasing revenue coordination to better business-wide accountability

• It’s a big change. As you get started with it, it is essential that your current processes don’t pose a hindrance to your big plans 

• As a crucial component of any organization, your tech stack deserves the same attention as your RevOps strategy. It’s how you will be able to scale your GTM initiatives 

• It can be confusing to build your ideal tech stack. But once done, it can go a long way in ensuring that your various customer-facing teams have access to the same data. This will help you optimize your workflows and infuse new efficiency in your campaigns 

Advancements in tech stack and increasingly sophisticated buyer behaviors have mandated an evolution in operating models if enterprises hope to stay ahead.

Organizations, especially those in the B2B space, are increasingly opting for newer approaches to enhance their customer acquisition and retention strategies.

The concept of centralizing teams from marketing, sales, and customer success–the core concept behind RevOps–has become popular to accelerate revenue growth and go-to-market operations.

Companies are reporting significant gains in terms of accelerated revenue growth, about 100% to 200% increases in digital marketing ROI and 30% reductions in GTM expenses, according to a BCG report.

The importance of delivering a successful RevOps initiative relies heavily on having a deep understanding of the right technology stack which will support a well-aligned RevOps strategy.

But the sheer number of software and apps available for RevOps can make it a daunting task. Additionally, you don’t want too many systems in your technology stack as this can lead to limitations in individual systems.

Having said that, a full tech stack that is aligned with your RevOps strategy can be the game-changer you are looking for to align your sales, marketing, and customer success teams while ensuring streamlined workflows, in order to capitalize on growth opportunities.

How Does RevOps Affect Your Technology Stack?

No two businesses are the same.

This also means that not every tech stack is affected the same way by RevOps. While some companies require a complete overhaul of their RevOps tech stack, others might see no change.

The tech stack previously selected by your sales, marketing, and service teams provided each individual function with its capabilities. So the tools used by your service team were vastly different from those used by marketing. This changes with RevOps.

With RevOps in the picture, the underlying goal is to structure technology in such a way that it supports the customer journey across all touchpoints while unlocking more of your organization’s revenue potential.

A technological audit as part of your RevOps framework can help you get started. It will help you analyze the various gaps in achieving the ideal tech stack.

How to Evaluate the Ideal Tech Stack for Your RevOps Strategy? 

A hard look at your existing systems as part of your revenue operations practice can help you assess the gaps in your current tech stack and how the addition of any new software fits with the overall goals of your GTM operations.

• Start with Business Process Evaluation: Begin with a thorough map-out of your customer’s journey. Then document all the processes that your customer-facing teams go through.

• Do a Little Research: The purpose of this market research is to gather all relevant data about the tools that should be part of your organization’s revenue tech stack.

• Cost-benefit Analysis: When you map out each of your GTM functions with the tools available in the market, you will gain a better understanding of the software that will make up your ideal tech stack. 

How to Build the Perfect Tech Stack for RevOps?

In “The State of Business Operations in 2021” report, conducted by Tonkean and Lucid of 500 companies and IT professionals, only 24% of respondents were satisfied with their current toolset handling all workflow needs.

An ideal tech stack for revenue operations will include tools that monitor top-line data that can be easily integrated with other apps. Remember that your tools should help you scale your RevOps strategy and achieve overall business operations.

1. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software

Since aligning and unifying your organization’s various functions under one umbrella is what RevOps is all about, it makes sense to start with CRM to get all your customer data into one place.

A CRM software will centralize customer data, putting it in one easy-to-access place.

This means that even if your data is coming from various sources such as Google Analytics, Social Media portals, and other apps, the chosen CRM for your tech stack will sort, clean, analyze, and store data in actionable formats.

For your marketing, sales, and service teams, this data serves as the single source of truth for their various campaigns.

2.Revenue Intelligence Software

Driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), Revenue Intelligence Software streamlines data gathering, synchronization, and management across your customer-facing functions. 

Such software is incredibly helpful as it eliminates siloed data entry that can potentially hamper the success of your GTM operations. Since it automatically captures data at every touchpoint, your teams have more accurate and reliable insights to fall on. 

This also means that your sales reps have better leads to deal with since your teams are better equipped to assess the direction of customer conversation as it unfolds. Consequently, you also allocate resources to the right team, expediting the lead qualification process, and optimizing conversions.

3. Project Management Tools

Collaboration is key to success for RevOps and project management tools can help you achieve it. Teams have a centralized place to effectively work on cross-cutting revenue-related activities.

Such tools are useful in the end-to-end management of projects, including task ownership, and deadline adherence. 

Bridging the Gap Between Strategy & Tech

A HubSpot report highlights that a whopping 61% of B2B businesses leveraging technology and automation in their sales processes will exceed revenue operations.

Selecting the ideal tech stack is your first step to scaling your RevOps strategy and streamlining sales.

As daunting a task it may seem, you can ease the process by understanding what your RevOps team needs in order to function properly. Build on this understanding to lay down the foundation of your RevOps technology stack.

Looking for the right RevOps strategy to compliment your GTM initiatives? Head over to our blog and read more about the top 5 areas of consideration for RevOps success!

Key Insights

• The pandemic has led to trustworthiness becoming the top priority for customers

• Forging deeper ties with customers will be incomplete without a strong focus on effective customer success strategies 

• Outsourcing key customer success activities can contribute in several ways to revenue and growth 

• A clear vision and meticulous planning when it comes to customer success strategies can be the key differentiator between failure and success 

Amid shifting business priorities and disrupted operations brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, one lesson stands out above all others: The critical significance of customer success in growing and protecting relationships with existing customers.

Trustworthiness is now a top priority, as highlighted by a Salesforce study.

Not only has trustworthiness become more important to customers than before the pandemic but it has also grown more difficult to earn.

Building trust among B2B customers requires a sustained focus. And as the function focused on ensuring these outcomes, customer success is now a vital requirement for business continuity and growth. 

It is no surprise that customer success teams only showed an upward trajectory during the pandemic.

What Defines Customer Success? 

Before discussing the benefits of customer success solutions, it’s essential to define what customer success is. 

Customer success is a business methodology that ensures the desired outcomes for your customers throughout the customer life cycle. 

A research by Deloitte identifies three types of value that constitute customer success:

• Performance value focuses on the use of the product itself

• Business value focuses on how using the product or solution contributes to achieving specific business outcomes 

• Experience value centers on the ease of doing business and the depth of the business relationship between customer and vendor 

It also bears certain key differences from customer service and customer support.

Customer support and customer service teams are activated when customers reach out with a specific problem and are geared toward resolving the problem within a single interaction.

Customer success, on the other hand, continuously seeks to innovate new ways of gaining value for customers, providing new use cases and perspectives before customers ask for them.

Why Do Companies Need Customer Success?

In today’s B2B world, getting the signature on the dotted line is only the beginning of the customer life cycle.

With customers finding it easier than ever to switch vendors when dissatisfied with a product, a methodology focused on delivering customer experience, product value, and business value offers several distinct advantages.

Below we have listed the top benefits of customer success in business.

1. Improved Retention

Given the significance of retention, it is important to note that one of the traditional and most effective aspects of customer success is retention.

In the 2020 State of Customer Success report by ClientSuccess, customer success contributed to an average net retention rate of 99% for 411 customer success professionals across 347 organizations.

Retention, unsurprisingly, is cost-effective for companies, with estimates suggesting that retaining an existing customer is 6-7 times cheaper than acquiring a new one.

2. Increased Upsells & Cross-sells

While retention protects the revenue base, growth depends on upselling and cross-selling.

Effective customer success best practices can secure this growth by increasing the likelihood of customer satisfaction.

In fact, vendors are 60-70% likely to sell to existing customers, against being only 5-20% successful in selling to new customers.

This is because satisfied customers recognize the value of a product or service and are aware of how it contributes to securing their business outcomes.

3. Improved Advocacy

Second-order revenues, that is all those sources of revenue which are indirectly influenced by a customer, can significantly contribute to revenue growth.

One common route for second-order revenue is when a champion customer changes companies and brings the product on board with the new company.

The other is word of mouth or referrals from satisfied customers to others in their professional networks.

In either case, by directly impacting customer attitudes toward the assessments of the product and vendor, customer success is significantly responsible for driving second-order revenue.

4. Operational & Product Improvements

With its finger constantly on the pulse to uncover customer pain points, customer success is a key avenue of feedback not only on a product or solution but also on how organizational operations impact customer value.

Customer success teams can create efficient feedback loops and judge the impact of new releases and updates, gathering valuable data for optimizing the product roadmap.

Customer success can also aid in optimizing operational processes across all customer-facing and other teams by identifying key bottlenecks or sources of friction that frustrate customers.

How Outsourcing Can Help You Build Effective Customer Success

At first glance, outsourcing more transactional engagements such as customer service or customer support may seem more reasonable than doing so with a long-term, relational role like customer success.

However, outsourcing key customer success activities can contribute in several ways to revenue and growth: 

• Cost-savings: Companies can save on operational costs related to onboarding and training, renting and maintaining office space, management costs, and investing in the latest tools and technology stacks

• Overcoming talent shortages: Outsourcing can ease this process by doing the heavy lifting when it comes to hiring quality customer success representatives

• Access to expertise and technology: Outsourced CSMs have not only been hired for their skills but also undergo the necessary training in a variety of approaches, processes, and technologies so that they can hit the ground running for any organization

Effective management of the long tail: Outsourcing the long-tail customers can help organizations move beyond an 80-20 trap in their revenue generation

The Bottomline

In the wake of the pandemic, the writing on the wall is clear: customer success is integral for the survival of business organizations in a subscription economy.

Satisfying the expectations of existing customers, retaining their business, and increasing revenues through customer advocacy are all vital for sustainable growth.

However, building in-house customer success teams may not always be cost-effective or viable.

Instead, taking on a blended approach of outsourcing specific customer success functions can provide important efficiencies and resource boosts that allow for better engagement of customers.

Key Takeaways

• There’s no exception that sales organizations have their work cut out for themselves

• Factors such as a competitive market and consistent growth agenda can take a heavy toll on the sales force, especially the sales operations team 

• As responsibilities grow, so does the possibility of getting it wrong 

• The good news is that such pitfalls can also be avoided if proper processes are set in place and the larger team understands the critical role sales ops play in revenue generation 

As sales transform in an increasingly dynamic market landscape, the importance of the sales operation discipline has taken off in almost every sector. 

Sales and operations planning is expanding rapidly to touch more processes, while shaping new workflows, driving better policies, and delivering holistic insight across the entire sales cycle. 

The report titled “The LinkedIn State of Sales Operations Report 2021” highlights the many ways in which the role of sales operations is growing.

According to the report, the role around the world increased by 38% between 2018 and 2020. Additionally, 49% of sales ops professionals feel that they are valued as much as any other sales professional in their respective company.

These numbers are a clear indicator of the discipline’s evolution. Its growth stems from two areas.

First is the vast amount of data readily available coupled with the number of data providers in the space. Second is the acute need of the sales operation team to synthesize this data to enable salespeople.

This also means that the responsibilities of sales operations professionals have increased. From determining which accounts to focus on to building relationships with existing customers and forecasting business performance, sales operations need to be at the forefront.

Regardless of the scope of responsibilities, some common pitfalls can hinder sales effectiveness. Think of your sales ops team as the behind-the-scenes revenue generator.

While value demonstrations, negotiations, and deal closing might lie at the front, it’s the actions taken by your operations and planning department that make it possible.

5 Common Mistakes to Avoid in Sales Operations

1.Lack of Data Ownership

In all probability, the data exists that will help the sales team with their pitch success.

The problem is that it is not properly managed and processed, putting a question on its accuracy. Data is also the foundation of sales operations which means that data ownership must become a core value across BUs.

Instilling a practice of data ownership in day-to-day activities is a must.

2. Higher Load of Administrative Tasks

While processes, roles, territories, and quotas are all meaningful work that sales operations are tasked with, they eventually get burdened with crediting decisions, exceptions management, comp administrations, and commission complaints to make any bandwidth for the tasks that matter.

If the sales operations and planning team are buried in an avalanche of sales administration tasks, it would be difficult for them to focus on the larger goal: driving greater sales productivity.

3. Absence in Strategy Discussion

Many times, the sales and operations planning team is just not part of key meetings and discussions on growth strategy and sales coverage. 

This exclusion often leads to misalignment between the growth objectives of the organization and the focus areas of sales operations. 

In the absence of clear definitions of the company’s future outlook, the sales ops team will wrongly prioritize tasks or investments of time and resources. 

Sales roles require perfect clarity of the product or service and the customers being targeted. The same applies to sales operations. 

For your sales ops, the customers are internal and products are the internal sales enablers.

4. Lack of Documentation

If you document it, you learn from your mistakes.

It’s essential to capture all the institutional knowledge and assumptions that go into planning. Companies can put a mechanism in place to capture such information from all the participants.

When this gets embedded into the plan, you can understand the context of the decisions and changes, even months later.

5. Addition of Shadow Resources

Helping your sales operations and planning team become the center of excellence for one or more functions requires commitment from the entire organization. When this single team is given this amount of attention, added responsibilities and bandwidth issues can hinder team performance, putting the team’s efficacy in question.

Rather than investing in duplicative shadow resources, business leaders must work actively with the team to understand pain points and bring relevant measures to resolve them.

How Can Sales Operations Be Improved?

A common theme emerges when we look at revamping the sales and operations planning team: to keep on top of things. To transform the team, business leaders should look at the following recommendations.

• A culture of internal audits for continuous improvement can help to eliminate bureaucratic bottlenecks. Admin issues should be assigned to the sales department. Field salespeople should have access to regular sales training programs. Tools and software should get regular updates to keep up with the times.

• It is also critical for the sales operation team to have a crystal clear idea of the mission and objectives of the company. The executive team must consistently communicate them so that all oars keep rowing in the same direction. 

• Quick fixes will not work for your sales ops team. Sales are meant to be fast. This means that you will have problems faster than the time you have to fix them. Instead of looking at temporary band-aids, try to fix the real problem. 

•  While there is no shortage of KPIs and metrics, it’s important to choose the one that fits your team. Even when you have the numbers, break them down and examine them carefully. Deep dive into the performance of your sales operations team and identify the areas where they have shined and areas where they may have to improve. 

Empowering Sales Ops to Go Above and Beyond

89% of sales professionals feel that sales ops are critical to business growth, according to “The State of Sales Report” by Salesforce.

Navigating the landscape of sales operations and planning can be tricky, with the mistakes leading to activities being derailed.

But with proper processes in place, there’s no telling how much your team can accomplish.

Key Insights

• There is not a single business in the world that can say that they haven’t lost a customer. And every business employs a different approach to handling it. 

• While some look for new customers to equalize the loss, others put their focus on analyzing what went wrong and how to stop it from happening further. 

• This problem is called customer churn. Your churn rate denotes the number of customers who are leaving your product or service during a given time period.

A HubSpot report highlights that generating leads and enhancing customer engagement strategies are the top priorities for over 50% of companies today.

Organizations, irrespective of their sector, spend vast amounts of resources and energies to reduce churn because your churn highlights how happy your customers are with you.

Despite its importance, many organizations struggle in implementing successful user engagement strategies to reduce churn. So how do you reduce churn? This article deep dives into this very problem.

1. Analyze Your Market

While an obvious step to reduce churn, it is also a crucial one. You must find out why your customers left. Talking to such customers and getting to know them is one way to go about it. It is also an excellent way to demonstrate that you care.

You should actively make use of all media channels such as phone, e-mail, website, live chat, and social media. Surveys can be a useful tactic too if customers don’t want to talk.

2. Proactively Communicate

An important step in reducing customer churn is to actively engage with your customers. This is called relationship marketing wherein you take decisive steps in delighting your customers and showing them value in your product/service so they have a reason to keep coming back.

As a starting point, provide your customers with versatile content that deals with the key benefits of your product. It should include regular update announcements and news about special offers.

Simply put, when you engage proactively with your customers, you address their pain points, build trust, and brand preference which translates into a substantial increase in revenue streams.

3. Create Your Customer Roadmap

Getting started with a new product can be overwhelming for your customers. And if they are not able to figure out how to navigate through, they will lose interest, adding to your overall customer churn. 

Your customer engagement strategy here is to ease their transition by setting up an effective onboarding process or roadmap. Such a process will guide new customers through your products, their features, functions, and processes. 

Such a strategy also gives you greater control over how you want to supplement the information to your customers. Remember that your goal is to empower your customers. So it is vital that you constantly monitor and iterate your onboarding process.

4. Incentivize Your Customers

Give your customers a reason to stick around.

Offer them something special such as promo codes, discounts, and loyalty programs among others. These small steps can prove to be quite effective in reducing churn and showing your customers that you value them and their business.

A vital point to remember is the time in your customer’s lifecycle when you should offer these incentives. For instance, it can be at the end of your customer’s journey when you are not sure if they will go for a renewal. You can provide a discounted renewal rate to help them finalize their decision.

5. Focus on Customer Service

Many of the big companies made it big because of their focus on providing stellar customer service. It is an excellent way to prevent churn. Your service reps should be empowered to solve your customers’ queries in a timely manner.

An Oracle report states that incompetent staff and slow service are the top two reasons for customers leaving a company.

Enhance your customer service capabilities by upskilling your labor force or outsourcing your customer success operations.

6. Employ Success Managers

You can employ customer success managers to ensure that your most valuable customers are taken care of.

Your managers will provide your customers with the right input to maximize their investment in your product.

For your customers, they become the main point of contact, paving the way for more personalized interaction. 

A success manager will take care of the following points:

• Identifying those customers who are planning to leave your product or service 

• Nurture the relationship and make them stay

• Make way for stronger and persistent communication

The Bottomline  

There are two reasons why reducing customer churn should be at the top of your mind. 

The first is the financial aspect. 

According to Forrester, it costs 5 times more for companies to acquire new customers than it does to keep the existing ones. The second reason is that the more customers a business retains, the higher its revenue will be. 

But it all boils down to analyzing the right reasons behind your churn rate and swiftly acting on them. However, do keep in mind that you won’t go from 10-15% to 1-2% within a week or even overnight. 

Reducing your churn rates is a process that you need to improvise as you go along but it’s worth the time and effort invested. 

Best of luck!

Key Insights

• In today’s competitive marketplace, companies give much importance to finding, targeting, and acquiring new customers

• In the process of new customer acquisition, they often tend to overlook the significance of staying connected with existing customers 

• Organizations, across all sectors, should take cognizance of existing customers. Such customers contribute massively to sales, if treated with care

Acquiring new customers is expensive. Selling to existing customers is a more pocket-friendly approach.

However, providing superior customer service is also not a guarantee for better sales with 54% of all consumers having higher expectations from brands, according to a Microsoft report.

While companies tend to give much importance to finding, targeting, and acquiring new customers, they often overlook the significance of staying connected with existing customers.

But it has never been as vital to sustaining your existing customers. In fact, they contribute massively to sales if treated with care. According to a report by Bain & Company, a 5% increase in customer retention produces more than a 25% increase in profit.

Building relationships with your existing customers is a unique way to increase sales.

We have listed 7 top-notch strategies for you. If you manage to improve every step of your sales process by even a little, your sale increases by a lot.

7 Easy-to-Implement Hacks to Boost Sales with Existing Customers

1. Research Your Market

Open the door to new, untapped opportunities with market research and analytics.

It is one of the best strategies to increase sales. By taking a deeper look into the market you serve, you can better understand who your customers are, what they want, and identify their pain points.

You can collate feedback through surveys, listen to your customers through social media, read trade articles, and mine data from Google Analytics to understand the critical elements.

2. Understand Customer Behavior

Selling to existing customers will be impossible without understanding customer behavior, a vital element of your marketing campaign.

Understand how your customers relate to your products or services. Try answering questions such as:

• Do they rely on just a single feature or more?

• Are they having issues with one of your product features? 

This will help you to determine whether you need to provide upgrades in certain areas or not. Another approach is to provide personalized services or training to customers. Using this method will help you to enrich or extend your relationship with your existing customers. 

3. Run Promotions

An equally effective strategy to boost sales is to reward your existing customers.

Promotions that reward old customers will go a long way in improving their loyalty and increase sales figures significantly.

The frequency of promotions can be weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually. What matters is that it doesn’t stress your business. You must plan for promotions so that they don’t wear you out. 

4. Update Your Offering

As your business grows, your offerings will change. Turn to your existing customers when it comes to deciding what offerings to eliminate and where you can utilize opportunities.

An easy strategy to boost sales is to look at the items that your customer base ignores.

Low sales items also clutter your business. When you strip away such items, your customers can focus on the products and services that they want.

Another factor for you to avoid is offering a large variety of products in each product line.

Such an approach increases the cognitive load that may lead to inertia which interferes with decision-making. All of us have experienced some kind of cognitive overload when it comes to making a purchase decision by scrolling through page after page of offerings on Amazon or eBay.

5. Upsell and Cross-sell

Selling to existing customers will be incomplete without upselling and cross-selling. In fact, cross-selling can increase sales by 20% and profits by 30%, according to McKinsey research. 

Your biggest hurdle, which is the initial buy, is over now. You have established trust, and your customer has formed a favorable opinion about your business. Now, it’s time to think of the next step. 

An upsell takes place when you convince a customer to buy more than they originally planned. On the other hand, cross-selling happens when the customer buys a different product or service.

6. Tell Your Story

Visual mechanisms can be your companion to increase sales from existing customers. Visual aids and infographics can help you spur into action.

This type of approach makes messages actionable while subtly convincing existing customers to make more purchases. The idea is to show customers how you plan to solve their problems with your offering.

With visual mechanisms, it becomes easier to encourage the customer to close the sale.

7. After-sales Service

According to a study conducted by Shep Hyken’s CX consulting firm, 96% of customers will leave business if they receive bad service.

When it comes to selling more to existing customers, you cannot ignore after-sales service. If you abandon your customers after the sale, they won’t come back in the future.

Wrapping Up

It is critical to remember that you are building the customer and not the sale. When you succeed in this, your sales will increase.

Considering the intrinsic role of sales in business growth, you must find effective strategies to increase sales and implement those for boosting sales, increasing customer lifetime value, and better ROI. 

Key Takeaways

• Sales operations are a critical component of any top-performing sales organization, helping the business reach its revenue target 

• A sales ops team is well-poised to help sales teams close more deals while alleviating salespeople of non-selling sales activities 

• Despite its increasingly critical role, many sales leaders struggle with building a sales ops team 

• Certain practices can make the process easier and help organizations bring transparency and clarity to their processes

Like most sectors and departments across industries, sales operations were disrupted and reshaped by the pandemic.

Digital solutions are offering new paths to sales operation strategy where the key is building better connections, both with customers and the workforce.

The increasing importance of utilizing data to drive decision-making has made sales ops more important than ever.

According to the Trends in Sales Ops Report, 75% of the sales ops professionals now have new responsibilities with 64% expecting their role to change.

Despite its increasing scope, sales operations is also an area that many sales leaders struggle with. But done right, sales ops can help companies improve their sales performance and boost revenue growth.

This article attempts to answer this. Deep dive into why sales ops is such a critical piece of your sales puzzle and how to build a stellar sales ops team for success.

Let’s get started.

Why is Sales Ops So Important?

According to a survey, sales ops teams drive up to a 10% increase in sales productivity each year.

Simply put, your sales operations team is responsible for helping sales professionals sell better, hit goals faster, and lead smoother sales processes.

Senior leaders of organizations can leverage their sales operations department to synthesize data about the sales experience to make it more effective.

Here are four more ways how sales ops help organizations boost their performance. 

• Sales operations free up time and energy for organizations as they analyze and streamline internal processes so sales teams are not as distracted or bogged down. If any given task takes more time as it’s being done manually, the sales ops team will research ways to automate that task. The result is that your sales team is better poised to serve customers.

• There’s a clear gap between companies that scale and those that don’t. The answer is the absence of a clear and effective sales operations strategy which could have helped build a repeatable sales process that is codified across the sales team. Smart sales ops leaders help their companies to establish best practices across teams, making results predictable. 

• The sales operations team demystifies the sales process for other departments so data-driven decisions can be made which helps achieve revenue targets. Sales ops professionals make use of CRM data to paint a holistic picture of the customer journey which can help leaders gauge if the pipeline is healthy or not. 

• Your sales operations department will be in a better position to notice risks that heads of sales may miss as they are more focused on closing the deal. With the sales team busy executing the plan, sales ops leaders will dig into data and use those insights to design incentives and create a killer sales ops strategy. 

How Do You Structure Sales Operations for Success?

While sales operations continue to grow as a strategic imperative in a dynamic marketplace, the current structure and roles are not without limitations.

The State of Sales Operations Report by LinkedIn highlights that 36% of sales ops professionals struggle with balancing strategic and operational responsibilities.

The answer lies in having a well-planned sales operations structure in place.

Once established, you have more consistency and control over your sales process while your tasks managers and sales reps have better clarity to complete goals.

Here’s how you can structure your sales operations team. 

1. Determine Operational Scope

Your operational scope for sales ops corresponds to your plan for sales and strategy.

For instance, if online advertising and content marketing are part of your sales plan to generate leads, your sales ops structure will be different.

This is your operational scope. It defines your sales process, core metrics, supportive tasks, and roles.

It’s essentially a top-down approach where you start with a strategy, set up a sales ops structure that incorporates the strategy, and then, implement resources and practices to optimize the system.

2. Define KPIs for Sales Operations

Since sales ops encompasses both strategy and execution, it is important to evaluate how the team is performing relative to its goals. KPIs will help you with that. 

• Average Win Rate: Your sales ops team is working hard to ensure that your sales department closes more deals. You can measure the efficiency of your team by monitoring the average win rate. 

• Average deal size: This is the average dollar amount for every closed deal or contract. It’s an important metric to understand the financial health of the organization and its pipeline. 

• Average Sales Cycle Length: Your sales ops team is hard at work to slash the time it takes a prospect to close after entering your sales pipeline. Monitoring this cycle can make your team more efficient.

• Lead Response Time: Also known as speed to lead, this measures the amount of time it takes for you to follow up on clients after their first contact with your business. 

3. Establish a Sales Process

A sales process will include repeatable steps to get prospects from the awareness stage to the purchase stage. These include various activities such as cold calling, lead qualifications, and hosting a client meeting to present a pitch.

Both sales funnel and sales pipeline can help strengthen this process.

Your funnel represents the lead’s buying journey with your business. The pipeline involves all internal activities you can take up to move the lead through the funnel.

4. Establish a Strong Leadership

Your sales operation structure should have a direct line to the executives. 

Make sure that your team is led by a vice president, director, or senior manager. These leaders should report to the president or a high-level sales leader. 

While sales ops and marketing work closely together, your sales team is the one that understands the overall sales strategy. This team should be part of sales rather than marketing.

5. Get More Team Members for Supportive Sales Tasks

According to the State of Sales Report by Salesforce, 75% of sales reps have taken on new responsibilities at work. Supportive tasks should not throw your sales ops team members off track. These are the administrative tasks that ensure sales process optimization.

For instance, recruitment, training, and onboarding of new members are all supportive tasks in sales as they don’t directly impact the sales process.

Similarly, invoicing and billing a customer to collect revenue, tracking sales commissions for the payroll team, and creating sales forecasts and sales contests are all supportive tasks for your sales operations team.

A proper pipeline on how these tasks are completed can help to strengthen your sales ops structure.

6. Make Use of Technology

78% of customers expect a consistent customer experience at every touchpoint and digital channel.

It’s essential that your team is not burdened with manual tasks that take their time and energy from critical activities. Use technology as much as possible to automate tasks.

CRM software, email automation software, lead prioritization engines, and sales software are just a few of the tools that you can make use of.

However, it will also be counter-productive if your sales ops team is toggling between 10+ tools. Figure out the role a new software will play in your sales process and only then implement it. 

7. Who to Hire

According to one report, 36% of sales ops professionals agree that it’s hard to recruit and retain good hires in sales ops.

Putting together any new team can be challenging, but more so in the case of your sales operations team because of the central role they play in your revenue growth.

Keeping in mind certain qualities can help you make the right choice. This includes the ability to analyze data. They should have excellent communication skills so they can help the larger team understand the significance of the data.

As the sales ops team is linked to almost all parts of the organization, they need to be able to build relationships.

Succeed with an Effective Sales Ops Team

Building a sales operations team is one of the most critical steps of your enterprise sales cycle. Done well, it can improve productivity and deliver a stellar customer experience. 

More than anything else, sales operations will help you create a robust system of selling where data, insights, and technology play an important role in driving performance and sustainable growth.

Key Insights

• Many businesses choose to ignore small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), setting their sights on closing larger clients

• Businesses will benefit better by targeting the SMB market which has a shorter sales cycle and less red tape 

• Striking connections with your SMB customers will be easier if you make way for personalization and a clear communication process 

• If you are selling to small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), you must make it an intentional part of your strategy, tailoring not just the prices but your entire approach. 

• SMB is a segment in its own right. Your SMB sales can only be successful if you remove barriers, understand the whys and hows of the SMB market, and adopt the right mindset to ensure success with SMB customers.

With almost 31 million small businesses in the U.S. alone, the SMB market represents a tremendous business opportunity for enterprises of all sizes.

Before we jump into effective strategies for successful SMB sales, let’s look at what the landscape is all about.

What Does SMB Sales Mean?

As mentioned earlier, SMB stands for small- and medium-sized business.

SMB sales refers to salespeople selling products or services to this market. SMBs usually have fewer than 500 employees.

SMBs also have shorter sales cycles and cost less for salespeople to close a deal.

Since SMBs often have very different needs and customer pain points, it requires SMB salespeople to use a unique SMB sales strategy to land clients, compared to the strategies involved in any big enterprise.

7 Easy-to-Implement Tips for Selling to Your SMB Customers

Many businesses choose to ignore SMBs, setting their sights on closing larger clients.

But, in comparison, SMBs have less red tape, resulting in shorter sales cycles. It is also easier to get in touch with key decision makers, entailing more success for your SMB sales strategy.

It is vital to keep in mind that SMBs don’t always remain an SMB.

An SMB today might grow into a multi-million dollar company in a few years. And this big enterprise will keep on using your product or service for years to come.

Let’s walk through some of the best sales techniques for SMB customers.

1. Connect Early

As you get down to fine tuning your SMB sales strategy, make sure to add early engagement as the first part of the process.

Interact with potential customers before you start pitching.

By making yourself available at the very start of the decision-making process and maintaining consistent contact, you will provide greater value throughout the process.

Additionally, you will be top-of-mind when the time comes for your SMB customers to make a purchase.

2. Qualify Properly

Qualifying leads help you to determine whether a lead fits into your ideal customer profile and will convert into a paying customer. 

Lead qualification is critical to any segment that you are targeting, but more so for the SMB market. Keep the following points in mind when evaluating an SMB business:

• Has the business been registered last week? 

• Has the SMB determined its business model yet? 

• How much funding does the SMB have? 

Such questions will help you evaluate if you are zeroing down on a SMB that fits your business. Otherwise, you will deplete your own resource pool in chasing the wrong client. 

3. Niche Down

Regardless of what you are selling, it won’t be a good fit for everyone.

One you have zeroed down on your ideal customer type, you can make the process even more seamless by focusing on a smaller cohort.

For instance, let’s take restaurants as your target SMB customer. Rather than simply targeting restaurants of a certain size, target those that cater to a specific demographic.

The idea is to get as specific as possible. This is how you will get to know everything about your ideal SMB profile, enabling you to sell better and smarter.

4. Keep it Simple

When you are fighting to make a mark in the SMB market, it is easy to get caught up in the details. But an in-depth sales pitch isn’t what your SMB client wants to hear.

Don’t complicate your pitch.

In fact, a simple straightforward pitch, with touches of personalization will be more effective for making a sale.

Present your information in an easy-to-digest, bite-sized format. Cover the facets of your product or service that your SMB leads will care about. 

5. Offer an End-to-End Solution

SMBs require products and services that will be up and running in no time, with little or no effort on their part.

That is why you must make it clear that your solution will meet their needs without an extra investment of time or money to install and build the features.

Regardless of your target SMB, ensure that implementation is fast and easy.

When you emphasize your understanding of their need for a turnkey solution, you show that you value their time.

6. Alleviate their Worries

SMB customers tend to be risk-averse, for many of them are bootstrapped.

For SMBs, every dollar counts.

You can set your customers’ minds at ease with some easy steps listed below:

• Offer a free trial of your solution 

• Provide a money-back guarantee 

• Make way for monthly payments rather than a yearly subscription 

• Feature testimonials and case studies on your website so they have proof of your product’s features 

7. Cultivate Loyalty

Long-term customer loyalty comes with a slew of benefits for your business.

In fact, repeat business can generate valuable referrals for you.

So, it is important for you to maintain and strengthen existing SMB partnerships.

This starts with treating your SMB customers as valued individuals. Personalize their experience with your sales team. Be patient and offer assistance at every stage of the sales process.

Whether it be pre-sale or post-sale, every engagement must be guided with the objective of providing stellar customer service and support.

Summing It Up

To capture a meaningful and sustaining partnership, it is critical to lead with the objective of providing value for your SMB customers and not just to create value for your business.

A successful SMB sales pitch will find a way to help clients achieve their dreams in a manner that is honest, transparent, and respectful. 

Key Insights

Perhaps a decade ago, organizations would typically use outsourcing to improve back-office operations through cost cutting and performance improvement. However, the situation has completely transformed and evolved in today’s rapidly changing business landscape.