When Henry called me yesterday he asked a really interesting question. ”Why is it”, he said, “that everyone feels that the start of the year is the only time that they should look to build their pipeline?”
Henry works for a software UX design company that we partner with. His company plays a huge role in designing Dealmaker to be really, really, easy to use. They do spectacular work. If you are a Dealmaker user you will know what I mean.
Henry’s question was prompted by the fact that over the last month (i.e. since the start of the year) his company has been inundated with requests from customers looking for his help. They want him to design new websites, upgrade the UI of their applications, and design new marketing campaigns to attract new sales opportunities.
What’s really great about Henry is that over the time that we have been working together he has assimilated much of the sales methodology that we embed in Dealmaker and has immersed himself in the personas of the sales person and sales manager.
His follow up question was “Anyway, why is it that they are fixated on pipeline, adding more and more deals that they then don’t qualify properly or follow a proper sales process? Shouldn’t they be thinking about each of the four Sales Velocity levers?” I have to tell you, I just sat back and chuckled to myself. I just love the fact that in the process of getting to understand the very best UX for Dealmaker, Henry now automatically thinks about the things that we all want our sellers to think about every day.
I have written about the Sales Velocity Equation before. At its heart it says that there are really only four levers that you can pull to impact how much you sell in a given timeframe. These are (i) the number of deals, (ii) the average deal value, (iii) the win rate, and (iv) the sales cycle. When you take this to heart, you can see that it is not all about more leads, more calls, or even more opportunities. Some times it is about increasing your average deal size by understanding the value of what you can provide in context of the customer’s business problem. When mapping your sales process to the customer’s buying process you can often take some control of the sales cycle. Win rates generally increase when you bring insights to the customer that lead to your UBV (Unique Business Value).
Each of the levers impact how much you sell, and you should care about each of them equally.
If I get time over the next week or so I will write about how you can increase how much you sell by working with each of the four Sales Velocity levers, but for now I will just point you at this Slideshare that unpacks Sales Velocity for you a little bit.
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