Expensive salespeople not selling
I spoke with a CEO last week who is struggling to scale their organization.
The issue?
He said that his salespeople weren't selling and were too expensive. He wanted to find an energetic junior salesperson who worked more and cost less money.
After some questioning, we unearthed more about the business's sales funnel:
The company strategy was to chase both startups and enterprise clients
When selling to startups, they couldn't convert because budgets for these services had shrunk to 10% of pre-tech-recession expectations
When selling to enterprise, conversion was nearly 90%, but the salespeople weren't bringing any enterprise leads. These leads only came from the CEO
My follow-up question to the CEO: Which would you prefer to chase; Startups or Enterprise?
He said, "Startups aren't worth it anymore. We're focusing on Enterprise."
We already knew conversion of Enterprise customers was ~90%
So the area of improvement to scale would be creating more leads.
In their industry, most Enterprise leads come from:
Informational authority marketing such as blogs and other technical publications
Network connections built based on resume and credibility
Attending executive-only conferences
Word-of-mouth referrals
My next question to the CEO: Would it be appropriate to ask any of your current or more junior salespeople to produce leads in this way?
His answer: No.
Blogging would require technical expertise they didn't have
And current sales people didn't have the credibility or authority to generate leads via their network.
So what are the immediate options for creating more Enterprise leads in this organization?
Ramp up the CEO's networking activities (and hire off some of his other non-sales responsibilities)
Hire an enterprise lead generator who comes with a reputation and network of potential leads
Hire or dedicate technical expertise to writing publications
Here's the thing:
When something is broken at your company, the solution can feel so obvious.
But so often, the obvious solution is wrong.
Before jumping to conclusions,
(especially when that conclusion is employee incompetence,)
It can really help to break the problem down
With a trusted friend or advisor
Who can keep you honest.
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