Lemon #77. Nine principles of
a sales machine
While reading ‘Predictable Revenue’ from Aaron Ross, we learned about 9 principles of building a sales machine. Aaron Ross says:
- Be patient. Developing a sales engine that predictably generates revenue can take 4-12 months or more. It can take months and months before it’s defined, and you’ve made your first mistakes, fixed ‘em, seen revenue, and then it’s finally integrated and habitual.
- Experiment. With everything. Constantly. A/B test. Try two different phone scripts or emails with 50 prospects, and measure which one works better.
- Don’t take on one off-projects. If it’s not intended to be repeatable, it’s not worth doing. One-off efforts are a distraction from focusing your energy on sustainable efforts.
- Get out of Excel. Create a rule that if «it» (an opportunity, order, client, etc) doesn’t exist in your CRM, it doesn’t exist.
- Sketch out how things work and what your processes are on a flow chart. What’s your lead generation or sales process? Can you sketch it out simply, on a paper or a whiteboard? If no, that’s a problem.
- Focus on results rather than activity. Ex: Tracking the number of qualified opportunities created per month is much more meaningful than focusing on the number of sales calls made per day.
- Track fewer, more important metrics. New leads created per month, nº of qualified sales opportunities, % conversion rate of leads to qualified opportunities, total bookings or revenue, win rates.
- Pay special attention to «batons» that cross functions. Whenever a process crosses teams (marketing handing leads to sales), a «baton» is passed. These handoffs are the cause of 80% of the problems and defects in your processes.
- Take baby steps! Consistently try lots of little improvements.
Aaron Ross @ Predictable Revenue.
Jorge Moreno
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