Living here in the Pacific Northwest I have more experience with clouds then I would like to really admit. They come in many shapes, sizes and intensities and each has their own individual purpose.

I look at the cloud front approaching our customers (VAR’s, ISV’s and SI’s) as the leading edge of a hurricane, a Category 5 Hurricane, something that can and will reshape this landscape from what it is now to something most cannot contemplate.

I would love to live in De-Nile (but Egypt is too far away); however as an organization we are coming to grips with what this means to the customers we have supported for over 20 years, and it’s not pretty.  This is not because there isn’t tremendous opportunity, not because there isn’t a place for our customers in the re-architected channel, it’s because so many I have talked to are truly in denial about what this means to them.

Moving to a Cloud

Moving to a Cloud-based business model means you have to toss out all the old thinking, in fact have it bleached from your mind because no stains to old thinking will support your transition.  Only once we can contemplate a future truly different from the past can we undertake the essential planning exercise to make the transition from one paradigm to the next.

I am not saying we are going to flick the switch and be there, I am saying to plan carefully enough to navigate your aircraft through these towering cumulus clouds and fierce head winds, we must first be willing to completely throughout our existing model and plan.

Then re-think the whole thing and consider how to put it back together in an innovative and creative way that will allow you to truly win.  In any channel re-architecture, the opportunities are HUGE for some and catastrophic for others.

Sales Process has Changed

We have to face that fact that sales will not be conducted face-to-face and that multiple 6 legged sales call to a customer with a multitude of demos is over.

That marketing has to attract prospects and convert them to leads
in a faster lower cost way than we have done in the past.

And that coveted software to services ratio in whole numbers in fact over 2x is gone.  In fact, we can see that already for traditional on-premise players, a slow descent that is driving the profitability out of the current models.

The full force of the winds and clouds are not yet upon us, you still have to time to consider options and strategies, but these storms move fast. So, in the famous words of Roy Rogers “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just stand there”

Pitter patter, tick tock.

As sales managers or executives, what’s the most common request we hear from sales people?

Leads! More Leads!

What they’re really asking for is not just more leads, it’s, more, more qualified and DIFFERENT leads… the Glengarry leads.

It almost never matters which leads we have, they aren’t the ones we want.

Here’s something I’ve dealt with first hand. I’m not sure if this makes me want to laugh or to cry.

Until recently I was a VP of Sales for an international technology company. One of our more senior sales representatives was struggling. Let’s call him Paul. His forecast was thin and his pipeline was weak. Paul was concerned about his quarter and he asked for help.

Good on him for being at least a little proactive.

Paul wasn’t into prospecting. He’d wait for in-bound leads from Marketing.

Marketing Leads – Quantity vs. Quality

Paul’s feeling was that he needed to get fewer leads (huh?). He was getting lots of leads from Marketing but they were “terrible” (his words, not mine). Paul also said that although they were bad leads, in good conscience, he still felt compelled to treat them with respect. So he found himself going through dozens of crappy leads in order to find the few, worthwhile leads.

Paul reasoned that if we provided him with fewer but more qualified leads, he’d be able to dedicate more time to each of them and he’d have more time to prospect on his own.

Paul’s declared (and I quote), “It’s not about the leads, it’s about the opportunities.”

Business Development – Honing Qualifying Leads

Since we already had a group of Business Development Representatives (BDRs) that handled incoming calls, it was fairly easy to change the BDR role slightly so that they did more qualifying. We gave them the training and tools (including scripts, templates, etc.) to do the job properly.

The result was that fewer leads got through the funnel, but they were definitely more qualified.

How do you think this translated to Paul’s results?

Surprise! Paul’s results did not improve in the slightest. In fact they got worse.

Neither did he dedicate any more time to prospecting. Instead, complained that he wasn’t getting enough leads!

Go Bigger or Go… Small?

Paul then proposed a different idea. Since he was a senior sales representative (higher base salary, higher commission and higher quota), he was focused on larger companies. Paul wanted to be allowed to sell to our smaller company prospects as well.

It should be noted that our company sweet spot was in the smaller companies. These sales cycles could be pretty short; from a few days to three months.

Paul argued that as a more senior sales representative, he would be able to drive tons of business in those smaller companies and close a greater volume than our representatives that usually sold into that space.

We agreed to do a test. We began to give Paul a bunch of those smaller-company leads.

Any guesses how this went?

After one quarter, Paul had not closed one deal. Not one. He also still had done no prospecting.

When we sat down to have our difficult conversation, Paul said that those smaller company leads were, “not worth my (his) time”.

Moral of the Story

A Sales Professional should expect to generate at least 25% of their business through their own prospecting efforts.

There will always be good leads and bad leads. The bottom line is that all leads should be treated with respect. As sales professionals, the best leads are the ones that we come up with ourselves.

If somebody else gives us a lead it really is just a contact or a suspect until we’ve vetted it and if we don’t like the leads we’ve got, then we need to go out and get some other ones.

What would we do if Marketing disappeared overnight?