Introduction
The world of B2B sales has seen a major shift. Gone are the days of growth at all costs, aggressive hiring, and building sales and tech processes without thinking about the long-term vision.
The industry is embracing a new wave centred around scalable and sustainable growth. GTM teams are instead focused on hitting targets at reduced costs. So if the goal is to find what works and double down, how do you increase success with the team that you already have?
The short answer is to increase your win rates.
Let’s say that your company drives $25 million in pipeline every year. With a 10% win rate, that company drives $2.5 million in revenue.
Even a 1% increase in win rate can move the needle by $250,000 – a remarkable improvement in your company’s bottom line. Make that 5% and you’re looking at an additional $1.25 million in revenue.
So if improving your win rate is a no-brainer, the real question is why are you losing these deals to begin with?
As it turns out, the answer is often in plain sight. Let’s dive into three common signs that you’re losing winnable deals.
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The signs: Top win rate killers
Sign #1: Intel on prospects and opportunities is scattered and doesn’t live in Salesforce
Whether it’s Google Docs, Notion, Quip, or pen and paper, AEs and BDRs all have different preferences when it comes to keeping track of important information.
But when that information is scattered and doesn’t live inside your CRM, it is difficult to uncover the trends that are leading to success and replicate. Ultimately creating more work for reps, sales leaders, and other members of the broader GTM team including marketing and customer success.
According to Salesforce, sales reps spend 72% of their week on non-selling tasks. On top of that, only 37% of sales professionals strongly agree that their org fully utilizes its CRM.
Here’s what this might look like.
Onboarding new sales reps, territory changes, or handing off accounts to other teams such as CS is a frustrating process.
What happens when a sales rep leaves and a new team member comes in?
Unless the previous rep’s notes are somewhere that everyone can access (and well written) the new rep will be starting from scratch and have a hard time ramping up.
The same applies to any of the following situations:
- Your sales team is undergoing a territory change
- A sales rep goes on vacation and needs to hand over an account
- A sales manager or executive needs a quick understanding of the players in a deal to provide support
And it’s not just about spending less time digging through notes. It’s making sure that sales reps are always thinking about who’s who and have a way of tracking the politics at a company, who has decision-making power, and who has the ability to influence the decision-maker.
It feels impossible to replicate successful deals
Your successful deals shouldn’t feel like unicorns.
When information like the number of supporters it took to get a deal across the line or which roles are most often your biggest influencers isn’t being tracked in Salesforce it is difficult to create repeatable playbooks for your GTM teams.
Being able to visualize and report on what helps deals close will pay dividends in recreating that same success in the future.
Sign #2: Sales leadership doesn’t have visibility into the political details of opportunities
According to Gartner, the typical buying group for “a complex B2B solution involves six to 10 decision makers.”
Without the ability to visualize who the key players are and get an understanding of who a rep has or hasn’t interacted with during a deal cycle can make it challenging for leaders to maximize the effectiveness of their team.
Here’s what this might look like.
Coaching and mentoring aren’t effective
Sales leaders have multiple reps under them, each working on five to ten deals with six to ten stakeholders.
When it comes to mentoring sales reps and reviewing deals, it’s difficult to keep up with what’s going on, who’s who, and to have an understanding of each deal.
In most cases, more time is spent during meetings trying to distinguish one opp from another instead of focusing on the strategic side of a deal.
As a sales leader, having visualization into deals means that you can empower sales reps with better coaching, identifying gaps and risks, and keeping them accountable.
Your sales forecasting isn’t precise
Sales leaders want their forecasts to be as accurate as possible. But it can be challenging to know if a deal is going to close or not when you don’t have visibility into how much support a rep has from the buying committee.
Is there someone in the organization who can veto the buying decision? Is there a detractor at the organization that’s pushing a competitive alternative? Has your rep spent enough time building trust with influencers and the decision-maker?
If you can’t visualize the individuals involved in a deal, it’s difficult to distinguish whether your sales reps are in contact with stakeholders and decision-makers or just verbal supporters. And that can be a major factor in your deals and sales forecasting falling through the cracks.
As a sales leader, you want to ensure that your sales reps are constantly working with individuals that have the ability to influence decisions – not just a friendly face.
Sign #3: Account-based motions aren’t collaborative
When your go-to-market teams aren’t working together, deals can be very transactional. A lead comes inbound, a single sale is made, and it’s done.
Account-based motions can help your go-to-market teams win more deals and drive more revenue.
Here are some of the problem signs to watch out for.
A lack of collaboration across GTM teams
Being able to visualize the influencers and decision-makers in deals doesn’t just benefit your sales team – it can make or break the efforts of your GTM team.
When that data doesn’t live in Salesforce, your team misses a huge opportunity to collaborate from an account-based motion.
When you’re able to track who has the ability to influence a deal and who’s ultimately making the decision, that gives more intel to other teams that can help them be more strategic in their targeting.
Marketing doesn’t target the right people
Account-based marketing can often involve tactics like targeted ads, outbounding, executive dinners, invites to events, gifting, and direct mail.
When multiple stakeholders are involved in a deal, it’s important to know which ones have more influence. Should marketing target the RevOps Manager, who will be an everyday user of the solution, or the Director of Sales, who approves software purchasing decisions?
In this scenario, it’s likely that the Director of Sales will trust the opinion of the RevOps Manager. By making that intel available to marketing, marketing can then ensure they’re tailoring their messaging to each stakeholder.
Customer success and account managers are struggling to grow and maintain accounts
Your marketing and sales teams put in a ton of effort to close deals – but the work doesn’t stop there.
Customer success teams and account managers have the opportunity to cross-sell and upsell across the customer’s business.
But in order to do that, they need the ability to see the contacts and relationships that can grow an account.
For example, sales may have discovered during the initial buying cycle that a leader from a North American team has a strong personal relationship with an EMEA team leader.
By capturing that intel in Salesforce, an Account Manager focused on expanding the account after implementation would be able to use that intel to get a warm introduction.
Having a better understanding of said relationships allows them to target weak points, create a better customer experience, and take proactive measures to stop churn.
Conclusion
We’ve gone over the signs but what’s the solution?
How do you increase your win rate and avoid the common mistakes that are losing you deals?
For starters, it begins with enabling every member of your GTM team and giving them a common language. Having that and a shared method of communication will help team members and leadership communicate more effectively.
Then, being able to visualize these deals and important decision-makers in a relationship map not only increases the likelihood that a deal will close, but also unlocks the ability to identify gaps and collaborate.
Finally, it’s time to report. Don’t let successful deals be unicorns – whether it’s marketing, sales, or customer success, understand what worked (or what didn’t) and use that information to drive better sales motions moving forward.
Complete Influence helps your go-to-market team visualize organizational structures, identify stakeholders that matter, and close more deals.
