Conversion or “win” rate is the percentage of leads that turn into business in a given period. Increasing your conversion rates is a key part of sales velocity, or how fast you’re making money.
There are four important measures in sales velocity: conversion rate, the number of opportunities, average order value and time to sale. Each one is a lever you need to pull to accelerate your outcomes in sales.
Our series on sales velocity looks at each of these concepts in more depth, along with conversion rates we will be releasing:
When people drop out of your pipeline unexpectedly, it costs your business time and money. If this happens, it’s normally because the customer can’t convince a key stakeholder, or they weren’t a good fit in the first place.
Selling internally isn’t easy. Usually, it’s more likely that a deal will go through if you personalise what you’re selling to your champion in a business and multi-thread a deal by engaging with as many of the stakeholder group as you can.
There are lots of ways you can do this. This article looks at the crucial factors in working together as a team to strengthen your conversion rates.
Deals need to be multi-threaded. That means having more than one person in the client’s business who will advocate for you.
A huge reason why a deal won’t convert is down to who you’re working with. Identify the mobilisers in your client’s business early and make sure you’ve got them on side.
Find the people who are good at driving change and building consensus in their business. This doesn’t necessarily correlate with the business hierarchy – these won’t always be C-suite execs.
You need to work with people who have the ability to influence others and get sales signed off quickly. And be aware of those who put up blockers and might slow things down.
You’ve convinced your champion and left it with them to go and get the deal signed. The problem is, getting the decision pushed through their business will be tough.
This is when the hard work starts for your champion. They have stakeholders to convince and sales reps hassling them to sign the deal. They end up paralysed and don’t even take the first step.
Don’t back off at this stage. As a salesperson, you should lean in and take their hand.
Make it as easy as possible for clients to sell on by showing them what the decision-making process will look like.
There will be different viewpoints, blockers and pushback from their stakeholders. Work collaboratively to map these out in advance. Help your champion understand the process they need to go through to get an agreed decision.
Often, reps sell to their main champion in the business, then leave it to them to get other stakeholders on board.
This is a big mistake. It slows down conversion rates because the proposal hasn’t been written for the stakeholders’ needs. Instead, it’s been designed based on the needs of the champion.
All stakeholders need to go on the same journey as your champion. They all need to see a compelling reason for change and be aligned to your solution.
Creating your presentations and proposals for the entire decision-making group is critical to increase conversion rates. Think about:
Salespeople tend to focus on what they’re selling. A stronger way to drive the conversion rate is to teach your clients how to buy.
It sounds complicated, but it’s as simple as finding out the criteria they currently use to make buying decisions and helping them reshape it.
Teach them how to buy in a way that’s best going to solve their challenges – but teach them in a way that leads to you. Make sure you’re distinct from your competitors so that you’re the only ones who fit into the criteria.
Many objections can be anticipated and avoided, so don’t be afraid of them. Be ready for them by following these steps:
Remember – if you don’t deal with objections head on, your clients will still have them afterwards and they are unlikely to be overcome.
Ask yourself these questions to help improve conversion rates and increase your sales velocity:
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