When your sales increase, does your sales and marketing expense grow by a percentage greater than the percentage increase in sales revenue? If so, your sales model is not scalable. There are two qualities that scalable sales strategies must have:
- It must be consistent; and
- It must be repeatable.
Let’s look at the strategies that can make that happen.
FACT: if you want scalable sales, have scalable plans
If you’re a SaaS company what you really want, and what will make a difference to the bottom line, is big customers with lots of users. So price that way. Have more than one plan and make the plan for many users more attractive in cost-per-user than the plan for the smallest number of users.
Free? Discount? What Language Are You Speaking?
Huge numbers of customers who pay nothing at all or don’t pay enough are no use to anyone. Don’t discount and don’t give product away free. That doesn’t mean you can’t offer incentives. “Buy a one-year plan, pay in advance and get one month free” is not (as long as you price it right) a discount. It’s an incentive. And a good one.
Increase the Price
It’s always easier to come down from a high price than to go up from a low one. So start high. Understand, and make sure that your salespeople understand, that what customers really want is a good product and a very high level of support. Not only are they prepared to pay for those things; if you don’t provide them it won’t matter how cheap you are – they’ll still leave.
How Well Do You Use Your CRM System?
Many installed CRM systems are not fully exploited. A good CRM system is a goldmine of data that needs to be critically examined and evaluated. At the end of the day, you can’t manage orders, but you can manage activities. If you’ve been in operation for a year or more, you should have enough data to answer the following questions:
- How many trials or demonstrations do we typically do for each sale we make?
- How many sales visits do we typically make to get one trial or demonstration?
- How many follow-up telephone calls do we typically make to get one visit?
- How many cold calls do we typically make to get one follow-up telephone call?
Once you’ve answered these questions, you know how many cold calls it takes to produce one sale. Now check how many cold calls your highest performing salespeople make and tell all salespeople that they need to make not less than that number. Then use the CRM system to find out whether they do. Following this method will get you away from an unsatisfactory sales forecasting process that only focuses on prospects near the end of the chain and closer to exploring the whole of the sales funnel.
BONUS STRATEGY: Get Your Sales Hiring Right
How do you go about hiring salespeople right now? If you want results that are strong, consistent and repeatable, sales hires should not be random. You need to identify the sales people you already have whose performance is better than average and then define the characteristics that make them successful. Give that profile to your recruiters and make it clear that you only want people who match that profile.
BluSynergy’s business is subscription billing and electronic bill pay systems. We’ve learned an awful lot about scalable sales models and the best strategies to achieve them. Get in touch with us today. We have a lot to say to each other.
