Building a sales opportunity scoring
By Félix Robitaille, President
It is of the utmost importance for a sales team to concentrate its energy on the most sustainable opportunities. Time is a limited luxury which no one can afford to waste.How do we choose the opportunities in which we invest? The implementation of CRM will allow you to manage these opportunities, create a task structure and increase your efficiency by integrating into your sales and marketing. The only way to truly measure the benefits of an opportunity, is by giving it a score using a formula that is true to each company.Here are a few components to be considered when creating your opportunity scoring.
The profile of the company
You probably know your company’s buyer persona, thus enabling you to know which type of company will be more inclined to purchasing your services. This information allows you to become the profile or persona that will fit your ideal client’s interest. This client for whom your services will be essential and affordable. The more characteristic you have in common with your ideal client, the bigger your sale opportunity becomes.
Your contact person
Going beyond the company, it is important to consider the role of the employee you are in contact with. Are you speaking with the decision maker? Is the person you are speaking with immediately affected by this purchase or do they need to get the expense approved by a department where they have little influence? An opportunity has a much better chance at being achieved by speaking with an executive member, than if you speak with a newly hired employee who has no budgetary power.
The simplicity of the purchasing process
Further to your contact person, you must consider that the purchasing process they must comply to will also have an impact. Will the transaction be voted on during the comities and when is the right time for you to convince more than one person of the benefits purchasing your product will provide for their company? Must your transaction be subject to a tender procurement process? Which of these components will significantly reduce your chances of getting an opportunity all the while increasing the hours needed for you to provide a suitable submission.
The interactions with your marketing material
Analysing the client and their behavior will give you an idea of their commitment and intentions towards your service. A client who reads your info letters regularly, demonstrates a visible interest for your company. Once again, their interest will be shown if they download a white book on the services you are trying to sell or if they show up at one of your events. It is even possible to know if a client visits your web page on a regular basis. By incorporating your marketing tools to your CRM, these activities will automatically be analyzed and added to your opportunity scoring. Knowing your prospect’s interest will make speaking with them easier.
The stage conversion
The more of his own time a prospect invests in the purchasing process, the more likely they are to convert themselves to you. Each stage of the achieved sales will increase the opportunity score. It is needless to say, if the only thing left for you to do is obtain the signed contract then this would have been your most sustainable effort of the month.
The root of the opportunity
Other than your client another fact to consider is that not all opportunities are equal. Choosing a contract that will benefit you the most, requires you to keep the following components in mind: The value of the project, the type of products and services that are being offered, the available recourses as well as the conditions within your company. Further to closing a sale, your goal is to increase your company’s credibility as a whole. There are many basic criterium that exist for a company to succeed, however each criterium and its origin will differ from one company to another. It is important for you to analyse your sale efforts and identify what impacts them the most. Your CRM and the experts who ensure its implementation can help you analyse your available data which will allow you to use your time wisely by prioritising the right prospects.