Building and Optimizing your First Sales Process – Steli Efti – MicroConf Europe 2016

The MicroConf Europe 2016 Talk Recaps can be found on the central hub page.

Website: Close.io
Twitter: @Steli
Slides:

• Started as productized consulting offering scalable sales processes to VC funded startups in the Bay Area
• Stumbled into CRM space by releasing internal software
• Show up. Follow up. Close.
• Sales is not difficult. It is just emotionally uncomfortable.
• You have to push yourself to follow up
• Ask for the close in no uncertain words

Sales Process Exploration

• Goal #1: find a predictable sales process
• 3 Steps to Sales Epiphany
  • Customer Profile
    • Who is ideal customer?
    • How do we qualify them?
  • Lead Sources
    • Scalable sources for high quality leads?
  • Sales Process
    • Most successful way to sell to my market
    • Inbound/Outbound; Emails, Calls, Demos, Outside/Inside
• Get steps 1 + 2 right; people tend to over-focus on step 3
• Sales Metrics
  • Activity
  • Quality
    • You need a minimum 15% reach rate – ideal is 30%
    • If you are below that, you’re doing something wrong:
      • wrong channel – try faxes for doctors, cell phones for students, etc.
    • “Reach –> Qualified” rate should be 50% or higher
  • Conversion
    • “Qualified –> Close” rate should be 50% or higher
• Sales Stages (Hiring)
  • Founder Driven
    • At first you have to do sales all by yourself
  • Founder Managed
    • Then you can outsource parts of it and eventually the whole process with close to the same results
  • Junior Sales Leader
    • Someone from a company that was at your stage a year or two again
    • They come from the future – they have all the answers
  • Senior Sales Leader
• You are NOT allowed to outsource sales. You can not outsource your key business problem

-Christoph