B2B Sales Pipeline

So I’m sitting in front of the television, watching #1 UConn v. #4 Pitt, a game billed as “the Game of the Year.”  Although many of you may not know this, your humble author was a small college basketball player.  As a 6’5″ backup post player (I mean waaaaaayyyyy backup), I got the “joy” of practicing every day against our team’s 6’11″, 250 starting center – As the undersized player, I was basically thrown around like a rag doll all practice, every day.

So as I watched the game, I have to tell you that I LOVED the play of Pitt’s Center, Blair.  The undersized Center has  run circles around UConn’s freshman phenom Center, Thabeet.  Blair’s hustle has allowed him to record 22 points and 22 rebounds as of the time of this posting.  Amazing…and as the former smaller (and hustling) player – I love it.

As well as Blair has played against the 7’3″ 260 Thabeet – Imagine how dominating he would if he were being guarded by a 6′ UConn guard.  To Quote IceCube, I feel confident he’d “mess around and get a triple double,” due in large part to how well he utilizes his size and skill near the rim.

So how does this relate to Sales?  Aaron Ross, author of Build a Sales Machine, known as the architect of the Salesforce Sales machine suggests that Sales teams should specialize and Break into a 2-tiered sales structure .  Just like having a Pointguard defending a Center, or a Post Player dribbling the ball up the court, the success rate could be dramatically improved by letting your players (AKA “Your Sales Team”) play to their strengths and hone specialty skills.

You should read Aaron’s Post, but the Reader’s Digest version is this – Don’t weigh down your Rainmaker with prospecting – He is a Closer (and according to Glengarry Glenn Ross – He gets coffee) – So feed him great leads – which he will Close.

Simple Right?  To use a basketball analogy – Give him an Assist, which he will finish strong.

The person dishing the ball to the Rainmaker?  Lead Qualification / Prospecting staff (Aaron suggests splitting these into 2 positions, however we use the same person for both) – Think of this as your pointguard, who has amazing shooting prowess.  This person (or People) will find the good prospects (outbound) and qualify early stage prospects (inbound who do not show buying signals such as completing the “Contact Me”, “Test Drive” or accumulating 100 points in their first visit to Pardot’s Website) to ensure that they meet at least 2 of the 4 BANT criteria.  These good prospects are “Dished” to your  Rainmaker who will 2-Hand Windmill Jam the deal.

As I finish this post – Pitt knocks off #1 due in large part to Blair’s an amazingly specialized skill set.