Welcome back to another episode of The Profit Scale friend! Today we are diving into 5 areas to put systems in place in your business. Systems are one of those things that very often gets overlooked, or really only addressed when thereās a problem. And this is especially true as it relates to sales. Sales are one of those areas where we glorify working harder and doing more ā increasing our targets, making more cold calls, sending out more pitches ā and we underestimate the need to work smart. Thatās where systems come into play. The systems weāre about to discuss, are ones that support you not just to do more, but to do more of the right things, meaning allowing you or your team to spend more time on revenue-generating tasks. Turn up the volume and lean in friend, let's get to it.
Top take away from today's episode:
"Systems help scale personalization and increase the speed with which you're able to connect with new prospects and win new business".
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The 5 areas for Systems:
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Salutations, friend! Welcome to The Profit Scale podcast. This is the podcast where we teach service-based experts, consultants and firms how to step into their next level of coins and confidence.Ā
My mission is to equip you with the systems and strategy behind your coins so you can build a business that's both profitable and sustainable.Ā
I'm your host, Ruth-Joy Connell, a Corporate Consultant and Sales Operations Expert. And around here, we live by the motto: No coins left behind.Ā
So if you're ready to create consistent revenue with ease using scalable and sustainable systems, then you, my friend, are in the right place. Turn up the volume and lean in 'cause we're about to get started.
Welcome back to another episode of The Profit Scale, friend. Today, we are diving into five areas to put systems in your business, and I want to start by talking about the problem that today's topic is addressing.Ā
Systems are one of those things that very often gets overlooked or only addressed when there's a problem happening, and this is especially true as it relates to Sales. Whether you're a service-based expert and you're doubling as your salesperson, or whether you're a Sales Leader leading a team, Sales is one of those areas where we're trying to get to the goal by any means necessary.
In this industry, we glorify working hard and underestimate the need to work smart. We focus on doing more, increasing our targets, making more cold calls, sending out more pitches, and often miss that the need is not to do more; it's to do more of the right things. That's where systems come into play.Ā
That's why today, we're diving into these five areas. To help set the tone, I want to establish that systems are not synonymous with automation. Automations are types of systems that you can have in place. They're not the same. I like to use a simple definition for systems, and I define it as a step-by-step process that increases efficiency and efficacy from beginning to outcome.Ā
The difference between efficacy and efficiency is that efficacy is about getting to the goal, while efficiency is about finding the best path forward to the goal.Ā
The systems we're about to get into, by my definition, help you get the job done while optimizing your time, energy and money, so whether this is for you as the salesperson or your team as the Sales Leader.
According to HubSpot's global Sales Enablement survey, this was released in October of 2020, so it's still fairly recent. What they found in this survey is that 40% of organizations didn't meet their sales target for the year 2020. That's nearly half of the 500 global organizations included in the survey. Now, knowing that 2020 brought with it its challenges for entrepreneurs and businesses, it's exceptionally important that leaders begin to evaluate what's working and what's not. Friend, even if you are the only person on your team, you are still a leader in your business, so this applies to you, too.
The survey also found that 38% of organizations not only met but exceeded their targets. Of that group who exceeded their sales targets in the year 2020, 65% of them had a designated Sales Enablement person or team.Ā
In case you're not familiar with that terminology, Sales Enablement, or sometimes referred to as Sales Operations, are the resources, tools and support behind the sales process and the sales team. Think of a Sales Enablement person or team like the nurse in an operating room handing the surgeon the scalpel or monitoring the patient's heart rate to ensure that he doesn't go into V-fib. I know, you're like, "Ruth-Joy, look at all your fancy medical terms." Thank you, I watch Grey's Anatomy, so that's essentially what Sales Enablement means.
And the survey found that 65% of teams over-performed and exceeded their revenue goals during the global pandemic, while thousands of other businesses were shutting their doors permanently. The one thing those over-performers had in common was the systems behind their sales.Ā
It allowed their Sales Representatives and their Business Development Representatives (BDRs) to focus on revenue-generating tasks so that they weren't doing more, but again, they were doing more of the right thingsāfocusing on bringing in the money. That's what I want for you, too.
All right, friend, if you're new to the podcast, welcome. If you are returning, welcome back. And if you've been listening for some time now, you already know that right about now is when you want to make sure you have something to take notes.Ā
All right, let's get started!Ā
First area: Inquiry StageĀ
The first area we're going to start with implementing systems is at the Inquiry Stage. This is when a prospect finds you, either through your marketing channels or a referral or reaches out to learn more about your services. Usually, they're filling out a form on your website or scheduling a call with you or sometimes sending an email directly to your team. It is one of the areas where there should be some form of automation. It's one of the simplest areas to automate yet, also the most common area not automated as part of your process.
A good system for responding to inquiries typically has two traits. Number one, an acknowledgement; and number two, reminders, both of which should be automated. I've heard business owners and leaders express concern that automating this step removes a personal touch, but I want to challenge you to reframe it.Ā
Automation isn't the absence of personalization; it's the scaling of it. It's making sure that whether 10 or 1,000 people send an inquiry on the same day, every person receives a timely response from your company and knows exactly what to expect. If the current systems you have in place only work as long as there's a minimal volume, then you don't have a system as we defined it earlier. So let's look at the acknowledgement.
It could be as simple as a canned email or autoresponder thanking them and letting them know that their inquiry has been received.Ā
As simple as this is to assure your prospect that they haven't just sent their information into a black hole and that someone's going to get back to them. That's the client-facing side of what should happen when someone submits an inquiry.Ā
If the prospect filled out a form on your website or scheduled a call, then on the internal backend, which should simultaneously be happening, the prospect should be automatically added to your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software and tagged according to the channel that they reached out to you from. The information that they entered in your form should also be auto-populated on their profile in your CRM, and the notification should be sent to the designated person on your team who's in charge of assuring that their inquiry gets a response. If you're currently working alone, then that means you.
All of these actions should be triggered by the prospect hitting that button. That's why all of this should be automated. You should not be paying anyone on your team to do these things manually, including yourself. If you are currently doing these things manually, stop it right now, there are better ways. That is why we are talking about this today. The only slight exception would be with inquiries sent through email. Depending on the software you use, you might need to manually start the process or hit the trigger for each of these steps to happen, but the rest of them should be delegated to the software. So even though you hit the switch manually, it should trigger these steps happening automatically through the software.
The second trait of a good system for the inquiry response is that there are reminders built in. If your prospect scheduled a call, there should be an automated reminder at forty-eight (48) hours and at one (1) hour before the meeting.Ā
The reminder should include all of the meeting details.
The prospect should be able to reschedule their meeting themselves without sending you an email to do so. We want to eliminate the back and forth of unnecessary emails and time spent responding to emails, again, to create that efficiency and efficacy. Now, that's on the front-facing side.
On the backend, the person who is meeting with the prospect, whether you or someone on your team, should also be receiving the same notifications. I'll say it again. None of this should be done manually; it should all be automated and delegated to the software.Ā
As simple as this sounds, some of you are still scheduling meetings and sending calendar invitations to your prospect manually. Yes, I am talking to you, friend. I love you, but I'm calling you out on this 'cause we can't be doing this anymore. We do not have the time for inefficiency. It is 2021, so we need to be collecting these coins.Ā
That's why systemizing your inquiry process is so important.Ā
Harvard Business Review found that firms that tried to contact potential customers within one hour of receiving an inquiry were nearly seven (7) times as likely to qualify that lead, meaning that they were likely to have a meaningful conversation with a decision-maker, as those that tried to contact that same potential customer even one hour later, and more than sixty (60) times as likely as companies that waited twenty-four (24) hours to respond to an inquiry.Ā
If you want to equip yourself and your team to respond at that speed within an hour of every inquiry that comes in, it means you need to have systems in place. Friend, you can no longer afford these inefficiencies in your business.Ā
It's these little changes, these often overlooked systems that are going to have a noticeable impact on your bottom line and your ability to meet your targets, and research continues to support that. Let the technology do the support so that you can do the selling. Most of the automation that I just discussed can be set up through your CRM or Scheduling software with the right integrations. Before you go out there and purchase anything new, explore the features of the existing software you're already using, even if you're using a free version. Now, all of this, the inquiry is all before we've ever gotten on the Discovery Call. So now, let's talk about the call itself.
Second area: Discovery Call
The second area where we want to put systems in place is for the Discovery Call. This is arguably the most important part of the sales process. I believe that this is actually where the deal is closed and the details are discussed during the proposal. So it's important to make the most of this time with your prospect because you might not get a second opportunity. As a sales trainer, one of the things I always tell my team is that during your Discovery Call, you should not be asking questions that simple research could have answered. And I'm saying the same thing to you: Do not waste your prospect's time by asking questions that you could have found answers to had you taken the time to do the research.
Listen. When you're on a call with a prospect, it's easy to let the conversation flow, especially when both parties are having a good time, but that also means that key questions that should've been asked easily get forgotten between the laughs and the jokes. It is even more true if the call isn't going well.Ā
We've all had that experience where you put together the proposal, and you realize that you forgot to ask some pretty important questions. I have made this mistake myself several times before.Ā
To avoid this, a simple system that I implemented was writing down what I call Key Project Questions or KPQs. These are essential questions that you must ask during a discovery call to help you, one, identify the problem or challenge your client is currently facing; two, the desired outcome that they're looking for; and three, understand the scope of the project.
I'll give you an example of this. I used to work for a company that manufactured innovative commercial playground equipment. They made the kind of games that you would see at your local park, except these weren't traditional playground games. They were extremely innovative. They were rope-based, and they were so much fun. I used to play the games myself because, you know, quality control, right? And it was through my experience here that I developed and implemented these KPQs.Ā
So when we would have sales calls with Architects or Land Developers, the kind of questions we needed to ask to understand the problem were things like, "How long has it been since you last replaced your games in your current park?" "Do you see a lot of engagement from the kids with the games that are currently there now?" or "Do you find that certain parks have higher volumes than others?" We asked about things like the need for accessibility, the community size, any anticipated resistance from community members to new games that we might be introducing, and so much more. What I want to point out here is that these are not just typical sales questions about budget and timeline.Ā
These Key Project Questions should be specific to the industry you're in, the problem you solve, the products you offer, and the people you serve. Chances are, you're already asking most of these questions, but there's also a good chance that there's a couple of critical questions that aren't being asked consistently and not being asked by everyone on your team. So that's why having them written down in a simple checklist can go a long way to help you close more of those sales consistently. It levels the playing field for your team. And rather than relying on each person's ability to remember what questions to ask, you're making it easy for them to remember so that they can bring their personality and charisma to the call without compromising the coins.
Here at my company, RJC Consulting, we're most familiar with HubSpot as our CRM, and they have a feature called Snippets. Essentially, this allows you to write something out once and save it, and then have it auto-populate when you use a specific shortcut like the hashtag #checklist, for example. So I want you to search for this feature, again, it's called Snippets, in your CRM to see if there's something similar to it that you can implement for your team as well.Ā
What I don't recommend, though, is having your KPQs in a separate Google Document. You want it to function in-line with your current processes, and chances are you're using your CRM to document calls. So we want it to be as simple as opening up the prospect's profile in your CRM and then typing hashtag #checklist, and then that checklist automatically auto-populates. It needs to be that simple. So look for that Snippets feature in your own CRM, or it might go by a different name, but essentially, we want to keep everything in one place.
Third area: Pricing
Let's move on to system number three, which is your pricing. So this area might be slightly more applicable to consultant CEOs, meaning that you are the company owner, but you're also the primary consultant delivering your service. If you're currently guessing your pricing, doing competitor-based pricing, or if you haven't adjusted your pricing as your cost has increased and your team has grown, then friend, you need a pricing strategy.Ā
Simply put, a pricing strategy is a way of calculating your pricing based on key inputs from your business, things like cost, your market position, the quantified value of the outcomes you deliver, and more. I'm addressing your pricing because it is one of the areas where many leaders believe that higher volume will solve a math problem, and I'm sorry to tell you it will not.
Your pricing is what makes sure that your business is not just impactful but also profitable and sustainable.
If you haven't revisited your pricing model within the last two years, I encourage you to do so. Heck! Even McDonald's stays adjusting their prices. The price of that Junior Chicken Sandwich is looking more and more like the price of their McChicken Sandwich, and both of them barely have any chicken in them, okay?Ā
So if a huge Fortune 500 company uses a pricing strategy when their products don't even cost more than $7 individually, then why aren't you? I know for a fact that your services cost more and do more than a McDonald's Sandwich does for anybody, so stop dropping coins here. Let's talk about where to start.
To implement a system around your pricing, the first place to start is by setting a meeting with your accountant to review your profit and loss of statements and to help you better understand your numbers. You don't have to be a math wiz, but you do need to simply understand how much money you're spending and the return on investment for every dollar you spend.Ā
As a service-based business, I want you to aim for a minimum of 30% gross profit margins, meaning that for every dollar you spend, you earn $1.30 back. Now, if you're a Sales Leader, pricing for the services your company offers has to be accessible to your team. Not everyone has to have access to the strategy behind the pricing, but there does need to be a simple way for your team to price proposals without holding up the sales process while waiting on approvals from you or other leaders on your team. It can mean utilizing a pricing equation, a pricing matrix, a pricing chart, or guidelines available to your sales team as a resource for them.Ā
Essentially, prospects and proposals should not be falling through the cracks because your BDRs are waiting on pricing. Waiting on approvals may not seem like a big deal, but again, it's the simple things that make a difference, especially when we're talking about coins.
Fourth area: Proposal
All right, system number four, the Proposal. So whether you use PowerPoint, a Proposal software or your CRM has a proposal feature built right in, all your proposals should follow a framework. Let me just take a moment to say, friend, if you are sending proposals using Google Documents, stop it right now. Stop it right now. I mean it.Ā
Your proposals should never be editable by the prospect, and if you're going after deals that are five figures or more, friend, you need to be showing up at a higher level than Google Documents. Please, just stop. Please, for me. I am lovingly telling you that there are no excuses for Google Document proposals. We need to put Google Docs behind us, at least where proposals are concerned.Ā
Now, regarding how you send your proposals, you should ideally be able to track the number of opens and interactions on the proposal itself, and not just the email that the proposal was in. The conversion rate of the prospects who received the proposal that translates into clients should also be a metric you can track, and the average deal size, as well. These are all powerful metrics that help you gauge the efficacy of your proposal presentations, and identify at what point in the sales process things may be going wrong.
So to recap, my slight tangent on proposal metrics. Your proposals should not be editable by your prospects. They should provide metrics on the proposal itself and not just the email that was sent with the proposal, and your proposals should be a representation of the level of service you deliver.Ā
Okay, so back to the framework that I initially started with. Regardless of the prospect or the service being offered, all of your proposals will typically have the same standard components.Ā
For example, some of those standard components that pretty much all proposals have, are a summary of the call, statistics or data points, the proposed service, the proposed timeline, the deliverables, the pricing, the next steps, and in some cases, transition slides. These components of the proposal can be templated and filled in where applicable.
When you template the standard components and include instructions to fill in the details, you're able to turn around proposals faster, regardless of the client. When we started implementing this system, it took our turnaround time for generating a proposal from about 48 hours to 20 minutes. This is an especially effective system to implement if you have a set service suite, meaning you have 1-3 main services that you offer. You can create a proposal template for each of those services, and the bonus tip here, is that depending on the software you use, you can also use merge tags to allow certain details to auto-populate, based on the information in your CRM.
Merge tags allow you to tell the software where in the proposal you want certain details, like the prospect's name or their company name to appear. Everywhere that a merge tag appears will be replaced with the prospect-specific details that you tell it.Ā
For example, if you've ever been on someone's email list and they send you an email that has your name in it, that is an example of using a merged tag to create personalization. They're able to tell the software that this is where they want the person's name to appear, and once they hit send, it will auto-populate with the specific details of the person or the company that that email is being sent to.Ā
So again, this is just one of the ways to use automation and systems to create scalable personalization. Implementing a system for your proposals will allow both you and your team to increase your turnaround time, and speed plays a huge role in winning new business. Research shows that 35%-50% of sales go to the vendor that responds first.
Take a second to think about this. When you consider your revenue targets, how much money would 35% more sales equate to your business? I'm asking, look at your current average deal size and the number of deals you close annually and calculate the dollar value of an additional 35% in sales. Sometimes, we underestimate the connection between systems and revenue, so it helps to quantify it and to have a tangible number to reference. These simple systems can make a big difference in your bottom line, and I hope you take the second to do that calculation to see that for yourself.
Fifth area: Onboarding
So that brings us to the fifth and final area to implement systems, and that's the Onboarding process. Now, we all know that closing the sale means that the work is just beginning, but often we're on to the next so quickly that we become lax after the contract is signed. The Onboarding process is arguably just as critical as the Discovery Call.Ā
I mentioned earlier that the Discovery Call is where the deal is closed, while the Onboarding process is where client retention is established. I say this because a half-assed onboarding process, or worse, no onboarding process at all, can ruin the working relationship before it even begins.Ā
On top of that, missing information that you should have gathered at the beginning of a project can delay deadlines and derail entire projects. So this is why you need to have a thorough process because a thorough Onboarding process that's well thought out will help you ensure that you have all the information you need before you need it. It will allow the client to feel prioritized and welcomed into your business, and it helps set the expectation for the working relationship between you and your client.
As the consultant, leader, or firm offering the service, designing the Onboarding process is your responsibility. So let's talk about some things to consider for your Onboarding process. Number one, the welcome. There should be some sort of formal welcome to your client, to welcome and congratulate them on working with you. So this could be a call, a video, an email, you can do this in many different ways, but this simple gesture goes a long way to let your clients know and feel prioritized.Ā
The welcome can also set some expectations, like how you'll communicate with each other, how often updates will be sent, and general guidelines about project-related communication. Communication, more specifically the lack of clear communication between parties, is one of the biggest contributors to a project gone wrong. It can also very easily lead to scope creep and missed deadlines and a bad client experience. So this is why setting and managing the expectations early on in the process can help prevent problems before they happen.
Now, the second thing to consider is a guided experience. Your onboarding process should be guided, meaning led and overseen by someone on your team or by you if you're currently a team of one. Some parts of your Onboarding process can likely be automated, but even still, there should be a measure in place to ensure that no steps have been missed, especially on the client-side, since they're the one who's new to the way your company does business.Ā
And the third area to consider is a seamless hand-off. If the BDR who closed the sale won't be the one working with the client, or if there is a hand-off needed, there should always be an introduction from the known party to the new point of contact. It is also a great place to establish who your point of contact on their team is going to be, as well.
Number four is a simplified collection of information. Whether you have an intake form, assessment, or another means of collecting pertinent information about the project, the information is collected and stored in a place where both parties have access to it, and also where it's not getting lost in a sea of documents.Ā
When we set this up for our clients, we make sure that relevant documents are attached or linked in their corresponding stages, directly in the project management software. That way, it's easily accessible to whoever needs it, and at the stage it's needed, without being overwhelming.Ā
The last thing to consider for your Onboarding process is access. Are you receiving access to your client's platforms to deliver your service, or are you giving them access or permissions to your platforms? Things like your project management platform, your Slack channel, your OneDrive or Google Drive or Dropbox.
In general, something to think about is who needs access and who is responsible for giving that access. Whenever possible, I strongly recommend you are setting up the access, and double-checking you have all the permissions you need in order to deliver the service, at the beginning of the project.Ā
Security tools like 1Password and LastPass are great tools to increase the security around password sharing and permissions, especially for non-members of your team. So if you're not using something similar already, I encourage you to check both of them out and find one that works best for you.
Now, if you're a Sales Leader and you're leading your sales team, the delivery of the service may not fall under your jurisdiction, so to speak. If that's the case, I recommend sending this episode to your colleague who is in charge of the Onboarding process, so that they can reference this part as well. But nonetheless, Onboarding is part of the client experience, and in that way, it is part of Sales, they do go hand in hand. Remember that this is where Client Retention is made. So whether or not it's directly under your jurisdiction, it's still a part of the sales process because it refers to recurring sales, and you didn't put in all this work only to secure a one-time sale. That's just another way of saying, "You're leaving coins on the table", and we both know how I feel about that.Ā
We are doing things both effectively and efficiently, meaning no coins left behind. Your Onboarding process doesn't need to be complex, but it does need to exist, and it does need to be thorough.
Okay, I know we've covered a lot in today's episode, and even still, this is just the starting point. As you implement or optimize these systems within your business and for your team, you're going to refine and iterate as you go.Ā
You don't have to apply all of the systems at once, just start with one for now. And with that said, let's recap and talk about how we can convert this conversation into coins.Ā
Your action item for today is to review your inquiry process. So we're going back to the first area that we talked about, and I want you to find at least one step that you can automateājust one step. Make sure you go back and listen to the beginning again, so you can see the areas that I broke down, but I'm also going to recap it for you in just a second.Ā
While you're reviewing your inquiry process, start by looking at the software you already use in your business. It may already have the capabilities and features that you need and you just didn't know it. So that's what your action item is for today, but let me refresh your memory on what we discussed.
We started by looking at the state of sales, and recent research is finding that Sales Enablement is a huge contributor to helping Sales Leaders outperform and not just reach their sales targets. That said, we dived into five areas where you can start implementing some Sales Enablement systems for yourself and your team to help you get closer to both meeting and exceeding your sales targets this year.Ā
The first area for systems was the Inquiry Process, which I recommended should be fully automated. The second area was the Discovery Call. And as the place where deals are closed, simple systems can go a long way in helping you get closer to closing sales more consistently. Next and third was Pricing, then fourth was the Proposal, and the fifth and final was the Onboarding process.
If you found today's conversation helpful and want to learn more about how we, at RJC Consulting, can help you set up these systems in your business, either for yourself or for your team, click the link in the show notes to schedule a call with us.
If you know that you could use some support with implementing or optimizing the systems on your team, but you're not quite sure where to start, then take our free Systems S.O.S. quiz.Ā
I created this quiz to give you immediate and thorough feedback on what areas of your sales may need systems or may need to have their systems optimized. It will also give you some tips on what you could do right now to begin filling in those gaps. It's very simple. It'll take you about a minute or two, but it's also a very thorough quiz if I do say so myself.
To access the quiz, click the System's S.O.S quiz link in our show notes, or head over to rjcconsulting.com/sos. As always, friend, I am grateful for this time with you, and I always look forward to our time together.Ā
Before you go, make sure you're subscribed to the podcast, so you don't miss our next episode when it drops in two weeks. And while you're at it, please leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcast. That small action goes a long way to help us make sure we're reaching more consultants and firms just like you. All you have to do is hit the link in the show notes to leave us that rating and review, and myself and the team, thank you in advance for your support.Ā
I'll be here, same time and same place, in two weeks. Until then, I wish you coins, confidence, and all the bags. Bye for now.