Deal Setup
This section determines how and when deals are automatically created.
Typically, a deal is opened as soon as a prospect has been categorised or had any data added to the prospect custom fields. Any such actions will alter the status of the prospect to “New” and thus trigger the auto deal creation.
The deal will then either progress through each stage to completion, or it will be closed out or switched to a different pipeline (for example the “Drip Marketing” pipeline. As each deal stage is completed the deal type progresses from “Prospect” to “Opportunity” to “Deal”.
When Deal Display First is selected, if a deal exists then the deal tab in Prospect View is opened automatically and Sales Coach is displayed instead of the prospect website. If not selected, then the user must click on the deal tab in order to display Sales Coach.
Select the prospect status (minimum) level at which a deal is automatically opened. If the first stage of the Pipeline is set as “Prospect” (this is the preferred approach used by all of the system default pipelines) then we recommend a deal is opened at status New. If however you define a pipeline that starts only once the prospect has been qualified and progressed beyond the “Prospect” and “Opportunity” stages, then you might choose “Deal Open” as the trigger status.
If deal auto-create is turned off (select Turn Off in the status drop-down) then deals are not auto-created. Instead deals are added manually by clicking on the deal tab in the prospect view.
Pipelines
A Pipeline is defined for each separate sales process.
If you follow a significantly different sales process depending on product category, target segment or prospect type/readiness then you should create a different pipeline for each. Most businesses will have only 2 or 3 sales processes. A typical example might be: product sale, consultancy sale, nurture (drip-marketing) campaign.
The pipeline defines all the stages, the weighting of each stage to calculate deal progress, the intelligent checklist and sales enablement resources to use at each stage, and the set of qualification questions for the salesperson to use.
You should define each of these items first, so that they are then available to be selected for inclusion in the pipeline when you are ready to build it. These items (resource documents, checklists, qualification questions (quiz)) can be subsequently modified – the current version is always displayed.
We recommend you sketch out the sales process first – ideally as a result of a team discussion.
You are looking to define best practice; the process to be followed for each and every relevant prospect;
- How many stages are there?
- Give a name to each stage and categorise it from Prospect to Opportunity to Deal.
- What is the goal of each stage? What is the benefit to the customer?
- What is the complete list of steps to be taken (checklist) for each stage?
Include conditional steps (if (condition) then this step).
Include (optional) auto-complete condition (if (condition) then mark step as complete).
Include checks and warnings (if (condition) then “Warning: xxx”). - Do you want a task to be created when specific step is active? Which task queue should they be added to?
Typical tasks are: phone call, send email, send message, perform Linkedin research, etc.
When a step is completed, the next step is active. If this step includes a task, then the task is created and added to the designated queue.
Example:
Step 4; Add first name and phone number (autocomplete if these exist)
Step 5; First call (add call task to call queue)
In this example, a call task is added to the queue as soon as a contact has both a first name and a valid phone number. - What documents / videos would be useful and relevant for each stage and each specific step?
- Throughout the entire process, what is the set of qualification questions to be used?
Add your custom resource documents and review the standard sales enablement resources to decide which to use at any single step and which are relevant for an entire stage. You can also add documents relating to specific competitors or to specific products which will be made available if the relevant competitor or product deal field is selected.
Next, create your qualification question set (“quiz”). This is of fundamental importance and is the tool used to calculate deal win probability and the sales forecast.
Next, create your checklists, one for each stage of each pipeline (you can reuse the same checklist across different pipleines if required) and select the appropriate resource documents for each step in each checklist.
Finally, create the pipeline(s).
The description should help users understand when they should or shouldn’t use this pipeline.
When creating or editing a deal, the default pipeline is proposed with a drop down selector of all active pipelines. Set the Default & Active checkboxes accordingly.
Click + to add each stage.
Stages should progress from Prospect to Opportunity to Deal (so a 4 stage pipeline might have stage 1 Prospect, stages 2-3 Opportunity, stage 4 Deal).
Select the checklist to use for each stage.
Select any resource documents that are relevant for the entire stage (as opposed to a specific step within the checklist).
Identify the goal and exit criteria for the stage, and the value that the prospect can expect. As a result of the activities and actions in this stage of the sales process, what will be the benefit to the Prospect? How is this a positive experience?
Each stage can be given a weighting. ProspectSafari expresses this as a percentage of the total.
The weighting of each stage is used in measuring progress (deal completion).
