How to Build a Validated Sales Process by Tim Bertrand, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales, Acquia. This deck was originally presented at Sales Hacker Series Boston on November 18th, 2014.

1. Tim Bertrand
SVP, WW Sales

2. Summary
• Funnel management
• Dissect/analyze how a deal gets into your funnel
• Build a validated sales process
• Measure, Measure, Measure

3. Funnel Management - Opportunity
Creation
•
Sales
Generated
Leads
SDR
MQLs
Sales
Accepted
Lead
• ISR/SDR
Sales
Qualified
Lead
• Accou
nt
Exec
ISR Responsibilities
- Pipeline Generation
- High % of Qualified
Opportunities
- Assist with deal closure
within territory
- Prepare to move into
quota carrying role
SDR Responsibilities
- Pipeline Generation
- Qualify Opportunities
- Territory Focused
Account Executive + EMEA ISR
Responsibilities
Qualify Opportunity
- Salesforce.com Opportunity creation
and stage management
- Manage deal to closure
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4. Sales Accountability: Set SLA’s
•
Sales
Qualified
-­‐>
ISR
Accepts
Sales
SLAs
•
2
weeks
1
hour
call
back
on
MQLs
(during
working
hours)
• 2
weeks
in
Sales
Accepted
with
clear
next
steps
• Sales
Accepted
for
more
than
2
weeks
requires
approval
• Sales
Qualified
means
it
is
in
pipeline
review
process
• Qualified
-­‐>
Closed
Won
conversion
rate
will
be
benchmarked
• Follow
up
on
MQLs
for
top
25
prospects
in
your
region
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5. Sales Execution
- Weekly pipeline review
- Territory Planning
- Deep Dive Account Reviews
- Regular review of KPIs
- Pursuit Drills
- Funnel Management - Deal ownership & management
Deep Discovery
Sales Pipeline Management
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Pursuit drills
Vision to Close
“The qualifying
test”

6. Discovery Letter
A “Discovery Letter” should be sent within 24 hours of a possible
opportunity interaction. It typically contains the essence of the
conversation that occurred during the sales call along with a
proposed set of next steps. A common structure is:
• A detailed description of the sales person’s understanding of the need
and what is driving the need
• A description of the timetable, budget, and approval process
• Re-cap of any recommendation you made
• A list of open questions that were not answered (and may have been
tabled for off line discussion during the meeting)
• A list of agreed upon next steps and owners. This list is one of the
best ways to push things forward, especially if there are due dates
attached to each next step.
• A discovery letter MUST BE VALIDATED / ACKNOWLEDGED by
prospect
6

7. The Qualifying Test
Account Executives should feel comfortable moving their opportunity from
Prospect to Qualified when you can answer YES to the following questions:
• Do they have a problem?
ü Be able to identify the pain
ü Be able to identify the business impact of the pain
• Can we provide a solution that solves this problem?
ü Be able to identify the solution
• Is the problem compelling and are they planning to take action?
ü Be able to determine timeframe for a decision
• Do we have access to key decision makers?
ü Identify key decision makers
• Do they have a realistic budget? (is it big enough for Acquia?)
You must send a Discovery Letter and get written confirmation from the
Prospect stating that they agree with next steps.
A “Discovery Letter’ should be sent within 24 hours of every meeting. It typically
Contains the essence of the conversation that occurred during the sales call
along with a proposed set of next steps
18

8. Example Discovery Letter
James,
Thank you for your time today. I now have a much better understanding of your data needs.
I have summarized my notes from our conversation. Please let me know if you have any comments / clarifications.
CURRENT SITUATION
- ABC company is currently hosting their Drupal site at RackSpace
- Significant user growth has crashed the site five times in the past two months
- The site outages are tarnishing ABC’s brand and the CEO has mandated a fix ASAP
- RackSpace nor ABC have the Drupal expertise to troubleshoot / manage this environment. There is a concern that the site has security flaws
- ABC is looking for a company to provide hosting and application support 7/24
- The annual budget for hosting and support is $75k. James and his boss will make the vendor decision.
NEXT STEPS
- James will complete the hosting questionnaire by …..
- James and his boss will participate in a 60 minute requirements gathering / validation call with Acquia on ______
- After this call, Joe will turn a proposal around in 24 hours
- Joe and James walk through the proposal on ______
James, I look forward to working with you on this project.
Regards,
Joe Salesperson
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9. Using the Pursuit Drill
The template should be completed by a sales rep and VALIDATED by a sales
manager / deal team for any deal that makes into QUALIFIED/BEST. It should also
be used as a “gut check” before investing in a formal proposal.
The pursuit drill ensures we answer these kinds of questions:
Does the customer have a need?
Do we have the right solution?
Is this a closable opportunity?
Where do we have red flags?
What pro-active strategies should we deploy?
9

10. Vision to Close
• A vision to close MUST be done AND Validated by
a manager prior to moving a deal into Likely/
Commit. Answering theses 3 quick questions can
create a roadmap on how to get a deal to closure
• How do we get business buy-in?
• Person / what they care about / how we will get them bought in
• How do we get technical buy-in?
• Person / what they care about / how we will get them bought in
• What is the procurement / legal process and how do we navigate?

11. Other key tricks to closing deals faster
The “Dear John”
Internal Selling documents

12. Dear John
• You MUST act with edge to understand which deals to focus on
• A “Dear John” will force the customer to confirm that can execute by
your target date OR tell you no
• Should be sent
• Beginning of each Q
• At the end of week 7
• You all should have an example on google docs (Dear John example)
• “Yes is great, No is ok, maybe is unacceptable”

13. Internal Selling Document
If necessary, volunteer to help your champion
create an internal selling document for the
decision makers that briefly outlines:
The need
Why this need should be addressed now
The options we evaluated
The solution we recommend, and why
The details of the initiative (cost, time frame, etc.)
How this initiative will support the company goals (save
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money, improve control and visibility, etc.)