One hundred percent did not follow a sales process. Salespeople that do not follow a process encounter and wind up accepting lots of put-offs, stalls, and excuses. A well-designed process will raise and handle common stalls and objections before they become a barrier to closing a deal.

All in all, Kurlan & a.s.sociates' evaluations showed that, on average, agency professionals had 5 of the 23 skills that are required to sell, and on average they can expect to experience 17 of the 28 problems that may be encountered when selling.

Roberge states that there are two primary reasons that an agency salesperson does not do what needs to be done to get the business. The first is that they may not know what to do. For example, they may not know how to ask good questions or that they need to qualify prospects based on their budgets and abilities to make buying decisions. They may never have learned how to conduct a consultative sales call.

The second reason is that, although they may have taken some training or read sales books, there is something in them that is keeping them from executing as they were taught. These are the self-limiting beliefs, the hidden weaknesses, that undermine all the training and best intentions.

However, Roberge says that all these challenges can be identified with the right kind of a.s.sessment, and once identified can be understood. Then, with the proper training and guidance, you can prepare salespeople to excel and help your agency grow.

Objective Management Group a.s.sessments were developed by founder and CEO Dave Kurlan and are used by more than 8,500 companies. The a.s.sessments evaluate a potential sales candidate's strengths, skills, weaknesses, and challenges as they relate to 21 core competencies found in successful salespeople, which OMG defines as: 1. Has written goals.

2. Follows a plan to reach written goals.

3. Has positive att.i.tude.

4. Takes responsibility.

5. Strong self-confidence.

6. Supporting record collection.

7. Controls emotions.

8. Doesn't need approval.

9. Recovers from rejection.

10. Comfortable talking about money.

11. Supportive buy cycle.

12. Consistent effective prospecting.

13. Reaches decision makers.

14. Effective listening and questioning.

15. Early bonding and rapport.

16. Uncovering actual budgets.

17. Discovering why prospects buy.

18. Qualifies proposals and quotes.

19. Gets commitments and decisions.

20. Strong desire for success.

21. Strong commitment for success.

Tools Tech-savvy agencies that are integrating marketing and sales tools have a distinct advantage over the compet.i.tion. They are able to gather and leverage lead intelligence at every stage of the funnel, and they use that information to enhance their nurturing efforts and dramatically improve conversion rates.

Following is a snapshot of essential sales system tools. You may be able to integrate multiple platforms together, or find a single solution that does it all. However, as we discussed in Chapter 4, be careful to limit the redundancies across your agency's platforms, and avoid adding unnecessary expenses for features that you will never use.

Customer-Relationship Management (CRM) A CRM solution, such as Salesforce, SugarCRM, or Highrise, is the foundation of a solid sales system. You input leads into the platform as they enter the funnel, and you track and report activities as they progress. Ideally, agencies use a single CRM solution for all contacts, including leads and clients. This creates a more efficient and scalable system.

Content-Management System (CMS) Agency websites need to be built on intuitive content-management systems. A CMS gives agency personnel the ability to easily add, edit, and move web pages as needed, without the support of an outside web developer. From a sales perspective, the CMS should include the ability to create landing pages and lead forms on the fly, which can be valuable components of lead-generation efforts.

a.n.a.lytics Salespeople require advanced intelligence into their leads' online behavior. Free solutions, such as Google a.n.a.lytics, are excellent for providing base-level information on site performance, but in most cases agencies should consider additional third-party solutions for in-depth lead intelligence. Again, HubSpot, Marketo, Pardot, and Eloqua are platforms that provide more granular lead details.

Lead Nurturing Depending on your lead-nurturing needs, there is an array of SaaS solutions worth considering, from comprehensive marketing automation software, to basic e-mail marketing platforms. Look for a solution that integrates with your existing software platforms and gives you the ability to automate essential marketing and sales activities.

Processes Prototype hybrid agencies require standard processes to achieve success. The same rules of efficiency and productivity that govern agency and account management apply to the sales system. Regardless of your size, sales processes help define responsibilities, set performance expectations, give professionals the knowledge and resources to excel, and connect actions to business goals.

Let's look at the five core areas of the sales process: lead qualification, lead management, discovery, proposal, and presentation.

Lead Qualification Whether you use software with built-in lead scoring, or develop your own internal formula, it is important to have a standard process for ranking and prioritizing leads.

Buyer personas are the foundation of any lead scoring system. Defining and building marketing and sales strategies around buyer personas enable agencies to better target communications and content while improving lead generation and conversion.

Start by profiling your personas so that you know strong leads when you see them. Some of the key factors to consider when creating your personas and determining lead quality include the following: Are they project or campaign based?

What are their budgets?

What metrics matter most? How will they define success?

What is the contact's t.i.tle and responsibilities? Is that person the decision maker?

What are the problems, pain points, and obstacles to success?

What are the priority needs?

What is the account's growth potential?

Does the agency have experience in their industry?

At what stage in the business lifecycle are they?

Are they seeking primarily tactical or strategic support?

What are their internal marketing resources and capabilities?

Do they have realistic expectation levels?

What are their experiences with professional service firms?

What is the risk level a.s.sociated with the account?

What is their decision-making process?

What is their timeline to get started?

How strong is the lead/referral source?

Using these questions as a basis, agencies can construct clear profiles of the prototypical client, and evolve their sales strategies to meet their needs and goals.

Sample Agency Buyer Persona: Long-Term Locke Long-Term Locke is a campaign-based client that has strong profit potential, tends to be highly stable and predictable, has needs in line with the agency's expertise, maintains realistic expectations, greatly values the agency's services, and is interested in an ongoing relationship.

Long-Term Locke tends to sign 12-month service contracts for fully integrated campaigns; however, most Locke accounts have high-growth potential beyond the approved annual budget. There are strong possibilities for add-on services in the areas of content marketing, brand marketing, sales support, and strategic planning.

A solid portfolio of Locke accounts enables the agency to more accurately predict revenue and staffing needs. In addition, entry-level professionals can usually complete 30 percent or more of the workload, which is key to agency development and profitability. The target portfolio allocation is 6075 percent Locke accounts. Retention is essential. Locke accounts have the following attributes: Budget: $5,000 or more per month.

Needs: Advanced strategic planning and consulting with a strong mix of basic/moderate-level tactical services.

Response: Responds to educational material and practical guides. Aware of solutions offered by marketing agencies, and seeks information to aid in the decision-making process.

Authority: Yes, the primary contact is the decision maker.

Services: Looking for fully integrated approach to search, social, content, and PR. Shifting budgets and resources from traditional to inbound marketing.

Industry: Commonly comes from finance, health-care, and technology industries.

t.i.tle: Tends to be a marketing executive-CMO, marketing director/manager, communications director/manager.

Service Level: 30/60/10 (basic/moderate/advanced) Internal Resources: Usually has marketing staff, but lacks internal expertise in needed areas.

Growth Potential: Moderate.

Expectation Levels: High.

Success Factors: Primarily interested in media coverage, website traffic, inbound links, and leads.

Business Stage: High-growth and mature.

Social Technographics: Joiners and creators, although probably at the individual vs. organizational level.

Risk Level: Low.

Profitability: Moderate-to-high.

Lead Management Lead management is made possible by the sales tools you have put in place, and defining systems and standards for moving leads efficiently through the funnel. Consider the following when defining your lead-management process: Determine the procedure for entering and updating leads in the CRM throughout the funnel, and for a.s.signing ownership of a new lead to the appropriate sales representative.

Integrate the lead into the agency's time-tracking solution. This makes it possible to a.s.sess the efficiency of your business development efforts.

Apply lead scoring to prioritize opportunities.

Define follow-up procedures, including how quickly and in what manner sales representatives must respond.

Establish call scripts and template e-mails for efficient communications.

Create rules for list segmentation and lead nurturing.

Discovery Agencies have a variety of ways to gather information about leads. In addition to Internet research, savvy firms utilize technology such as online surveys and website contact forms to develop a deep understanding of their leads' needs and goals before they even conduct the first meeting.

A strategic discovery process can differentiate agencies early on if companies are a.s.sessing multiple providers. The agency that comes to the table more prepared and confident, and demonstrates a greater understanding of the lead's business, has an immediate advantage over the compet.i.tion.

If your agency has access to lead-intelligence a.n.a.lytics, the discovery process begins as soon as a website contact form is submitted. You can immediately a.s.sess the lead's level of interest in your agency based on their online behavior, and depending on the custom fields in your lead forms, you may already know answers to key questions such as budgets, t.i.tle, timeline, needs, and goals.

Also, look at services such as SurveyMonkey to conduct prospective client audits. We have had tremendous success using an online survey that has a mixture of multiple-choice and open-ended questions. It takes approximately 15 to 20 minutes to complete, but there are no required answers, so companies can skip any questions that do not seem relevant or that they are not prepared to respond to at that time.

The survey is designed to address five key areas, which are the primary factors we use to qualify leads: 1. Foundation: What is the strength of their existing website, brand, infrastructure, and internal marketing capabilities and capacity?

2. Platform: How extensive is their reach and influence among target audiences, specifically as it relates to online marketing?

3. Expectations: What are their priority needs and goals, and how do they align with agency services?

4. Potential: What is the potential for the agency to have an immediate and sustained impact on their business?

5. GamePlan strategy: What strategies and tactics are we going to propose based on the other four factors-foundation, platform, expectations, and potential?

Sample Lead Survey Questions Following are example qualifying questions we use in the PR 20/20 lead survey: In one or two sentences, define what makes your company unique/remarkable?

How would you rate your brand positioning in primary target markets? In essence, do audiences clearly understand your organization's products/services and value proposition?

How would you define your growth goals for the next 12 months? Basic, moderate, or aggressive?

How would you rate support from your leadership team for digital marketing strategies, such as social media, search marketing, and content marketing?

What do you see as your organization's top-priority needs as they relate to engaging an agency partner? For example: ranking higher on Google, creating original content, getting buy-in from leadership for social media, generating more leads now, raising our profile, improving the website, or launching a blog.

Approximately how much is your monthly budget for agency services?

Please provide estimated numbers for the following elements: employees, active customers, average monthly lead volume, blog subscribers, Facebook page likes, Twitter followers, YouTube channel subscribers, and LinkedIn company followers.

What are your top sources for new leads?

Briefly describe your current lead nurturing activities. This may include automated e-mails, phone calls, free trials, online demos, and more.

How many hours per week does your organization spend monitoring and partic.i.p.ating in social media? This includes activity on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, forums, blog reading, and commenting.

Do you provide training and education to employees on how to effectively partic.i.p.ate in social media?

Do you have content creators/copywriters on staff who are responsible for, or have the ability to create online content, including: blog posts, ebooks, white papers, case studies, press releases, webinars, and e-newsletters? Provide any details to help us understand your organization's copywriting capabilities and capacity.

What are your primary success factors to measure the effectiveness of your agency partner? In other words, how will you determine the agency's value to your business?

Proposal We will cover the proposal more in-depth later in this chapter, but strong proposals are essential to increasing conversion rates. It is best to have a standard template, which is then customized to each company's needs and goals. Every proposal should feel completely personalized to the prospect, but each should be completed as efficiently as possible by your team. The key is to give just enough details to convince them you are the right firm, without providing a wealth of free consultation they can turnaround and give to another agency to implement. It is a tricky balance.