WORKWEEK

Often, the key to success really is keeping it as simple as possible.

One of the easiest ways to keep things simple is to go after low hanging fruit.

The biggest areas my team is looking at to get after low hanging fruit is:

1. Closed lost deals 
2. Requests for follow ups
3. Unconverted MQLs 

Closed lost deals

If there are accounts in your reps’ books of business where there are closed lost opportunities, make sure to prioritize those accounts. 

FWIW, at most orgs I’ve worked at, it took anywhere from 2-4 sales engagements (full blown sales opportunities) before the account converted into a closed-won deal.

So if your rep has lost one opp, only 3-4 more tries before that account will likely convert into a customer. 

📓 Note: The only time I’d recommend against re-engaging with a closed-lost opp is if the loss reason was a hard stop, deal breaker i.e. if you need to be HIPPA compliant but your organization is not. However, if you’ve lost deals due to a product gap, and your solution provides those services and requirements, re-engage immediately!

Requests for follow ups

I tell all my folks and anyone who’ll listen how following up is the real key to success in sales. 

More often than not, sales reps will try two times, maybe three times, to re-engage with prospects who have:

• Asked for a follow up call at a later date
• Requested marketing content before committing to a next step
• Gone cold 

Here’s the thing though – most prospects are busy as all hell, have absolutely soul-crushing inboxes, and aren’t going to respond within the first few tries.

That means sales reps should have a follow up cadence that includes at least 6 email touches (IMO) over the course of a couple months. They should also call these prospects multiple times per week to make sure they have the greatest chance of getting a connection.

If, after 2 months, there’s still no response, add those prospects to a nurture program and add a note to re-engage with them in 30-45 days.

Unconverted MQLs

Unconverted Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) are a treasure trove of potential.

These are leads that more often than not:

• Know your company’s name
• Are aware of your offering
• Have a priority or focus your solution can support

And…just because they didn’t convert at the time they MQL’d, doesn’t mean they’re not perfectly ready to convert now. 

Recommendation: re-engage unqualified MQLs every 2-3 months just to make sure your team is prioritizing the accounts and the leads that have a higher propensity to convert into pipeline. 

🏀 Assist: My team and I will also review which accounts in their book of business have the highest representation of MQLs. For example, if 1 account has multiple people coming in as MQLs, we know that’s a highly engaged account. If the people who are coming in as MQLs don’t convert, we’ll look for other prospects to go after since the account is a hot one!

Speed round advice on research

• Encourage your reps to build ‘bounty lists’ of prospects who fall into the three categories of low hanging fruit. This way they’ll always have a list of high value prospects and notes on when to follow up with them!

• Reinforce ‘bounty list’ exercise in 1:1s – I simply ask my team to add in a link to their bounty list. If there aren’t enough people in the list (min: 75), that becomes a coaching opportunity.

• Create a dashboard for low hanging fruit if your reporting allows for it. This would include report tiles for any accounts with closed-lost opps, a tile for any ‘quality’ conversations your team has had that didn’t convert as well as a tile for any accounts with MQLs.