Page 133 - The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million - PDFDrive.com

qualified leads per month for a mid-market salesperson was 150. Let's assume
that if a mid-market salesperson was provided with 150 leads per month, the
salesperson connected with 50 percent of the leads, created 25 qualified sales
opportunities, moved 15 of the opportunities to the presentation stage, and
converted five of the presentations into paying customers every month, thus
achieving his revenue goals.

Given the assumptions in this example, the Marketing SLA was easy to
calculate. If there are 10 salespeople on the mid-market team and each mid-
market salesperson needs 150 qualified leads per month, then Mike needed to
deliver 1,500 qualified leads each month in order for the team to hit their goal. In
my experience, companies that reach this level of precision rank in the top 5
percent of Sales and Marketing alignment excellence.

Unfortunately, Mike and I found that our precise approach was not quite world-
class. Here's why: under the foregoing model, if a VP of marketing visited the
HubSpot website and filled out a form to download some collateral on our
product, that action would generate a qualified lead. Why wouldn't it? It is a
great lead! If a different VP of marketing visited the HubSpot website and was
active in a trial of our free product, that action would generate a qualified lead as
well. It is also a great lead!

Which type of lead do you think closed at a higher rate—the product collateral
download or the active free trial? The active free trial closed at a higher rate, of
course! This type of lead was further along in the buyer journey. It was at the
“Solution Selection” stage of the buyer journey, rather than the “Solution
Research” stage. In our case, active free trials closed at many times the rate of
product collateral downloads.

Think about the issue a different way: Which lead do you think was easier for
Marketing to generate, the product collateral download or the active free trial?
The product collateral was easier for Marketing to generate, of course!

Keeping this logic in mind, and referring back to our Marketing SLA of 1,500
qualified leads per month, which type of lead do you think the sales team
received more often, product collateral downloads or active free trials? Which
“call to action” do you think appeared more frequently on our website,
“download product collateral” or “start free trial”? When Marketing fell behind
on their SLA and prepared an emergency email to generate some demand, do
you think the email campaign focused on product collateral downloads or on free
trials? In all cases, the answer was the product collateral downloads.