Page 135 - The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million - PDFDrive.com

million of mid-market implied lead value. Marketing could achieve that goal by
producing 1,000 demo requests, generating 3,000 product collateral downloads,
or producing some appropriate combination of both. Whatever the case,
statistically speaking, the Sales team would have enough qualified leads to hit
their numbers.

Taking a step back, we essentially put Marketing on a revenue quota! Sales is not
the only team accountable to the revenue. Marketing is as well.

“The Marketing SLA provides a framework to put Marketing on a revenue
quota, similar to Sales.”

The strategy worked beautifully. One week after transitioning to this approach,
the focus of the calls to action on the website transitioned from product collateral
downloads to free trials. Sales was happy with the improved lead quality.
Marketing received proper credit for their hard work. A much deeper degree of
alignment had been achieved.

In actuality, our Buyer Matrix was far more granular. There were a multitude of
segments with which we were dealing. Nevertheless, this example illustrates the
basics of our marketing SLA strategy. Start with high-level segments. As you
understand your model, carve up the segments more granularly in order to hone
in on the optimal strategy for each slice.

The Sales Service Level Agreement (SLA)

The service level agreement is bidirectional. Cooperation is a two-way street,
and Sales must hold up their end of the bargain. If Marketing is going to hold
themselves to a high level of precision, then Sales needs to be on the hook for
effectively working the leads generated by Marketing. Sales cannot sit back and
say, “More, more, more!”

But what does it mean to “work a lead effectively”?

I pondered this question for many hours. Let's start with a simple question
regarding lead follow-up: How soon after the time of lead conversion should the
salesperson call the lead?

There is a lot of data in the market that suggests salespeople should work
inbound leads within minutes of conversion. I buy into that theory. I have run my
own analysis on this theory and validated it within the HubSpot context. A lead