Page 153 - The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million - PDFDrive.com

international expansion, and revisions to our selling methodology all originated
from our experimentation framework.

Why make a major change without first testing it on a smaller scale?

Over the years, we played close attention to the generic process required to
execute a successful experiment. The process is as follows:

1. Define a clear goal and measure of success: This sounds obvious, but you
would be surprised how often this step is overlooked during experiment
setup. Three weeks in, the team is “in the weeds” of the experiment, failing
to see the big picture, and losing sight of the original intention of the
initiative. Equally as frustrating, they reach the end of the experiment,
generate a set of results, and there is no consensus around whether the results
indicate success. Set a clear objective. Think of it as a thesis for the
experiment. Define what success and failure look like. Be absolutely
disciplined about finding a way to quantify that success.

“Follow a specific formula for experiment execution so that you can be
confident your experiments are efficient and effective.”

2. Design the experiment execution: Determine a way to test the experiment
thesis in the least amount of time with the least amount of investment. The
time and investment necessary is an important factor in determining the
attractiveness of the experiment. Imagine a potential experiment that could
be run in a day for less than $100, and if successful, could triple your
business. You would run that experiment in a heartbeat. However, if the
experiment would take a year to test and cost hundreds of thousands of
dollars, it would be far less attractive. The potential return would need to be
extraordinarily high to even consider running it. Finding the lowest-cost,
shortest path to experimentation is critical.

3. Choose a leader: Ideally, the experiment evolved from one of the company
innovation processes and the employee who thought it up has the skills, the
passion, and the time to lead the experiment. If so, the individual's personal
attachment to the initiative will generate exponentially higher motivation and
drive to succeed than if the experiment was inherited from someone else.
Great experiment leaders have passion for the idea, knowledge about the
functional areas being tested, and professional goals that the experiment will
help them achieve.