I know you’ve probably heard the “low-hanging fruit” comment in a million meetings. Looking for quick wins? Go for the low-hanging fruit. Certainly, it is important to fill the pipeline with high-potential deals. But what about the fruitarians – the ones who only go after the low-hanging fruit? How do you get them to expand their horizons and work on projects that may take more work yet ensure strong long-term growth?
It’s easy to spot a fruitarian by his or her deal profile. Even though your company offers a wide range of products and configurations, they’ll stick to the few that they understand really well and seem to have a high closing rate. If they don’t get the right “feel” from a new prospect from the start, they won’t bother following up with them. They’ll call it dead and go back to focusing on existing customers and the “easy sales”. You know the type – they’ll only get to work if the prospect is ready to buy and the sale is all but signed.
Unfortunately, “low-hanging fruit” is rarer than one would think. Studies show that only 2% of sales occur at the first meeting. In fact, 80% of non-routine sales occur after at least five follow-ups. If your sales team is only holding out for the easy win they are going to be costing you the lion’s share of your sales opportunities – and a chance to make quota down the road.
Pushing New Products and Configurations
If your reps are selling the same solutions over and over, you’re probably missing out on some major opportunities. Not only are your reps avoiding potential upsells, they may not be presenting the best option to their prospect for every sale. If your fruitarian sales rep is always trying to jam the same product down everyone’s throat, they will rarely be getting the best response.
To ensure that reps understand – and offer – the best possible solution, equip them with a SaaS proposal and configuration solution. With intelligent, guided selling, a CPQ solution can provide upgrade, upsell, and cross-sell suggestions to show your reps new sales opportunities they may not have considered. With a simpler, guided quoting process, reps won’t be afraid to sell new or different solutions just because they aren’t as familiar with how they are priced or configured.
Pushing Lead Follow-up
Nearly half (44%) of salespeople give up after the first “no” they get from a prospect. If only 2% of sales close at the first meeting, your reps may be throwing away 98% of the leads you provide – some nerve!
Often reps believe in their “intuition.” They’ve been in the business a long time and believe that they can tell early on whether a deal is real or not. But companies can’t run on gut feel – they need to have reps following up on every lead – they need data.
Rather than trying to shame reps – show them the error of their ways. When proposals are created using a CPQ solution, companies can track a wide range of sales-related metrics – revenue per product, closing rate by customer type, how well certain exceptions are performing, etc. When that data is enriched with lead gen data from the CRM solution, companies gain greater insights into closing rates per campaign. Sharing this information with your team on a regular basis will help reps see the success others are having – and maybe even try to mimic it in their own lives.
Pushing Quotes
No prospect can make a purchase if they don’t know what it costs. However, if it takes reps hours and hours to configure a quote, chances are they won’t want to spend the time creating one for a prospect that isn’t immediately ready to buy.
Given time restriction, there are only so many proposals reps can create in a month (the average amount for a salesperson is 14). In this case, the focus on low-hanging fruit may feel justified. If you can help them increase their output to 20 proposals a month (the average amount for a salesperson using a CPQ solution), they can start going after some of these less attractive but still valuable leads.
Take a look at your sales team’s diet. If you’re seeing too many of your reps munching on the low-hanging fruit, it’s time to provide them with the sales enablement tools they need to reach higher and start filling their pipeline with a wider range of deals.
