Hambalang

Enterprise AE

Valued Contributor

Huge Dropoff from Discovery to Metrics Collection

Question for the Sales Gods:

My company sells a very ROI-driven product in the payments space. Currently our sales cycle looks like this: Discovery/Presentation -> Metrics Collection -> Technical Consultation -> ROI Analysis/Proposal -> Contract

After a qualified discovery call, we'll send over a questionnaire to collect metrics. However, we're seeing about an 80% drop off from discovery to metrics collected. There are likely many variables at play here like poor qualification or weak discovery. But there is a good chunk of qualified opportunities that verbally commit to metrics (and even sign NDAs) but don't follow through.

For some of these prospects it can be time consuming to dig up these specific metrics so it's not always a walk in the park for them. Our hunch is that our prospects may be reluctant to put in the effort to send metrics because of a lack of relationship building or trust. We've thought of adding an additional step in between to provide more value but we're also concerned about unnecessarily elongating the sales cycle.

What have you guys done at your organizations to boost conversion at this stage?

👑 Sales Strategy

☁️ Software Tech

11

16 comments

Sort by:

DungeonsNDemos

Big Shot

4

Rolling 20's all day

How hard is your metrics collection for a prospect?
The easier you can make it for them to buy from you, the more you will sell. Or at least the more opportunities you'll have.

Hambalang

Politicker

0

Enterprise AE

It really depends on the prospect. Some of them have most of the information on hand and others really have to do some digging. For context, it's 8 questions. It's greatly reduced from what my predecessors were sending out.

The reason we prefer to be more thorough is certain data points can expose latent pains that our solution can help alleviate thus providing more value from an ROI perspective.

But totally agree with your feedback.

antiASKHOLE

Tycoon

3

Bravado's Resident Asshole

what would it take to collect metrics at the end of the call or to set up an additional call to go over that vs waiting for them to "get around to it"

Hambalang

Politicker

0

Enterprise AE

That's an interesting thought. It would be pretty difficult to collect metrics at the end of the call because they typically have to coordinate with their team and possibly other departments to get these numbers.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

3

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Customers may have all the best intentions, but doing "homework" ends up being deprioritized.

Can you help with this process in any way?

CuriousFox

WR Officer

2

🦊

Anything they perceive as extra work or too hard or time consuming they will walk away from.

Hambalang

Politicker

1

Enterprise AE

Totally agree.

The obvious one would be to shorten the questionnaire but as I mentioned above it will sacrifice our ability to delve into other value props. If we can somehow help them collect their metrics that could be interesting to explore but could be seen as intrusive.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

1

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Could you help them in real time? And I guess "intrusive" is in the eye of the beholder. If you have gotten buy in, and they verbally agree to the next step (metrics), then I think you have an in. Maybe set up the next step to review the metrics as a meeting during the discovery/presentation meeting, send out the form/questionnaire as the "here's what we'll need to discuss during the meeting", and plan to meet in real time to review. Tell them who should be on the meeting to discuss the metrics, and if an NDA is necessary.

In the case that they come to this next meeting unprepared with actual metrics, do you have samples you could come up with that will show them what the possibilities are and why the metrics are important and/or valuable?

jefe

Arsonist

3

🍁

When I did anything like that, it was the prospect sending over a report from their current vendor.

How are you providing value and building trust before you request that? Is the disco an interrogation?

Filth

Politicker

3

Live Filthy or Die Clean

I would try to walk through the metric questions at the end of the discovery so you'll at least have a partial picture to move forward with. Never expect a prospect to do timely and accurate homework mid process - after signing? sure.

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

1

Sales Rep

You can make the argument that if they aren’t willing to collect metrics they aren’t truly interested and this saves you time chasing opportunities.

>However, it’s important to make the sales process extremely easy for them throughout. If there is any way to simplify that process of metrics that’s where I would invest the time. Adding more value always helps, but it seems like if they are signing NDAs they are bought in

GDO

Politicker

1

BDM

Seems to much work on the prospects side. Something we struggle with currently as well.

What is the product? I have worked in payments as well. That’s why I ask.

Hambalang

Politicker

0

Enterprise AE

It's a fraud protection solution. The reason why the questionnaire is so thorough is because: we need to assess risk, look at other data points to uncover latent pains, and understand their transaction flow.

Glad to see we're not alone in this issue.

Notmyrealname

Politicker

0

AE

Firstly, it sounds like you need to make it easier for them to buy, not harder, so an extra step probably won't help.

Secondly, does what you sell have any emotional impact at all or its purely a logical decision?

adrienmc

Good Citizen

0

Founder @LaGrowthMachine

Have you tried to collect such metrics in person rather than via a form?

Sending a form can result in the « I’ll do it later when I have time » never ending loop. Especially if your first call is meant to qualify rather than build need!

If these metrics a really important to your sales process, I’d suggest collecting them on a follow-up call rather via a form sent after, to make things happen

At the end of the qualification call, set up the next meeting explaining the goal (ROI calculation) and letting them know of any information they might need to gather before the meeting.

Use that followup meeting to do your metric collection and ROI calculation live while also answering any doubts that might have come up between both meetings

Cyberjarre

Politicker

0

BDR

Closing experience will help everything in your sales career.

Bravado is a community of trusted sales professionals endorsed by their customers.

Products

The War Room Jobs Salary Guide Tech Sales U

Company

About Us How It Works Blog Bug Bounty

Contact

© 2024 Bravado Inc. All rights reserved.

Privacy Policy Legal and Privacy Center Sales Jobs

If you are hired as a contract sales rep by a Bravado customer, we may ask you to prove access to the employee email account provided to you by that customer. This data will be shared with customers to track your sales productivity; customers can use this data to confirm you meet the minimum activity requirements to pay out your ramp stipend and commission.