How Quality Delivery Increases Sales

This is the full funnel, freedom podcast, supporting sales leaders, and managers to improve their sales funnels from people to prospects. I'm Hamish Knox in this show, you'll learn how you can improve your results. We need a great team and hit more targets with full funnel freedom. Welcome to episode six of the full funnel freedom podcast.

I'm your host Hamish Knox. In this episode, I will be sharing ideas and insights around how quality delivery increases full funnel. The quality delivery from our sales team actually starts from the moment that our client signs that agreement. Because especially if we are taking our new client's business from one of our competitors, as I've said in the previous episode, it is way easier to stay with the devil, you know, than the angel you don't.

So we really need to confirm that our new client is actually going to stay our new client instead of sending us a message that says something like, Hey, Hold off on putting on that order or starting the implementation. Something's come up, I'll get back to you. And in brackets, they actually mean never.

One of my mentors used to say to our new clients, after they'd signed the agreement and they pushed it back across the table at us, he would push it back very gently of course, and say, Would you tell me in your own words, what you think you just bought? And there was one client in particular who had just decided to invest in our software service platform for media monitoring and crisis management, who, if we had not asked that question, we would have had a very, very awkward.

30 to maybe 90 day relationship with them before they ended up firing us, because what they thought they bought and what they were actually going to get were very different things. Even though we had been very, very explicit or at least we thought we had the whole way along with them. So very good question to teach our salespeople is, would you tell me in your own words, what you think you just bought and right after that agreement is signed?

Often play a game in my training sessions where I'll say, yeah, you know, in sales, we're usually taught to get the check and get what, and inevitably someone will say out and I'll say, yeah, you know what? Yeah. You said that just a little bit too fast and everybody including the person who answered usually laughs.

But that's really the thing I used to do that as well. I would sign the agreement and say, awesome. See you later, somebody from our customer care team will be in touch. And then two weeks later, I got a call from my new client. Who's like, who the heck is Catherine? And why does she keep calling me to ask about setting up some time to talk?

Oops, my fault, Catherine. Was the head of our customer service department. And she was the one and her team were tasked with onboarding our new clients. Except all I told my client was somebody would call and I have yet to meet an organization who employs some dot buddy@companyname.com. So the next part of that delivery and how we can create full funnel freedom with our new client from the moment that we sign them on is a warm handoff to the delivery team.

So I'm going to tell my new client who, by the way, especially in an enterprise type sale in software world. Is unlikely to be actually the end user. We need to get everybody on a call so we can all start getting connected, building a bit of a relationship so that if we do have any hiccups, we don't end up with a thousand nasty emails going back and forth because instead of.

The person being simply an email address, we fire off an angry missive to they're actually a real human being who we've gotten to know and who we are able to reach out to in a respectful manner and say, I think things are going sideways or this isn't going, how I thought it was going to be. Or I was expecting some information from you by Friday.

I'm keeping my commitment to circling back to you on Monday because we need that information in order to move. So really, really critical. Don't let your salespeople lead. There are new clients office. And that of course today could be a metaphorical virtual office without getting their warm handoff set up in the calendar, or at least an agreement from their new client to actually make some introductions to their user group.

And then you will facilitate an introduction and a warm handoff to your client engagement team. Another thing. That we don't want our salespeople to leave our new client's office without doing. In addition to that warm handoff is getting the first quarterly review meeting in the calendar. I'm going to touch on this in a later episode, but from experience, if we say to our new client, One of our best practices is to have a review every 90 days.

So we can address any potential issues when they're at 10%, instead of when they're at 90%, make sure that you're getting exactly what you were hoping to get from us. When you said that you wanted to work with us, become our client. If we don't get that in the calendar today, highly unlikely that we're ever going to speak to that decision-maker again, unless it's for them to say, you know what, you're fired because they're busy and also we're salespeople.

And no one wants to talk to a salesperson, especially the decision maker who thinks that they're handing us off to their user group, make sure that we get that first quarterly review in the calendar. The day we sign the agreement. So we can actually get that cadence. And I'll dive deeper into that in a future episode.

And the third way that we can create full funnel freedom through quality delivery is by giving our delivery and our customer care and our onboarding team tools to uncover expansion opportunities with our new client. The individuals who are in our customer care teams, implementation teams, delivery teams, don't ever want to think of themselves as salespeople.

They want to think of themselves as in delivery or implementation, or they're an engineer or a customer care representative. And to them, sales is slimy and evil, but they are the best equipped to uncover those opportunities because they're the ones who are having the most interaction with our new client.

And so they made over here. Our new client saying, ah, yeah. You know, I'm really struggling with this department. I really wish that they were on this platform now without some tools, that person is likely to think, oh yeah, that sounds like a sales opportunity. I hope someone from the sales department actually picks up on that.

Unfortunately, that person from the sales department is unlikely to ever know about it because they weren't in the room when that comment was said. However, if we give our. Customer care, delivery, implementation teams, some tools and the confidence to say, Hey, I overheard you say something about you wish this other department is on the platform.

Like, what did you mean by that? And allow our new client to share with us. The challenges that they're facing and pull us forward into an expansion opportunity, a mindset to instill to your after sales support group, whatever you label them, is that when a client holds us forward, We can't be pushy salespeople because the client is engaging with us and asking us for support, which is what our after sales team typically wants to do is they want to support their clients.

So whether the after sales support team reports to you directly or not, Give them those tools to create new ways of supporting their clients. It's a mindset shift at first, but then there's also some techniques that can be easily practiced and easily implemented when they overhear these conversations.

That if they think it's a sales conversation, they're likely to let slip. And unfortunately, probably not pass on to the sale. So to review three ways that quality delivery can create full funnel freedom in our organization. First is get our salespeople to confirm the sale, especially if we're taking business away from a competitor.

As my mentor said to our clients, would you tell me in your own words, what you think you just bought from us, or another way of bringing that up is to say you've been buying from this other organization for many years. It's probably easier to stick with them. If they find out that you're decide to switch to us, they're probably going to make a bunch of promises.

What are you going to say to them? When they say, Hey, give us another chance. We also want to. Confirm the warm handoff. That's the second way that we can create quality delivery and full funnel freedom. From the moment that we bring on a new client is create a warm handoff to the after sales support or delivery team, as well as get our first quarterly review me.

In the calendar before we sign off with our new client. And lastly, we give our after sales support team, the tools and the mindset to uncover expansion opportunities as a way to support their clients. This has been episode six of the full funnel freedom podcast, how quality delivery creates full funnel freedom.

I'm your host Hamish Knox until we connect on the next episode, go create full funnel freedom. Thank you for listening to fall funnel freedom with Amish knocks. If you want to increase your sales with. Go-to full funnel, freedom.com.