126876 Resource 102363 102466 102466 1147208450098 1147216882473 Controlled NetSuite For Geniuses: Chapter 2, Order To Cash Continued

Direct Selling through Sales Teams and Partners: Do You Have a Process?

Last week we started to talk about the Order to Cash process by considering NetSuite's E-commerce system. Today we will bring it 'in house' so to speak and talk about sales through the direct sales team and partners. Normally, selling through a sales team and/or partners means that it's a business to business sale. And the most important aspect of a business to business sale is time. Three, six or nine month sales cycles are the norm, even a year is not unheard of. So how to manage the client during this period? Many companies now have a sales process that they follow. For example, you may catch a new lead through your website by offering a whitepaper for download. Subsequently you include the new lead in an industry specific e-newletter or direct mailing. Then, you invite the lead to participate in a mini-course that explains your offering for their market in some detail. Finally, you invite the lead to an online webinar that you host. At this point the lead has shown escalating interest and shared enough information that you hand them over to your sales team for a one to one contact. How to manage all of that activity for one lead, much less hundreds or even thousands? Let start with the form the lead fills in on the website, automatically creates a record in NetSuite. You are notified and then the marketing effort begins. Each email you send is saved on the leads record. Each task you perform if ticked off. Leads falling through the cracks is a thing of the past. Management can quickly check and make sure that each lead is being handled according to the process your company has outlined. You can group the leads based on any information on the record and add them to an email or direct mail campaign, again enabled by NetSuite. Once the marketing effort has been completed you will have whittled down the lead list from several hundred of unknown interest to a hundred of known, high interest. In the next step we route the lead to the salesperson based on pre-existing rules. Now sales picks up the hot lead and starts to make direct contact. NetSuite enables both direct sales and partners to work on lead records. The main difference is that partners are never able to see leads, prospects and customers if they are not identified on the record as the partner. Sales manages all of their calls and notes on the leads record. When they eventually identify potential business they open up an opportunity for the, now, prospect. The opportunity is the first sign that the prospect is a serious candidate. From the opportunity record the salesperson can create quotes, or proposals if you wish, that detail the entire sales transaction. Proposals, like sales orders, can be emailed, printed, or faxed directly from the system. As the prospect moves through the sales process we change their status to reflect their potential as a client. This also changes the weighted proposal amount as we review the pipeline. Eventually some prospects become clients and we generate a Sales Order from the Proposal with a single click. Finally, as partners and direct sales close business we calculate commissions for individuals or teams of sales people. We can them pay them via a 1099 or a payroll check. Having said all of the above, which is really only a small sample of the functionality available in NetSuite, let me make a very important point. Before you start to assess NetSuite take a close look at your current sales and marketing effort. Do you have a process in place to handle new leads? Where do you find leads and do you know the likelihood of new business from each lead source? How do you currently route leads? What are your sales territories? What are your commission plans? These might sound like strange questions but I am always surprised to find out that companies purchase NetSuite with the thought that they will invent the process as they move through the implementation. I have never seen this succeed. If you want a process to succeed in NetSuite map it out today. Even if you have to manage it on a spreadsheet, like everyone else does, you still can start to work through the process and refine it. You will be delighted as well by how people will start to catch on and have good ideas on how to take a lukewarm lead and heat them up.   10 application/xml false netsuite netsuite crm netsuite marketing automation netsuite sales force automation sales and marketing process Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0; T312461; YPC 3.0.1; (R1 1.5); .NET CLR 1.1.4322) 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 tfoydel false true false false true 205861 false false true false false false true 102363 blog blogsite/SightLines/web