The Qualified Sales Leader: Proven Lessons from a Five Time CRO

solving for customers or the tangible benefits customers get from your product.

A high level summary of your Discovery and Scoping findings The company’s current state. The as-is The negative consequences of that current state Your proposed future state. The to-be The benefits of the future state The required capabilities to achieve that future state Customer success stories with quantified before/after metrics High level desc

more effectively. I want the people on my sales force to be become better salespeople and better forecasters.” Right away, I recognized him. Not only his voice, but the sense of urgency behind his words. “Raj,” I said. “Good to hear from you. How did your quarter end?” He scoffed. “Terribly. John, you watched my sales team during the QBR and my sal

During the Scoping stage, reps take the pain uncovered during Discovery to quantify and implicate that pain.

Listening

And the managers didn’t garner any new information to help them forecast accurately or to coach their reps more effectively. The only thing that changed throughout the day was the intensity level of the questions.

Good luck creating an accurate forecast when you lose 75 percent of your POCs every quarter.

“Gates can also have KPIs, which measure effectiveness and deal velocity. For instance, what percentage of deals from one stage transitioned to the next stage, and how long did they take to transition.”

This question is the beginning of formulating the decision criteria. When reps can explain the customer pain and alignment to your product differentiators, they have qualified a key element in the Discovery stage: the potential buying criteria.