Opportunity Scoring Models to Accelerate Revenue

Are They Hot or Not: Guidelines for
Scoring Pipeline Opportunities
Laura Patterson
President & Author
laurap@visionedgemarketing.com
-Twitter:@LauraVEM
-Facebook: http://
www.facebook.com/pages/VisionEdge-Marketing/27870383215975

Improve Your Probability for Success ™ | www.visionedgemarketing.com | ©1999-2012 VisionEdge Marketing. VEM Proprietary. Not for reproduction or redistribution without written permission. 2
Welcome and Program Agenda
 The Best-in-Class vs. The Rest
 Developing a Scoring Schema and
Model

Partners in Creating, Retaining, and
Growing the Value of Customers
 Marketing and Sales =
the fundamental
relationship for attracting
buyers
 The relationship > than a
simple handoff at the
point a qualified
opportunity is generated
 Is Yours Broken?

9 Tell Tale Signs the Marketing
and Sales Relationship is Broken
1. Work from separate
opportunity pipeline
or sales funnel
models
2. Poorly defined
handoff
3. Use and report on
different
performance metrics
4. Few or No jointly
defined activities that
will improve
opportunity flow in
terms of quality,
quantity, and timing
5. No common
vocabulary or
language
5. Marketing doesn’t solicit
appropriate input from Sales
when drafting the Marketing
plan, defining the
opportunity pipeline, or
creating the opportunity
scoring model
6. Sales keeps Marketing away
from customers
7. Sales & Marketing exclude
each other from meetings
8. Too much time is spent on
dispute resolution or the crisis
of the moment
9. Sales and Marketing attend
different training programs,
events and other learning
opportunities

Six Primary Culprits
 Lack of an integrated marketing and sales
prioritization and planning process
 Poor alignment between the sales process and the
customer’s buying process.
 No formally defined steps for the selling process.
 An ineffective process for qualified opportunity
dispersion and management
 Lack of marketing systems, data and reports to
continuously modify and adjust marketing spend to
meet sales requirements or market dynamics.
 No formal system for tracking marketing’s role in
customer acquisition, retention and value creation
DON’T TAKE JUST OUR WORD

The State of Marketing Generated Opportunities
Marketing
generated
opps, 33.2%
Non-
marketing
generated
opps, 66.8%
Where Do Opportunities Come From?
56%
40%
1%
3%
60%
35%
3%
1%
0% 50% 100%
Needs
Improvement
Meets
Expectations
Exceeds
Expectations
DK
Lead Quantity
Lead Quality
Sales Perception of MarketingGenerated Opps
Source: CSO Insights, 2012
• Marketing Not
Meeting
Expectations
• Sales Needs to
be a Better
Partner

Opportunity Management Challenges
41%
30%
30%
28%
28%
28%
26%
0% 20% 40% 60%
Lead quality
Marketing data quality/accuracy
Lead quantity
Conversion/response rate to marketing
campaigns is too lov
Leads stuck in the funnel
Marketing /sales alignment
Funnel leakage (qualified opps not getting
actioned)
OpportunityManagementChallenges
Aberdeen, May 2012, n= 163
Quality Matters

70% 69% 67%
50%
45%
39%38% 38%
29%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Process to establish/refine
opp qual criteria btwn sales
& marketing
Clearly defined process to
transfer opps to sales or
return for nurturing
Defined, standardrized and
documented opp
management process
BIC
Ind Avg
Laggards
Aberdeen, May2012 n=163
The State of Opportunity Management
CSO Insights, 2012
Systems
and
Processes
Yes, 42.6%
No, 57.4%
Has Your Organization Implemented an

The Best-in-Class Outpace the Pack
70% 69% 67%
50%
45%
39%38% 38%
29%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Process to establish/refine
opp qual criteria btwn sales
& marketing
Clearly defined process to
transfer opps to sales or
return for nurturing
Defined, standardrized and
documented opp
management process
Opportunity Process Maturity
66%
59% 59%
42%
25% 25%
36%
28% 27%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Ability to define multi-step
opp nurturing processes
Utlize opportunity scoring
to progress lead
Process bwtn sales &
marketing to define opp
scoring criteria
BIC
Ind Avg
Laggards
Opportunity Scoring
Aberdeen,May 2012,n=163
BIC
•Partner
•Define
Processes,
Criteria
•Standardize
•Implement and
Use

Traditional Sales Funnel Outdated
 The traditional sales
funnel is 112 years-old!
 Conversion rates are
unsustainable. Takes
>1000 opps/sale.
 Time to convert is
lengthening. The
average time to create
a large B2B tech
customer has
lengthened by 15% in
the last year.
 Buyers find online search
and supplier websites
more valuable sources
for buying information
than F2F.
(IDC)
 The Empowered Buyer is killing the Traditional Sales
Funnel – today’s buyers
 more sophisticated
 may know more than sales people. 55% of
buyers think sales people are only somewhat
or not prepared for initial meetings.
 MLC 2011 Study found that B2B buyers are
57% of the way thu their purchase process
before connecting with sales,("Influencing the
Newly Empowered Customer.")

Discard the Funnel
 Old -Stages defined by the company and
means
 a lot more has to go in at the top
than what comes out at the bottom.
 lots of opportunities drop away at
each stage of a long sales process.
Old Sales Stages example:
 Initial Inquiry
 Initial Communication - BANT
 Initial Meeting/Needs Assessment
 Solution Presentation
 Customer Evaluation
 RFP
 Negotiation
 Verbal Commitment
 Written Purchase Order/Contract
 Delivery
 Payment
The sales funnel is a
common tool used by
the sales organization
to understand the
flow of business
opportunities
Need a new approach –customer buying process defines the stages.

New Model: Customer Buying Behavior PLUS Fit
 The term itself, customer buying
pipeline, suggests this process is
something owned by BOTH sales
AND marketing
 It’s all about customer buying
signals – ENGAGEMENT BEHAVIOR
 A pipe suggests that
different marketing
programs may be needed
at different stages along
the way and that
segmentation, targeting,
and qualification are
extremely important to
reducing waste and
customer acquisition costs.

Establish the Variables for the
Behavioral Side of the Model
 Contact - Demonstrates some degree of interest,
“observable hello”- share basic contact info. Doesn’t
mean they are eager to get to know you better.
 Connect – Establish some type of rapport – “follow,
friend, like”
 Conversation - A steady flow of information back and
forth “comments, demos, f2f meetings”
 Consideration - applying careful thought to your offer
and company and weighing their options “rfq, rfp, due
diligence”
 Consumption – Trial, test, order
 Community – Advocate, refer, rebuy
Observable Measurable Incremental Behaviors

 Define When An
Opportunity is a Good
Match
 Size
 Relationships
 Need
 Budget
 Problem
 Establish the Value
Ranges
Add the Fit Side to the Model
Creates Fit – based
Opportunity Scoring

Concept Illustration
Fit:
Vertical
 In a target vertical where we have
domain expertise – 5 pts
 In a target vertical but we don’t have
domain expertise – 3 pts
 Not in a target vertical – 0 pts
Problem
 Ideally suited to solve their problem – 5
pts
 Our product will solve their problem with
some customization – 3 ps
 Our product will not solve their problem
without a major investment on our part –
0 pts
Contact
 Contact is decision maker – 5 pts
 Contact is influencer/user – 3 pts
 Contact is outside target buying/using
group- 0 pts
Size/Revenue
Budget
Behavior:
Contact:
 Completes website registration form – 5
pts
 Follows on Twitter – 3 pts
 Subscribes to company newsletter – 3 pts
Connection:
 Attends third party sponsored webinar – 3
pts
 Attends company only webinar – 5 pts
 Downloads white paper – 2 pts
Conversation:
 Provides product specification and buying
criteria via email– 5 pts.
 Requests and participates live online
demo – 10 pts
Consideration:
 Requests in person or webex meeting – 5
pts
 Requests and Contacts references – 5 pts
 Purchases paid trial – 10 pts

Concept Illustration
FIT
BEHAVIOR
low
high
high
Sales worthy and ready
Nurture
Minimal Future
Effort & Investment
Revisit marketing mix

Scoring Model Development Process
Step 1: Define the
customer buying
process and each
incremental behavior
Step 2: Validate
Step 3:
Define the
Fit Criteria
Step 4:
Establish Values and
Metrics
Step 5:
Finalize, Document.
Configure & Implement
Step 6: Monitor, measure
and report results
and payback

This is a lot of work, why bother?
 An integrated marketing and sales prioritization
and planning process
 Better alignment between the sales process and
the customer’s buying process.
 Formally defined approach to the buying and
opportunity management process.
 An effective model and process for qualified
opportunity dispersion and management
 Better marketing systems, data and reports to
continuously modify and adjust marketing spend
to meet sales requirements
 A formal approach for tracking marketing’s role
in customer acquisition, retention and value
creation

Take the Leap:
Create an Opportunity Scoring Model
Change can be daunting, but a
scoring model is a key to success
What Does it Take?
 Data and collaboration
with customers and sales to
build the model
 Start from the outside in,
leverage an expert
Begin with a blank slate, not
your current paradigm
Test and learn culture
Don’t Waste Your Bullets
White Paper

Thank you and Resources
 Please email your questions to
 Laurap@visionedgemarketing.com
 Learn More
 Download Don’t Waste Your Bullets white
paper
 Purchase our e-Book Gone Fishin’:
Marketing and Sales Alignment for
Finding, Hooking, Keeping and Growing
Customers – a concise book that
effectively guides you through the
process of finding, hooking, keeping, and
growing profitable customers by
explaining how to define, understand,
and cultivate this core relationship.
 Self-paced workbook, Using the
Customer Buying Process to Align Sales
and Marketing & Create 3 Key Sales
Enablement Tools
www.visionedgemarketing.com

Founded in 1999 and headquartered in
Austin, TX, VisionEdge Marketing, Inc.
serves more than 100 customers, and
counting.
VisionEdge Marketing, Inc. is a data-
driven and metrics-focused marketing
firm that specializes in improving
marketing performance and creating
competitive advantage designed to
attract, secure and retain profitable
customers.
Services Include:
 Marketing performance
management
 Marketing and sales alignment
 Product and strategic marketing
 Pipeline re-engineering
 Professional development
About VisionEdge Marketing – Experienced Practitioners

Opportunity Scoring Models to Accelerate Revenue

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