This content was created by Tim Draper. This content was uploaded by Tim Draper. This is a YouTube video (title: 'Funneling Sales and Shortening Sale Time on Leads | Co-Founder of Tubular Labs, Allison Stern') recorded July 15, 2015, featuring Allison Stern in a presentation/Q&A format. Allison answers audience questions (labeled here as SPEAKER B) about B2B sales processes—tracking sales funnels, trial onboarding, lead nurturing, qualifying prospects, negotiating and ways to shorten sales cycles.
Chapters
That's like from the process stage and less the hustle stage, which is what we're doing right now. So, one is like literally tracking how long every sale takes. So, our average is 4.5 months. And we know that and we plan for that. Sometimes it's shorter. Sometimes it's longer. You know, the— there's, you know, a sales funnel that we track. So, at the very top, you've got leads that are coming in, inbound leads. And then you have prospects. So, people who are like qualified leads. And then every company has their own sales funnel based on what they're selling. But you then, you know, you've got a salesperson talking to them. You put them on— we put them on a trial of our software. We follow up. And it's a whole sort of systematic process. And you track how long it takes for people to go from the top to the bottom. You track, you know, where your leads are coming from. So, for us, it's conferences. 55% of our leads come from meeting them at conferences, speaking at conferences, that kind of stuff. We have a small percent that just comes to our website. So, it's really about understanding that process and funnel and then optimizing it so that you can make the most sales. The other interesting thing is there's something called lead nurturing where if they're not gonna buy now, you sort of keep them around. You guys have probably all— now that I know too much about this, I always get those emails from software companies that are like, hey, we saw you looked at our website. Are you ready to talk to us now? And then they follow up very regularly. And so we do something similar, although not as annoying, where we try and say, hey, here's a new study we published on video. Just wanted to make sure you were aware of it. Let us know if you want to talk. And so we just sort of keep in touch with people, keep educating them, keep learning from them. A lot of times they'll come back to us and say, hey, we're not ready to buy now, but do you offer this? And we say, yes, here, take a free sample. And so it's just about that. But yeah, B2B is a very different animal than B2C. And someone was telling me recently there's a difference between fishing with a spear and fishing with a net. And B2B is very— it can be very like fishing with a spear. We're going to try and work with all the major studios. We're going to try and work with all the major TV networks. We know who we're trying to target, and then we have to go after the right people. So those 4 months, at the end, 4 months can be a long time. Is it mostly just dealing with the trial, or is it a lot of negotiating, or what? More like meeting them, telling them what we offer, putting them on a trial, talking to the right people inside an organization. The contract stage depends if it's a major company or not and what that's like.
It's—
we don't— I mean, sometimes there's negotiations that have to happen, but we have like a rate card that we sell. So, we can just say these are the prices. So, really it's less about the negotiations and the more time is just spent getting to know people, educating them on what we do. And then you're going to have to negotiate. getting the right people on a trial. We could have given a trial and a demo to one person, but really it should be this other person that's using it. So finding that and sort of establishing yourself in an organization.
Thanks.
Yeah.
Hi. Thank you so much for coming in. My question has to do with advice on closing deals quicker. Where do you think there's room to condense a little bit the process and keep them just as happy as if you drive it for a few months?
So sometimes you don't have a choice. It's just the length of the process and that's it. I think one thing is if you're fighting over a few pennies or something like that, I just— actually, I don't always give in. But if it's not worth your time to keep fighting for— not fighting, but negotiation— then you say, OK. And it's like you'd rather drop the price $1,000 than spend 10 months talking to them.
I think—
Other ways might be making sure you're talking to the right person. There's a whole technique to sales around who is the gatekeeper, who are the users, who is the champion, and making sure you find someone internally who's your champion and can sell for you when you're not there. And so you could waste a lot of time talking to— so what's your business? Or what do you—
We're a mobile app, but we also have a physical product we sell to more bigger groups. And so it's not really that we're— Negotiating over price as much. We are very lenient with that as we're starting to grow. But more of the, it's taking like 3 weeks for legal. So we're like, all right, let's just place the order, get the order already. So as soon as legal signs it, we'll put it in production immediately. Or let's start production a little bit so we can get this done.
Right. That's interesting. So that's risky with starting it before papers are signed if it's a It's a huge cost to you. Oh, well, that's interesting. That sounds like a good strategy. I think, yeah, I was going to say— the advice I was going to give, which I'm not sure is relevant, is often finding the user who's going to be using your product is not good enough, because they need to get permission up the chain of command. So the sooner you can get up to the top to ask for permission, the faster the deal is going to go. The other thing is, I guess— As the business grows, you'll be able to keep more inventory on hand. And you'll be able to take the money that you make and invest it in the business. So, it will be quicker to sell whatever you have because it will be ready on hand. I don't know. Does that answer that? Yeah, I guess.
I don't know.
It's a tricky thing. Yeah. I mean, I think it's interesting. It sounds like you have retail or bricks-and-mortar locations as well as other channels as well. So, over time, when you're optimizing, when you're more in the process stage and not the hustle, it's gonna be more about which channel of ours is the most profitable. Where is the quickest lead time? Where is the quickest sales time? Should we just focus on this as opposed to all these things and start optimizing and figuring it out?
Maybe, can I do a short add-on?
Yeah.
Maybe what materials do you prepare? Have you found that there's some materials that prevent you from doing those demos?
Or you don't have to go in and put as much personal time, you can just— Yeah, so, well, one thing is we instituted, like, when people sign up for a trial, we ask a lot of questions, like, how many people are in your organization? Like, what's your job title? Like, what, you know, not too many questions, because we still want them to fill it out, but you ask the questions that you know are, like, signs to you about whether they're gonna quickly move or not, right? Like, if it's, or, like, even a question that's like, are you ready to buy right now? Or what stage are you in your decision process? Are you ready to buy? Are you collecting information? Are you— and so if you ask those questions, you'll know where to put your time. You're like, oh, this person says they're not ready to buy. I'm going to put them on hold. This person has got a 50-person company and is looking for a solution right now. I'm going to target that person. So basically asking enough questions and the right questions ahead of time so that you can prioritize your time.
