Milestone Objective is a term commonly used in the technology industry.
I picked it up working with project managers and developers during the early years of my career in the B2B enterprise software space.
I found that it was also an innovative way to break down the sales cycle into specific achievable goals allowing each salesperson on my team to focus on advancing their prospect through the cycle but with smaller, definable steps.
To make it more sales specific, we altered the term to "Commitment Objective" because without the prospect's commitment, the sales cycle does not advance and the sales process stalls.
Here's an example of a simple set of commitment objectives for my software sales team: 1.
Qualification 2.
Demonstration 3.
Proposal 4.
Trial 5.
Close 6.
Drip marketing 7.
KIT (keep in touch) Each sales team member is charged with simply meeting the current objective and then advancing the prospect to the next objective in the process.
Now, there are many interstitial steps between each Commitment Objective to consider and I will be covering that in more detail in next week's Mojo eZine.
But for now, let's explore breaking down your sales cycle and identifying YOUR unique commitment objectives.
One of the best and most complex sales processes that I have ever seen was created by a loan officer named Tim Braheem, who later became the founder of the LoanToolbox.
Tim created "The Perfect Loan Process" detailing a series of 71 steps from initial contact to qualification to loan application to processing to underwriting to loan closing and on to client retention.
Tim's approach was brilliant and is still utilized by some of my top clients who have modified it further for their specific production styles and team sizes.
It doesn't matter if you have 7 or 71 steps in your sales process.
What does matter is that YOU are able to clearly articulate which steps in your process require a commitment from your client to achieve THEM.
Once you have identified your own "Commitment Objectives" you can put them in a process order, assign completion time lines, create interstitial steps, and identify which members of your team will be responsible for each step's completion.
With CRM, you have the capability to advance your sales process to another level.
Take that list of steps on your excel spreadsheet or word document and integrate them into a software program that allows you and all of your team members to see the up-to-date status of each contact.
Imagine having the ability bring up any contact in your database and see a complete history of every email, task and appointment.
Imagine the freedom of knowing that each person in your database has been taken care of and that the next action item is already scheduled and will appear on your computer screen for when it is in need of your attention.
Want to truly want to get an idea of the health of your current database system, give it a quick check up.
1.
Choose a random selection of any 20-30 past clients 2.
See the last action item that you have listed in the history log 3.
When was the last email or phone(automated newsletters don't count) contact that you had with them? - 90 days is optimal - More than a year, they have already forgotten your name.
4.
What contact step do you have scheduled for them next? A healthy contact management system should always contain a detailed history of everything that you have done for each of your contacts and a "next" action item or task that you have scheduled for yourself in the future.
Stay tuned next week for more Marketing Mojo when we begin to explore best practices in "Contact between Milestone Objectives.
"
I picked it up working with project managers and developers during the early years of my career in the B2B enterprise software space.
I found that it was also an innovative way to break down the sales cycle into specific achievable goals allowing each salesperson on my team to focus on advancing their prospect through the cycle but with smaller, definable steps.
To make it more sales specific, we altered the term to "Commitment Objective" because without the prospect's commitment, the sales cycle does not advance and the sales process stalls.
Here's an example of a simple set of commitment objectives for my software sales team: 1.
Qualification 2.
Demonstration 3.
Proposal 4.
Trial 5.
Close 6.
Drip marketing 7.
KIT (keep in touch) Each sales team member is charged with simply meeting the current objective and then advancing the prospect to the next objective in the process.
Now, there are many interstitial steps between each Commitment Objective to consider and I will be covering that in more detail in next week's Mojo eZine.
But for now, let's explore breaking down your sales cycle and identifying YOUR unique commitment objectives.
One of the best and most complex sales processes that I have ever seen was created by a loan officer named Tim Braheem, who later became the founder of the LoanToolbox.
Tim created "The Perfect Loan Process" detailing a series of 71 steps from initial contact to qualification to loan application to processing to underwriting to loan closing and on to client retention.
Tim's approach was brilliant and is still utilized by some of my top clients who have modified it further for their specific production styles and team sizes.
It doesn't matter if you have 7 or 71 steps in your sales process.
What does matter is that YOU are able to clearly articulate which steps in your process require a commitment from your client to achieve THEM.
Once you have identified your own "Commitment Objectives" you can put them in a process order, assign completion time lines, create interstitial steps, and identify which members of your team will be responsible for each step's completion.
With CRM, you have the capability to advance your sales process to another level.
Take that list of steps on your excel spreadsheet or word document and integrate them into a software program that allows you and all of your team members to see the up-to-date status of each contact.
Imagine having the ability bring up any contact in your database and see a complete history of every email, task and appointment.
Imagine the freedom of knowing that each person in your database has been taken care of and that the next action item is already scheduled and will appear on your computer screen for when it is in need of your attention.
Want to truly want to get an idea of the health of your current database system, give it a quick check up.
1.
Choose a random selection of any 20-30 past clients 2.
See the last action item that you have listed in the history log 3.
When was the last email or phone(automated newsletters don't count) contact that you had with them? - 90 days is optimal - More than a year, they have already forgotten your name.
4.
What contact step do you have scheduled for them next? A healthy contact management system should always contain a detailed history of everything that you have done for each of your contacts and a "next" action item or task that you have scheduled for yourself in the future.
Stay tuned next week for more Marketing Mojo when we begin to explore best practices in "Contact between Milestone Objectives.
"
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