As we approach the halfway point in 2021, I am excited to report that our sales pipeline is starting to see an upwards trend after weeks of iterating on our sales strategy.
We’ve learned a lot about which outreach methods work well and which work poorly in our industry. For example, attempting to re-reach out to anyone who we last contacted over a year ago, in our industry, is likely to result in a large number of bounces. People move roles and organizations fairly often, so keeping in close contact is incredibly important.
What we’ve found works best is to keep in touch with folks as they move from role to role, org to org, and make sure they bring their favorite frontline resources—like FocusMDM—along with them. We’ve also noticed that the most powerful form of marketing—consistent with the age-old wisdom—is word of mouth. Our biggest opportunities in the pipeline today are those that were introduced to us by happy customers who had positive experiences with our product, and more importantly, our team.
However, once we’re in touch with an ideal client, our job of giving them the tool they need only gets harder. Tshiamo Shole, the newest member of the sales team on FocusMDM said, “My real challenge starts after pitching and demoing, where my leads can take a very long time to go into the negotiation stage. Funding and timing restrictions are the two most common reasons given for delays in getting into the contracting phase.
Even when clients are ready to purchase an MDM to support their implementation project, numerous challenges stand in the way of allowing them to move forward with the tool they’ve identified to solve their problem.
As we continue iterating on our sales and retention strategy, learning new insights and methods to identify the right person, the right time, and the right opportunities, I am looking forward to seeing this graph get better and better.