The age of specialization in selling has come and people have bought into the predictable revenue model. Companies are seeing massive results.
One of the special intricacies to get right in this model is the lead handoff. Here’s what you can do:
1. Get The Lingo Down Cold
Old School executives worry about BDRs with thoughts like, “I don’t want my least qualified reps making first contact with the buyer…what if they get asked hard questions or screw up? How are they going to smoothly hand off the prospects to closers?”
When the prospect states they want to take next steps, here are a few things you can say to your prospect to make the transition smooth:
“Given the stage of our discussions….
or
“Given your authority…
or
“Given your role in the decision making process…
“I’d like to connect you with one of our prospecting experts who…
“…will be able to answer your deeper questions.”
“…will best be able to understand your objectives and discuss best practices.”
This allows the prospect not to feel like they are being “handed off,” but being “upgraded.”
2. Cruise Through the Administrative Tasks
Calendar: Our sales executives give full calendar access to our business development reps. This way they can set appointments on the spot, like so:
CRM: Have a quick and easily process built out. Ours looks like this:
- Record the task that you booked a BDR appointment. Hit Save and Next.
- Record the task for an open demo for the AE. Only they can accept and close it.
This allows us to measure scheduled demos, completed demos, and follow the leads through the funnel always tying it back to the business development rep.
3. Use Templates & Text Accelerators
Our reps use email templates for certain stages of the prospects life cycle using ToutApp or Signals.
We also use a text accelerator named aText to help us fill in repetitive information into calendar events or emails. For example: if one of our BDRs types in “AZJoin” …it will automatically fill in Anthony’s Join.me information:
4. Adequately Share the Important Info With the Rep
How big is the company, who are the decision makers, what problems are they trying to solve? Who are the competitors? And what else has the BDR found out?
We ask them to loop this into the calendar invite, which serves two purposes.
- It keeps the prospect understanding what they’ve already shared so they don’t have to start from scratch.
- It give the Sales executive the full inside scoop on their lead. The more pre-call research the rep has done (and added to the calendar invite, the better).
5. Reminders For the Appointments
Get stats on how many scheduled appointments actually happen (we use this both in the industry, as well as at Salesloft). We recommend the reps themselves sends an appointment reminder the morning of the meeting.
Passing the baton should be seamless, feel natural to the customer, and not be a burden to either the BDR or Sales Exec.
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Are there any reasons why you wouldn’t use this advice?