Background

For many companies, establishing a defined, effective, and efficient sales process is a big ask. Your team is already busy selling. They don’t have the time to fuss with the “how.” They just need to do. But without a streamlined sales process, leads can fall through the cracks, and your sales team spends more time figuring out who’s handling what than actually closing.

This is the position our client, Vanguard Fire & Security Systems (Vanguard for short) found themselves in when they came to us looking for marketing and sales support.

The Problem

An outdated and ineffective sales process reliant on unstructured spreadsheets

A leading provider of fire protection and commercial security services, Vanguard not only needed help converting digital leads but also sticking to an established process for what to do with them after the fact. With no defined sales process and no visibility, it was difficult for them to know where they were and where they needed to be. The Vanguard team needed: 

• A sales enablement initiative that would provide transparency across the board
• Tools that could support and streamline this new sales process

Our Solution

A cross-channel sales enablement plan, which heavily relied on HubSpot Sales Hub implementation

In January 2020, following Vanguard’s HubSpot onboarding, we launched a full-fledged sales enablement initiative. Our sales enablement strategy was designed to give the Vanguard sales team tools that would support faster, more efficient sales, plus the training they needed to use them successfully.

The strategy included three main objectives: setting up HubSpot deal stages, sales leaderboards, and email sequences with meeting links.

Deal Stages

• The first step was moving the Vanguard team off of spreadsheets. We implemented sales pipelines in the HubSpot CRM that defined a solid, consistent sales process with deal stages that aligned with their goals. With defined deal stages the whole team could see, the Vanguard team no longer had to worry about visibility or accountability. Every prospect in the pipeline is easily visible, and Vanguard’s team administrator now assigns all new leads and tasks to the appropriate sales team member, ensuring no leads fall through the cracks.
  
  

Sales Leaderboards

• With a solid sales process, Vanguard then needed visibility on how that process was working. We implemented sales leaderboards that enabled each sales rep to see what progress they were making in both a yearly and monthly context. The leaderboards reduced flywheel friction by creating incentives for everyone engaged and being an effective tool for continuous improvement, allowing sales leaders to share what strategies were most effective for them with the rest of the team.
  
  

Email Sequences & Meeting Links

• Vanguard knew that industry conferences and tradeshows were one of their best opportunities to find new leads. They just needed the tools to better engage those qualified leads. We worked with the Vanguard team to automate sequences that would go out before and after events. Before sequences included meeting links, making it easy for prospects to schedule time with a Vanguard rep at their convenience, reducing friction and the back-and-forth communication that often goes along with setting up a meeting. By the time their event rolled around, the Vanguard sales team had a full list of meetings set up with qualified prospects, plus a streamlined method of following up afterward!