Assessment questions

Here are some questions to ask when first engaged in a sales consulting project:

Qualification Methodology

• have you implemented a qualification methodology? B2B Sales Qualification Methodologies

Sales Process

• do you have a sales playbook?
• what are your key challenges across your revenue function?
• ideal customer profiles & buyer personas?
• average, min & max sales cycle?
• key stages of your sales pipeline, and how do you measure progress through them?
• key metrics you use to measure the performance of your sales team, and how do you track them?
• how do you currently manage your sales pipeline? Do you have a CRM system in place, and how is it being utilized?
• what is your close rate?
• biggest challenges you face in closing deals, and how are you currently addressing them?
• percentage of closed deals replacing a similar solution (competitor displacement) vs fist-time user of a dedicated software solution (ie replacing spreadsheets, manual process, etc)?
• lead generation strategies & tactics?
• lead follow-up strategies & tactics?
• objections handling?
• pricing strategy, and how do you determine your pricing?
• current sales goals, and how are you tracking progress towards them?
• do you have a process in place to ensure your reps always have "outreach fodder" (ie new content, case studies, etc)?
• is asking for referrals part of your sales process? Part of your CS playbook? How do you do it?
• is the difference between a Coach and a Champion clear to your team?
• do you assess for having a Champion in the account during the Sales process?
• how do you test for having a Champion?
• what is your current sales process?
• do you have a sales playbook?
• what determines a qualified opportunity?
• how does a first touch look like for a prospect engaging your company? Do you measure response time?
• do you have a format/template to present the business case back to your prospect/Champion?
• are reps enabled to be flexible with pricing (up or down)?
• how accurate is your sales forecast? Can you provide a historical overview (monthly/quarterly forecast vs actual)?

Sales Channels

• do you sell only directly, or also via partners (Channel Sales)?
• what proportion of revenues do Channel Sales represent?
• what kind of partners do you work with?
• what Channel Sales activities do you run to support your partners?
• do you have co-selling partners? (complementary products/services, selling into each other's accounts)

Product

• what is the USP (Unique Selling Point) of your solution?
• what pain point do you solve for your customers?

Pricing

• how is your pricing structured?
• how do you know your current pricing is at the right level? (experimentations conducted?)

Sales Performance

• how many reps hit quota? Last year? This year?
• rep attrition rate?
• how are your comp plans structured?
• what percentage of your total revenues does your Sales costs represent?
• what was the split of new vs existing customers revenue last year? This year?

Competitors

• who are your competitors?
• do you have a clear positioning against each?
• do you run displacement campaigns?

Inbound/Outbound

• what is the split of deals closed from inbound leads vs outbound?
• what was the split of deals closed from inbound leads vs outbound?
• are inbound leads pre-qualified in some way before being assigned to a rep?

Expansion in existing accounts

• what expansion vectors do you have? (eg. upsell, cross-sell, new features & add-ons, etc)

Renewals

• what is your renewal rate?
• are AEs involved in renewals or handled only by CS?
• what tactics are used to "save" customers from churn?

Customer Success

• how do you handle customer success?
• how do you measure ROI for your clients? Is there a system in place to ensure clients are aware of it (when good) or tackle any issues if not?

Sales Team

• how would you define your sales culture?
• can you provide a short overview of each rep with their performance (against quota), tenure, key attributes/skills & key deficiencies?
• what packages are your reps on (OTE, base + commission)?
• are you adjusting your reps' territory/role based on their skillset (after "getting-to-know-you" period)?
• how does the Support structure look like for your reps (Executives, Sales Engineering, Marketing, Technical Support, etc)?
• ongoing sales team training?
• do you have a culture & processes in place to ensure your sales team are always learning & improving?
• do you leverage tribal knowledge in your sales team, ie replicate what works at individual level across your team? How?
• do you run spiffs/incentives, aligned with short-term goals?
• what are your recruiting criteria & process?

Sales Stack

• what is your sales stack? What is a B2B Sales stack?

SaaS metrics

• what are the current SaaS metrics of the company? SaaS metrics

Pricing

For Pricing references see B2B Sales Consulting pricing