“We have a different sales structure here, the sales people just sell!”

Over the past few months, I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Los Angeles at Leads360 (CEO’s blog) helping them get their frontline sales teams set up (inbound lead qualification and outbound prospecting) and redoing their sales process (part of which is openly published on their site).

Onna Young is one of their newer salespeople, and had a funny, and telling, way of observing one of the benefits of separating out the frontline steps of the sales process from the actual selling. Here’s a dramatic re-enactment of a typical conversation she has with other sales friends!

“We have a different sales structure, here. It’s wild and subversive. [Aaron – you can sense a little sarcasm here 🙂 ] Call us wacky, but the sales people just sell.

“Yeah, it is different – they don’t spend time randomly prospecting or cold calling lists. They just spend their time selling. We have two teams of people who pass warm leads to sales: inbound and outbound. The inbound, or “Market Response” reps, respond to incoming calls and website leads, and outbound, or “Sales Development” reps, do the prospecting into cold accounts. Both teams pre-qualify the leads before passing them to the quota-carrying sales people.

“Even better, the sales people can focus on developing their own new business by spending more time with current clients, making both the sales people and clients happier.

“Our overall goal is to make sure that we’re maximizing everyone’s time, so that the sales people are always working with relevant companies who need what we have to offer, and they aren’t spending time with prospects that aren’t a good fit!”