How sales are arranged in a mobile studio

Hi Habr!

My name is Dima, I am 21 years old. I came to Touch Instinct a year and three months ago as a sales manager. I came as a student, just to try and, perhaps, make my last attempt as a salesperson. Before that, I tried to sell a lot where: I sold the exam courses, riding around schools; sold building licenses, phoning the city of Sochi on a cold base. At one time, I even fit into the muddy MLM story.

Under the cut, dmitrykostin will tell you how the sales department in our company is organized: CRM, planning and reports.

Sales account

Before me, the founders of the company attracted projects unsystematically. Now all the activities for the sale of our services are concentrated on me and my assistant - these are outgoing, processing of incoming applications and upsale. In Terekhov's terminology , I am a Sales-Account.

The first thing I did when I came in was cold sales. There were practically no incoming leads; I had to round-the-clock dial out companies that were more or less suitable for our target audience. The task that then stood before me was to make an appointment with a potential customer and talk about the mobile application market. Try to convey to the business what benefits it can get on the example of specific cases.

We said that there are many studios on the market that you can contact, but please do not forget about us when you send out the assignment for evaluation. Thus, my colleague Anatoly Larin and I went around almost all St. Petersburg car dealers (it seemed that they had money and they needed), but did not sell anything. The presentation with which we bypassed car dealers, the full version by click. I really did not sell for a long time. My first mini sale took place after about two months, with an incoming application. The sales process as such was not built up and everything turned out spontaneously and awkwardly - like the first sex. The amount of the first contract was ridiculous, but we continued cooperation and have been working on the project for the second year. Something really big happened after half a year. Since then I have been trying to keep up the pace.

We do not have KPI, there is a responsibility

The opinions of sales experts at the Digital agency were divided: someone writes that there should be no plan without it, someone writes that this is true suicide.

We do not have KPI, there is only the concept of responsibility. Responsibility for the fact that there are 45 people who need to pay a salary, and if there are no new large projects, I will be to blame. The percentage of sales for me comes as a pleasant bonus to the incredible feeling that people work on every project sold and they like to make a product. Another very cool feeling is the understanding that you are helping the company grow. When I came to the company, there were 9 of us, now there are 45 of us, including myself, who had a hand in this.

Such motivation does not scale and someday there will come a moment of transition to plans, templates and other delights. With the growth of the company, I have to work hard - more people require more projects, with pre-planned ones.

CRM did not take root

We probably tried all the well-known CRMs: Highrise, PipeDrive, SalesForce, amoCRM, Megaplan, ... Megaplan was used the longest, but it was buggy, it slowed down and the sales module was implanted recently and did not integrate well with the main system. Highrise lacked functionality; the rest had too much. The last thing we tried was the self-written CRM on Django.



But she was abandoned after a couple of months. The reason is banal - I'm uncomfortable, I'm too lazy. It’s not difficult to bring one customer. And to bring 100, 200, 300 takes too much time. I am morally uncomfortable to engage in this activity.

I keep a Google calendar in which I enter absolutely all my activities. It works. For more than a year of work, I forgot to write to two leads. As soon as I start communicating with a client, I add a reminder to the calendar. Today, tomorrow, next month or six months.

My calendar is crammed a year in advance with notes “Skip Vasya from Otkat Kontora LLC vasya@otkat.ru. The entire history of correspondence with Vasya is stored in the mail. After any meeting or call, Vasya writes a resume (follow up). Thus, the history of meetings and calls is stored in the mail.

It’s convenient for me to work like that, all these actions are brought to reflexes.

Reporting

Every month, on the first day, I prepare a report:

• how many leads came to the post office;
• how many of them resulted in communication;
• how much has sold;
• which clients are likely to mature this month, with what budget size and number of people per project;
• how many interesting clients he led on outgoing;
• what he did all month, for example, he spoke at a conference.

The reports are read by the general manager and marketing director. For me, reports are like a diary. It is interesting to see how in a year you turn from an optimist who writes that he is about to shoot three dozen projects into a realist-pessimist.

Where do customers come from?

Surprisingly, few people in the mobile market are engaged in outbound sales. Even with a few sales staffs. I do outgoing, on an ongoing basis, every day when there is a free minute. Yes, it’s difficult, but the conversion to orders is higher than that of incoming ones.

It is clear that this is not about storming the yellow pages. I constantly read roem.ru , Zuckerberg will call , I look through highly paid vacancies in IT in Moscow and Peter on hh.ru. For example, after an article about enhancing Internet marketing in company X, I simply must go to them. Or if the toilet company hires the director of an online store, I make friends with him.

Now any information is available to us, we can calculate from whom how much money, find out from whom what plans you just need to take a phone and call. Why miss such an opportunity?

I spend a lot of time on networking. 40% of incoming people come with the words "They recommended you to us" or "We talked with you." Usually these are high-quality leads with which you can continue to communicate. The remaining 60% of incoming requests are like “WE URGENTLY NEED A MOBILE APPLICATION GEODATING WITH PHOTOSHARING”. Although sometimes quite adequate, well-known companies come.

Mobile development is expensive. Typically, the response to an incoming application is: "We work with projects from $ XXX, XXX, XXX, this is a large amount, tell me if this is unacceptable to you." Ilya Birman will tell you more about dropouts of unpromising clients in a report“Pattern it” and Gorbunov’s advice .

We are good guys. We always help with advice, if we are expensive and the client does not have tasks that need our expertise, we are sent to more budget studios.

Foreign market and time & material

A year ago, we started to do a project for Xamarin and became their Premium Consulting Partner . This gives us high-quality leads who are interested in our specialization and have adequate representations on the budget. Every third lead becomes a customer. I tried to sell abroad outbound, but somehow it didn’t work. Neither just letters, nor "bombing" on LinkedIn went. Advertising on Google Adwords also did not work. Perhaps we have not yet understood what exactly and how to sell in the States and Europe. But we really want this. It’s easier to agree and start cooperation with a foreign company than with a Russian one. It’s easier to negotiate, it’s easier to negotiate a price, it’s easier to work with papers, and, most importantly, they are used to working on time & material.







I don’t know what the problem is, maybe I’m really bad, but in Russia t & m is selling a little more than nothing.

How do we evaluate the project

When I made sure that the client is adequate and got acquainted with the minimum budget, I make an assessment of the project. If it is complicated, I connect the project manager. If simple - I appreciate it myself.

Our processes are no different from other studios and generally accepted "laws" of sales. Meet / call, ask the right questions , find out the “pain”, propose a solution, make sure that the solution is correct and then announce the cost. Hello to Camp and Wackham . Depending on the situation, this path goes from a few days to a couple of weeks.

I am not at all versed in programming (although now I am taking a course on CodeAcademy), but prepared the standard components of mobile applications with an estimate for almost all occasions. In other cases, if the task is serious or the client requires special attention, I attract project managers who help me draw up a project plan and evaluate it. I try to minimize such cases so that the cost of the presale is not too high.

Sometimes I attract the CEO, take his final meeting. This is a good move that shows the client that we care and we really want to work with him. Especially if your general is a charismatic nyasha, like ours.


I am just trying to prepare quality commercial offers for the customer. Usually our offers are ridiculous compared to competitors. Therefore, I rely on live communication with the client. I continue to work on the ideal gearbox. By the way, the Gorbunov bureau published its offer for Dodo pizza . I recommend watching it.

Sales vs PM

It is believed that sales love to undervalue, and what comes next is not their problem. This is not so with us. I always prepare adequate assessments, lay risks. I can explain to the client why it is so expensive and if the client does not agree, then this is not our client.

On all recent projects, I do not interrupt communication after the conclusion of the contract. I stop by to visit the customer to find out how you are doing, settle conflicts, sell additional functionality.

What's next

I understand that the current sales scheme is not perfect. The company is growing, the market is changing, we will not be able to successfully exist without setting up processes. We are actively working to make sales predictable and scalable. Someday I will write about it.

And how is the sales process in your company?

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