How do I create an SLA when I don’t know conversion rates?

[JonPayne]

Not all of us have access to a complete data set to be able to calculate our conversion rates to set an SLA between marketing and sales. Join the discussion to get advice on how to create your SLA based on industry estimates.

*To learn more about this, check out the Holding Your Teams Accountable With an SLA lesson via HubSpot Academy. 

[JMcDermott6]

No- we are currently working to calculate this.

[nefer]

How do I create an SLA when I don’t know conversion rates?

1. Get feedback from your team to estimate conversion rates
2. Start measuring data and tracking conversion actions that map to business goals
3. When you get enough data, you can start to check your assumptions from step 1 and fill in with real data to start creating more accurate SLA's

[Abs-Machin]

Would start with a prime guess, but give a time space(Half a year) to gather valuable data that can help build the kind of info that would lead us to the conversion rate answers.

As we know that RevOps needs good data to be able to make scaling work, the required systems or platform and the cooperation of the people(Marketing & Sales) as major players here to make the data gathering and analysis a success inline with well defined processes can make us hit the goal of building a conversation rate template that would guide the development of a functional agreeable SLA

[ApoZadeh]

SLA with zero conversion intel! 

Worse case scenario i would set down and crunch numbers.  Gathering data for the last 30 days of customer interaction. Check form fills mailbox, compile all in one place, check the finance department maybe for all invoices issued in the timeframe (i know they might be more than 30 days converted but paid in the last 30),. 

Divide overall form fills/ leads with closed deals (everyone knows the deals you close if your not big enough, since every customer matters for the little guy) 

thats a conversion rate there (better than nothing) 

Now guestimate any adjustments to the ratio itself based on leakage, friction and force. 

secondly, right after im done with this ill make double sure that theres infrastructure for data to exist so there will be no need to guesstimate in the near future. 

Create a prototype SLA and shoot on it, while waiting for the accurate metrics to pile up the coming weeks/months 

[LBJR]

If you don't know conversion rates it would be best to use estimations from whatever important mertrics you already have and its going to suck but volume you need volume to generate enough measurements for your data

[Mahmoodrizvi]

through sales velocity

[ChrGeo_GR]

Well, this is not something totally unknown, especially to those of us who have been dealing with startups that have not enough scalable data concerning conversion rates.

In such a case, what we usually do is to replace the missing data with estimations (others might call them sophisticated guesses). Estimated value(s) should not be considered as substantial parts of the equation, so the SLA is exposed to the minimum possible risk of going to the wrong direction from the very beginning.

[AnandNarasimhan]

How do I create an SLA when I don’t know conversion rates?

Well reviewing the data from Sales and marketing and comparing the data points collected form the date the lead was captured, when the sales connected, reviewing leads properties and content consumption patterns (if any), and then understanding other leads that converted from the content type to define a metric. 

I think analysing conversion sources are also key to understand and define an expected average conversion time and % and set the SLA based on the same. 

[JCampos11]

I'm a start up with 10 months worth of data. I am sales and marketing but I think I can start implementing this and reviewing it the further along I go.

[OEgburonu]

In order to do this as a small company, I will have to make sure that my marketing team and my sales team are not pursuing different goals, as this can be very conflicting for discovering conversion rate.

[LBreytenbach]

I ran a recruitment experiment, while I was looking for a job. Unemployment is quite high in South Africa, and there is a lot of competition for the remaining jobs (especially during the "Great Resignation"). I set up my Hubspot to track all my applications and those I engaged with. I am a senior manager, and to apply for a senior manager position - I knew I had to have 30 active applications, in order to get 1 - 2 interviews. The types of jobs I was applying for were all within my capabilities and previous work experience, so this gave me a good indication of when to fill up the funnel again (if I grew despondent)

[Agentdelaney]

A lot of what this course is offering is fixing exactly what I see gaps in my current company.  We are very broad and less specific and don't have much of a marketing department currently.  Makes it more diffucult to put sales in a position to prospect when we're only throwing out the net to see what we get in return.  Reality is we need an SLA even if it's with the sole person in Marketing to make sure each day our content is review and we are selecting and distributing the right message to clients that visit our site, for starters.  Long way to go but but goals and boundaries need to be in place.

[degreeplus]

We're a small company experimenting with HubSpot, but haven't properly set it up yet. We only collect contacts without moving them through the sales pipeline. Hence, we don't have good enough numbers for conversion rate. That's what I hope to fix after taking this course.

[STripathi4]

.

[DTrujillo]

The broader issue I face in our organization is that there isn't really a marketing team to rely. Marketing as a whole is pushed to the side and not deemed to be valuable or a critical asset. All inbound leads are 100% of each individual sales person, including content creation, messaging, etc. On the rare chance someone does submit an online request, we don't have an efficient system in place to contact them in a timely manner. 

So in this dynamic, how does one even begin to look at developing an SLA? Or getting ownership to understand the importance of a dedicated and experienced marketing team?

[Stefanos_GR]

sounds like you need to define several operational KPIs.

1. leads volume created per day

2.qualified leads (out of total leads both as a number and as a %)

3. contacted (volume & %)

4. converted (volume & %)

you probably need these KPIs with a historical view so to monitor flunctuations and undertands patterns.

Also,regarding conversion rates you need also to ensure team performance by calculating ratios like top2bottom ratio which monitors team performance.

[KClancy9]

In my experience, you have to start researching the data and start to pull reports to help you start to SLA process. This can take some time and needs to reviewed on a monthly basis.

[PFerrero]

In my experience, there's a company that doesn't have a problem setting the SLA, but they have a wide variation in onboarding cycle time that it's challenging to forecast sales.  I also think that defining the portfolio of leads will help level-load onboarding. 

[EmmaPeep]

What do you do when prices and products haven't been consistent? We have approx. 2 years of data but the prices have changed every 3-4 months (this is a problem in and of itself, I know). We now have 4 sales reps and one self-taught marketer, and me (sales rep and now charged with becoming self-taught sales enablement lead!). I still need to set up lead scoring, too. Feeling stuck and overwhelmed. Thanks!

[JonPayne]

Hello @EmmaPeep 🙂  You'll be glad to hear this is a reasonably common problem. You're far from the only one.

I'd suggest moving from a revenue / profit focussed set of goals and targets - you won't take your eye of these completely (that would be dumb) and anyway most companies will measure these anyway in HubSpot Dashboards.

Look to target growth around:

1. Number of new contacts
2. Number of MQLs
3. Number of SQLs
4. Number of Closed Won deals

Producing content and improving processes to remove friction for your buyer and your sales team while focusing on those numbers should do it. 

Lead Scoring is difficult to set up if you can't look back at revenue from particular sectors of your customers. But, using customer profiles means you can score people based on their liklehood to buy https://blog.hubspot.com/service/customer-profiling. Talk with your sales team to create these profiles and ask them which ones should score more highly.

Hope this is useful. 

[joepod700]

Our business is a B2B parts provider that often speaks to the same customers many times per month, even multiple times per day.  The sales cycle is typically one phone call to order needed parts in a very high call center environment, so there's no long cycle of decision-making with buyers.  The challenge I face is knowing how to reset and score the current customer base as a "lead" when launching a new product or promotional campaign and even more so defining what a "lead" is.  This gives me pause in understanding how to first set an SLA and then how to measure the effectiveness of the "lead".