I am hoping for some ideas. My CEO has asked to have a way to show the engagement on an open Deal record (meaning any deal that is not closed). Engagement meaning we have responses (as in a reply email) or connections (such as a completed meeting or successful conversation via call - not a voice mail or hangup) with a contact associated with the deal in question.
The end goal is to ensure that we do not have 'false deals' clogging up our pipeline with no real interest from the client. Our typical deal cycle lasts about 180 days.
Any and all ideas and suggestions welcome, and will provide as much additional context as I can should anyone need it.
Please note: it doesn't have to be a 'score' - it could be something as simple as a report showing deals to be discussed, or any other solution that would show lack of movement/progression on a deal.
A score would be one option, and it could incorporate the following properties:
Positive if high / negative if low:
Number of sales activities: the total number of sales activities (notes, calls, emails, meetings, or tasks) logged for a deal.
Number of times contacted: the total number of calls, emails, and meetings that are logged for associated contact records and are associated with the deal.
Positive if recent / negative if not:
Last activity date: the last time a note, chat conversation, call, email, meeting, or task was logged for a deal.
Last contacted: the last time a chat conversation, call, sales email, or meeting was logged for this deal.
Based on your willingness to think outside the box "Any and all ideas and suggestions welcome, and will provide as much additional context as I can should anyone need it." My answer is going to go in a slightly different direction, but I think it might help you based on what you mentioned in regards to your sales cycle and focus on deals.
If you have a sales cycle of 180 days, my guess is you also have a large buying group (At least 6+ people need to make a decision on the purchase of your product). If I'm wrong then please ignore this 🙂
If I'm right then its worth thinking about engagement across all the key decision makers who make up your deal.
In OrgChartHub we have something called heat maps, this will show you sales enagagment and marketing engagement across your key decision makers on an account. The video below, is a demo video and I have set it up so it jumps straight to the heat map section. This functionality is all included in our free plan, so you can try it out.
You are correct in your assumption 😊 Most of our deals have at least 3 deciding contacts (has been as many as 12 on one of our larger corporate deals) from various spots within the clients' organization, and typically our entry point is a spot below those that have the final say.
I'm going to check out your heat maps suggestion, perhaps it will give us what we are looking for!
A score would be one option, and it could incorporate the following properties:
Positive if high / negative if low:
Number of sales activities: the total number of sales activities (notes, calls, emails, meetings, or tasks) logged for a deal.
Number of times contacted: the total number of calls, emails, and meetings that are logged for associated contact records and are associated with the deal.
Positive if recent / negative if not:
Last activity date: the last time a note, chat conversation, call, email, meeting, or task was logged for a deal.
Last contacted: the last time a chat conversation, call, sales email, or meeting was logged for this deal.