Rules of Engagement example
Here is an example of a document I used while working closely with my Enterprise Sales Team. While this worked for us, you may find a different approach works for you.
Marketing Rules of Engagement
Please take the time to read this policy document. This document is our governing rulebook for processing leads in the Enterprise sales team. It is vital that all employees understand how to comply and work within the guidelines outlined. The ability to manage and work with others is critical to the success and the harmony of the ABC COMPANY sales and marketing teams.
The goal of this document is to identify and address potential areas of conflict, overlap, and misalignment of incentives within the multiple sales channels employed by ABC COMPANY. It is also designed to encourage and motivate desired sales behaviors including collaboration across all ABC COMPANY sales and support teams.
‐ Objectives of the Rules of Engagement
‐ Lead Process Overview
‐ Expectations for Lead Qualification
‐ Expectations for Lead Follow‐Up
Since it is impossible to anticipate and contemplate every possible situation within the ABC COMPANY sales environment, the management team encourages your feedback and input into these policies. If areas are identified that require change, the management will amend them accordingly. The sales and marketing management team is committed to ensuring that the broad principles contained herein are applied fairly and consistently.
Objectives for Rules of Engagement
Avoid internal sales force conflict and sales overlap.
Minimize internal conflict among SMB and Enterprise sales teams.
Maximize support of sales and marketing teams.
Encourage focus and specialization within the direct sales force.
Properly support the sharing of leads outside of a salesperson’s territory
Fairly reward sales efforts.
Increase overall ABC COMPANY sales performance.
There is only one classification of leads that sales will receive. This classification is a Qualified Lead. These leads may have several campaigns and programs as their source. The campaign source assists sales and marketing at determining which program the primary response came from.
Hot-line leads are prospects that call in directly to our sales line, 555-555-5555
Live Talk / Live IM leads are prospects that are browsing the website and click on the “call me” link or “live chat”. These go directly to the telemarketers that are assigned to Live Chat and are warmed up before they go to sales.
Web Leads are prospects that click on “contact sales” from the website. Prospects fill out a form with all of their contact information and can also add comments to be submitted to ABC COMPANY. These leads are filtered through Marketing Opps before passing them to sales.
Free Trials are prospects that click on “Free Trial” from the website. They fill out a form with all of their contact information which is sent to Marketing Opps. These leads are filtered through Marketing Opps before passing them to sales.
Telemarketing leads come from our in‐house telemarketing team. They call into the marketing lists and send through leads.
Demos which come from clients and prospects requests. They will fill out a form or check a box requesting a demo.
Campaign names vary based on the response that came in to the company. There is a list at the end of the document for reference.
Lead Qualification (BANT)
Budget: We qualify the prospect in the lead to be certain they play a role in the budgetary process. They have budget, but we do not dive into the amounts as this is really for sales to determine.
Authority: Contact on the lead must have access to power or are the decision maker with budget authority.
Need: Prospect and clients must have an interest in our product or a pain point they are looking to solve.
Time Frame: Contact must be looking to buy within the next 6 months.
All leads go through Marketing in a screening process designed to determine lead ownership, partner/associate ownership, and lead quality. Before a lead is passed to sales, it is entered as a “2‐ Lead” new opportunity in the CRM and is telemarketing qualified based on the above criteria. Hot line and Live Talk are entered into CRM directly after being transferred. All leads are entered the same day they are qualified.
The geography of the lead determines how we distribute the lead. Then we distinguish between SMB and Enterprise where 1000 users are the break for each respective group. Channel leads (Partner referrals, Potential Associates and Associate referrals) are partner based and assigned to the appropriate PAD. All leads for Enterprise (1001+) are territory based as well and are sent to the enterprise sales teams via CRM.
The leads are usually entered into CRM first unless they need to speak to someone right away in the case of Live-Talk and Hot-line leads. Marketing always looks into CRM to see if someone is working on the account before it is sent out. If there is an open opportunity in the account , it stays with that person (unless there are special circumstances) and the lead information is shared without opening a duplicate opportunity. If Marketing sees active notes and opportunities in an account, it does not count as a lead for you, but merely passed on to assist you. The only exception to this rule is if the lead is for a different product than what is listed in your opportunity.
Sometimes the same lead will come in a few times, which we classify as duplicates. (i.e. talks with a telemarketer, submits an inquiry, and then calls into the hot-line.) Duplicate leads are sent to the person who got the original lead. These also do not count as a lead in the lead process as they often are listed as an open opp or as a “2‐Lead”
All leads will have a note associated with the fully qualified BANT criteria based on the above criteria.
If a direct prospect calls in and is inquiring about not getting a follow‐up call, Marketing will try and locate the original sales person that the lead went to in distribution. If this sales person is not around it goes to Sales Management to for follow‐up.
Lead Service Level Agreement
Leads must have three touch points and be completely followed‐up within 14 days. This follow‐up cycle should be the following;
1. All sales reps have 48 hours to respond to the prospect leads sent to them from marketing. An activity should be added to the opportunity based on the conversation. Notes and activities must be entered into CRM immediately.
2. All sales reps must follow‐up on a lead for the second time within 2‐3 days of the first follow‐up or 5 business days since the leads was originally sent over. Notes and activities must be entered into CRM immediately.
3. The final touch point must be within 14 days of the original open date of the lead. At the third follow‐up, you should accept or reject the lead. Notes and activities must be entered into CRM immediately.
All leads should be touched 3 times within 14 days. At the end of 14 days, the leads should be accepted and rejected. Adding activities and notes are mandatory to ensure proper follow‐up with prospects and with internal teams to improve quality and support of the sales and marketing teams.
Any lead changes made will be communicated to the original lead owner and new lead owner within 24 hours. Notes will also be updated in CRM to reflect the change and reasons why the change was made.
Leads in the queue from a former employee will be passed back to marketing for further qualification.
It is vital that all telemarketing and sales staff perform the following information checks prior to cold calling, referral follow‐up, partner sales opportunity work or web lead calling:
1) Verification of HQ location, number of employees, and ultimate parent of the opportunity; 2) CRM must be checked to determine if the opportunity is currently assigned to another ABC COMPANY salesperson or partner; and, 3) the rules of engagement as outlined below must be applied and followed.
Rejecting/Re-marketing Leads
All leads being rejected or re-marketed must contain in the CRM activities and notes;
CRM Field: Lead rejection should be classified as the following;
Company merger or acquisition: The telemarketing team should have identified this in their cold calling. If a company is going out of business or has been acquired requiring the purchasing to change, this should be rejected.
Contact Unreachable: If you cannot reach the contact after 5 touches, this should be rejected as unreachable.
Data protection concerns: This is really an option that is used for lost deals rather than lead rejection. If you are having this conversation, we must likely covered BANT criteria.
Doesn't like ABC COMPANY: This is a valid reason for rejection as the telemarketer should have fully qualified this lead.
No outsourcing: The telemarketer should have uncovered if the contact was open to outsourcing their security. If they did not and the prospect was unaware of our services, this should be rejected.
No solution implemented: This is really a close/lost option for opportunities‐ not leads.
Qualified Out: If a contact is qualified out as not having pain or interest in our products, this should be utilized for rejection.
Company acquired: This is very similar to the above company merger or acquisition.
The telemarketing team should have identified this in their cold calling. If a company is going out of business or has been acquired requiring the purchasing to change, this should be rejected.
Legal Contract: This is really a field used for opportunities and a reason sales lost an opportunity. This should not pertain to marketing leads. We think if they got a contract, it was a good lead.
Lost to product functionality: This is really a reason to lose an opportunity not to reject a lead. Marketing assumes if you have taken a deep dive on the product functionality that we have passed a good lead. This option is really for sales lost opportunities.
No budget: Marketing will ask the basics on budget, but won’t deep dive too much to avoid a pricing conversation. However, the basic
CRM Notes: Lead rejection should be classified with the above CRM field and is required to have a note;
NO RESPONSE: This note means you tried to touch base 5 times in 14 days and did not reach anyone.
NO INTEREST: This note means there was no interest in our service/product.
NO BUDGET: This means they did not have funding for the project within 6 months.
NO TIMEFRAME: This means the prospect is looking to purchase within 6 months – longer should be rejected.
NO DECISION MAKER: This note means there is any decision maker or access to the decision maker.
PARTNER – This note means they were not qualified and are a partner not a prospect.
All leads being accepted into the pipeline need to be in Stage A or greater in the CRM with activities and notes. It is up to individual sales reps and sales management’s discretion for accepting leads in to the pipeline.
Each lead will have a campaign associated with it. Marketing will conduct a monthly meeting and send out a monthly report of all open campaigns to assist with sales follow‐up. Failure to follow the Rules of Engagement Leads will be tracked and reported on a weekly basis. Failure to adhere to the above guidelines for lead follow‐up will result in the discontinuing of all leads. Leads will then be passed on to another sales team member or sales teams.
Guidelines for discontinuing leads are as follows; - Failure to add three activities and notes to a “2‐Lead” opportunity - Failure to accept or reject a lead within 14 days
Sales reps will have three chances to adhere to the above rules per quarter. After three warnings, the sales rep will be removed from accepting leads. Leads will then be distributed to another team or team member regardless of account geography and account size.
Marketing will pass over any RFI and RFP leads via email should the request be within 6 months. If the request is less than 6 months, please notify marketing via the [email protected] and Kelly Speiser. We will do out best to complete all RFP/RFI opportunities on your behalf.
