By: Kevin Micalizzi (@kevinmic), Data.com Social Media Marketing Manager

I’ve heard that sales reps should be cold calling if they want to be successful.  While I agree every rep needs a steady flow of leads, I can’t help but think it’s such a waste to have the best closers spend their time cold calling.  Luckily, there are teams following the Predictable Revenue approach who are killing it. 

Predictable Revenue evolved from a model originally developed at salesforce.com that helps get the right team members focused on the right things.  LiveOps is a great example of putting this model into practice.  (You can learn more about how LiveOps increased their pipeline by 600% Jan 17th.)

LiveOps, like others, has invested in both inbound marketing and outbound prospecting.  But by specializing their customer facing teams, they’ve been able to fill their funnel with 6 times more leads without having every sales rep make prospecting calls. 

Predictable Revenue shares a better way to structure your customer facing sales teams, having your qualifiers (sales development team) both inbound and outbound reps, separate from your closers.  This sales development team is responsible for qualifying the leads that come in (inbound reps) and for generating new leads (outbound reps.)  Once an opportunity has been qualified, the closers takeover.  This let’s your closers work on what they do best, generating more sales.  Giving you more of the right opportunities.

Once the deal has been closed, you still need someone to be responsible for ensuring the customer is successful.  That’s where the farmers (Customer Success/Account Management) come in.  They oversee the client deployment and success, ongoing client management, and renewals. 

Taking advantage of this sales model, along with the work your marketing team is already doing to generate demand, can set your up for amazing sales growth.  For more ideas, listen to this webinar recording and learn more about how LiveOps has leveraged Predictable Revenue, some key technologies, and a bit of their own secret sauce to deliver some incredible sales results.