Organizing the commercial department of IT companies is something that is often only done professionally after the company reaches a certain size or revenue. Anyone who believes that it is not possible to organize the commercial department from the beginning of a startup is mistaken. In fact, having an organized commercial department will add value to potential investors. I will divide the article into two parts. Part 1 deals with how to organize the commercial department and part 2, with actions to nurture this structure. PART 1 – ORGANIZE THE COMMERCIAL DEPARTMENT. First of all, I start by quoting one of the most important books for anyone who has an IT company. It’s called “Predictable Recipe”, by Aaron Ross and Marylou Tyler. Basically, the book presents in a simple way how to implement the outbound sales methodology or prospecting.
If you are the director of an IT company, the phone database book is mandatory reading. See a price comparison here. The structure presented in the book is initially made up of just two people: An SDR (Sales Development Representative), responsible for qualifying potential customers (leads); And an Account Executive, responsible for closing deals. The book's methodology has some differences between other methodologies found out there, including by Resultados Digitais itself. Like almost everything in today's world, I don't believe there is a 100% correct or 100% wrong methodology. You must adapt each one to your reality and what you believe. Therefore, I will organize here what I recommend that works very well for IT companies. In the book, the authors defend the idea that the SDR cannot, under any circumstances, close sales and that the Commercial Executive cannot, under any circumstances, spend time prospecting and qualifying. This makes a lot of sense, the variable remuneration of these professionals must also follow these parameters.
For example, the person who earns commission for closing is the Executive. The SDR must earn commission on the number of opportunities accepted by the executive, never on sales made. Because that's not his responsibility. Have you ever thought about receiving variable remuneration through a variable that does not depend on you? COLD CALLING 2.0 This is the basic structure presented by the authors of the book, two people. But they also defend the separation of professionals who qualify leads coming from active prospecting – the so-called Cold Calling 2.0 – and leads coming from inbound marketing. I believe that, for a company just starting out, having just one person to qualify both leads coming from inbound marketing and leads coming from active prospecting is enough. As the company grows and, especially, the volume of leads generated, you can start to think about separating the two functions.