Setting companies up to grow by getting more people to buy their products and services is one of the most rewarding aspects of our work at Pipeline Ops. However, when that product or service provides life-changing benefits to people across the world, it takes job satisfaction to an entirely different level.
Our client, BioXcellerator, is the leader in stem cell therapy and innovation. They have a profound effect on the lives of their patients through the world’s most advanced stem cell treatments for cosmetic, anti-aging, sports and orthopedic injuries, and autoimmune diseases.
Their scientific partners and medical doctors have successfully treated patients, for everything ranging from sports & orthopedic injuries, anti-aging & rejuvenation treatments, to life-threatening and debilitating diseases, such as autoimmune and degenerative conditions.
The opportunity to impact the lives of tens of thousands more people with BioXcellerator’s innovative treatment was important for both the BioXcellerator and Pipeline Ops teams.
Challenge
When BioXcellerator first came to us, they described a need for “deal automation.” As is often the case, the BioXcellerator executive team knew that HubSpot should be doing more for them to turn leads into revenue and their sales process should not be as chaotic as it was. While they couldn’t put their finger on the solution, for the BioXcellerator team, the problem was clear and the pain was acute.
They knew they had a big opportunity to increase revenue if they optimized their sales process in HubSpot. However, the BioXcellerator team was unsure of the extent of what needed to be done to create a sales system that their sales people used consistently and gave them confidence in their sales data.
The company was generating 300-400 leads per month at the time. However, once the lead was generated, the sales process was the Wild West. The sales team in South America, who had originally implemented HubSpot, was using it one way, while the US-based sales team was using a completely different process inside HubSpot for tracking leads.
BioXcellerator’s executive team didn’t have any visibility into their pipeline, sales process, and rep activity. Each sales rep used different properties, tracking features, and lead management definitions. They also had over 1,000 overdue tasks cluttering up their daily sales plans and email inboxes.
The way leads were reached out to, tracked, and moved through the sales process differed from sales rep to sales rep. This meant good opportunities were slipping through the cracks and the sales management team didn’t have the metrics to know that it was happening or its root cause.
BioXcellerator had eager sales reps sitting on the sidelines ready to start working leads, but they did not have a clear lead management process to get up and running. The newer reps were making slow progress meeting their goals and getting up to speed with the HubSpot toolset.
BioXcellerator has an innovative service that millions of people need across the world. Awareness of the company’s brand and offerings were growing among their target audiences. They were ready to scale lead generation. However, the executive team didn’t have confidence that the leads brought in from those investments would not die on the vine by going unnoticed in their CRM.
BioXcellerator also wanted to add sales reps (also called patient advocates). However, they wanted to be sure that they had a solid sales system built into their CRM to make it easy for new sales talent to perform to the best of their abilities, without getting frustrated or enduring a long ramp-up process.
Solution
Our mission was clear. BioXcellerator had a service that was poised to impact the lives of thousands of people each year, but a clunky sales process in their CRM was preventing that from becoming a reality.
Ultimately, BioXcellerator envisioned a sales team that had an efficient process for working and closing deals that also kept their data clean and gave marketers and management a clear view of the data they needed to make decisions.
Having implemented our HubSpot sales system with dozens of companies in the past couple of years, we knew that you can’t build a state of the art revenue factory without first mapping the floor plan, planning the electrical, and laying the plumbing.
Creating A Business-Specific Lead Management Framework
In our initial lead management workshop, we examined their current data structure and sales process. This gave us an opportunity to identify pain points, as well as parts of the existing sales process that were working.
It was important that BioXcellerator’s lead management process give sales a simple action plan for tracking over 98% of the leads that came in. There will always be outlier situations that need to be addressed. However, leaving sales reps to develop their own system for tracking and following up with leads is a recipe for decreased productivity and missed revenue opportunities.
Our Approach
In the next workshop, we mapped out BioXcellerator’s new lead management framework. This included developing clear definitions for lead statuses, lifecycle stages, and deal stage criteria. With this approach, we were able to get company-wide agreement on the definitions for these critical values that we set up in the HubSpot CRM.
By building their sales process around business-specific scenarios and lead management definitions, we ensured that the sales team has a comprehensive process they could understand and stick to. This also made it easier to layer in automation and adjust the process as the business evolved.
Along with the BioXcellerator executive, marketing, and sales teams, we first tested the lead management process on paper. As holes were found and outlier situations were brought up, we adjusted the lead management blueprint before the process was overlaid onto their HubSpot sales platform.
The psychology behind CRM adoption is rooted in simplicity. While our HubSpot sales system is complex on the backend, every setting is run through a filter to ensure simplicity for the sales reps.
Saving Time and Brainpower By Automating Sales Steps
Every step or CRM property that enters a sales rep’s consciousness during the sales process slows your sales velocity and is a potential cause of missing or incorrect data.
BioXcellerator’s sales reps only need to manage three fields in the CRM. All of the other data related to lead tracking, segmentation, data hygiene, and reporting is handled through automation behind the scenes.
Each sales rep was set up with a personalized daily and weekly call view in the HubSpot CRM. Those default contact views are how each sales rep manages their day to be more productive, batch daily tasks for efficiency, and ensure that nothing falls off their radar.
Both the sales team and the BioXcellerator management team really bought into the “3-second rule.” This is the pillar of our of HubSpot selling system that says, “Within 3 seconds, you should be able to determine three key facts about where each lead is in the sales process.” This information is:
- Where the lead is in the buying process.
- What the sales rep needs to do next with the lead.
- When the action needs to occur.
Used in an out-of-the-box way, HubSpot’s workflows, list, and properties provide a basic level of sales automation. However, BioXcellerators growth goals demanded that we build out advanced sales automation to help the sales team work more leads without adding work to their plates.
We automated steps in the process, such as automatically setting the lead management values and next actions when the lead takes specific actions, like converting on a ToFu offer, booking a meeting, or going down a specific chat bot path.
While the initial lead management framework allowed us to build out important sales automation that saved hours of work and headaches each week, going forward, this foundation made it simple to layer in additional advanced sales and marketing automation to the BioXcellerator system.
Creating a Custom Lead Routing Engine
BioXcellerator serves patients from around the world. In addition, sales reps have specialties that make them the best person or team to work with specific patients. In addition to fluency in different languages, some sales reps have an expertise in specific treatments, while other sales reps have close ties with specific partners.
The BioXcellerator lead routing system needed to account for all of these rules, as well as make it easy to modify the lead routing automation as the salesforce grows or routing requirements change. In addition to making sure leads were initially assigned to the right patient advocate or team, the lead routing automation needed to give the sales team confidence that the leads they are working wouldn’t be reassigned in the middle of the sales process if a lead re-converted on a new offer.
We created a lead routing engine built around their specific current and future business needs.It began with ensuring that the lead management framework was in place. Then, we updated the lead generation channels inside HubSpot’s Marketing Hub (such as funnels and landing pages) to ensure the HubSpot system has the information necessary to automatically route all of the leads.
Finally, we created a series of interconnected workflows to ensure BioXcellerator’s high volume of leads were being routed immediately to the correct sales rep based on patient-specific criteria.
Setting BioXcellerator’s Sales Team Up For Success With Custom HubSpot Sales Training
When the new lead management sales system was in place in the HubSpot CRM, we turned the keys over to the sales reps. Many of the sales reps had set up and were already using pieces of HubSpot’s sales tools. To get everyone on the same page and configuration going forward, we had each sales rep go through our online “HubSpot Sales Setup Secrets” course.
Then, we held three in-person sales training sessions - each 2 weeks apart. It was important that these sessions highlighted the clear benefits of this new CRM set-up to sales reps from the start. The system’s simplicity prevented sales reps from becoming overwhelmed with a new work process. Our first sales training sessions focused on:
- Process - How to manage leads in the CRM using the new framework.
- Sales Tools - How to get the most from HubSpot’s sales tools.
- Accountability - What sales management is going to be watching in the CRM and what they are going to get dinged for.
- Outlier Situation - How to handle one-off situations and get their questions answered quickly so it does not derail their day.
We also set their expectations for how to get their specific sales process questions answered and what to do if something doesn’t look or act right in the system. In a system as complex as the one we built for BioXcellerator, it is natural to find holes in the lead management process that nobody thought of until the system was in full use. Our lead management framework allows us to research, troubleshoot, and fix issues quickly.
We structured the remaining two sessions to be refresher training for sales reps. While we reinforce the core lead management process and sales tools, the specifics of the agenda are driven by the sales reps through a feedback survey sent out ahead of the training. These training sessions allow the sales team to bring up specific questions or examples based on leads and opportunities they’ve been working in the system for several weeks.
The sales rep-centric nature of the system we created and the structured training enabled the sales reps who were stuck on the bench to quickly become top performers.
The business-specific lead management documentation we provide and maintain allows patient advocates and sales managers to refer back to resources and training to verify their next move or refresh themselves on the lead management definitions.
Frictionless: Sales Meetings Just Appear On Reps Calendars
BioXcellerator has very talented sales reps. While the team is very capable of following up with leads to set up a time for a “qualification call,” their time is best spent building relationships, educating families, and onboarding new patients.
We implemented our two-step booking system using HubSpot’s landing pages, smart content, meetings tools, and custom code across their website and ad campaigns. This system makes it easy for leads to book a “personalized consultation” with the correct sales rep immediately after converting the corresponding landing page.
Turning New Website Visitors Into Qualified Sales Meetings Without Lifting A Finger
BioXcellerator was beginning to see big increases in traffic to their website and landing pages. While they had a live chat option handled by sales reps, many messages were going unanswered and it was distracting the sales team from working the leads being assigned to them.
We developed a custom chat bot in HubSpot that engaged new website visitors with relevant information, qualified them, and allowed them to get their questions answered by booking a convenient time with one of BioXcellerator’s patient advocates. The natural language and flow of the chat bot adds qualified sales meetings to reps’ calendars 24 hours a day, without lifting a finger.
The patients that are not ready to talk to a sales rep receive a series of automated nurturing emails from their assigned rep. If they don’t book a consultation after receiving those emails, BioXcellerator’s HubSpot system automatically configures the lead management values to add the leads to the sales reps’ daily call list (for the reps to reach out to).
As you will see in the results section below, the BioXcellerator team went from an average of 25 sales meetings booked per month through June 2019, to over 125 sales meetings booked in August 2019 after these tactics were launched.
Automated Accountability
Just like most of our clients, the BioXcellerator executives, marketers, and sales managers don’t enjoy micromanaging their sales reps. Likewise, their sales reps are not as productive when sales managers hover over them or hound them for updates.
This is why we implemented our automated accountability system for BioXcellerator. Now, the HubSpot system nudges sales reps when a next action is past due or stuck in a phase of the customer journey for too long. The system even notifies sales managers when a sales rep fails to take action on an initial notification and eventually re-assigns the lead to a new rep.
During our initial and ongoing sales training sessions, both the sales and management teams bought into the understanding that these alerts are not intended to get anyone in trouble, but rather point people towards a lead that needs attention. They are put in place to reinforce the sales rep side of the sales/marketing SLA (service level agreement) and help everyone work toward making sure good revenue opportunities don’t slip through the cracks.
Before we turned on our Automated Accountability Framework, the BioXcellerator sales reps were carrying an average of 90 leads in the “assigned” lead status at any one time. With the implementation of automated accountability built on HubSpot’s lead management and sales automation tools, BioXcellerator sales reps now only have 10 new leads in the “assigned” lead status at any given time.
What happened to those 80 leads that were previously stuck in the “assigned” lead status? Those leads that BioXcellerator paid to generate were previously dying on the vine. Now, they have moved down the sales funnel. Sales reps are connecting with these leads, qualifying them, and converting them into patients.
Increasing Invoicing and Accounting Speed And Accuracy
HubSpot’s automation doesn’t just benefits sales and marketing. We used the automation engine inside HubSpot to help BioXcellerator’s operations team save time and reduce mistakes.
When a deal lands on a “closed won” deal stage, sales reps are required to enter additional deal information that will be used by their accounting system. Through Zapier, the customer and invoice are automatically created in their accounting software so that the information is accurately pulled from HubSpot without any manual steps.
Total Business Automation Within HubSpot
One of the big benefits of HubSpot is that the entire business can work from the same system and data. After the sale is closed, onboarding and customer service teams can do their jobs better because of their access to sales and marketing data. The reverse is true for a sales rep’s ability to farm upsell and cross-sell opportunities.
The team at BioXcellerator responsible for guiding patients through the preparation and arrangements prior to their treatment is able to follow a consistent process built upon a custom treatment pipeline. Automated tasks are assigned to the right BioXcellerator team members based on specific deal information and where the patient is in the treatment process.
For BioXcellerator, the sales team is still involved in the patient relationship up to and after the treatment date. Keeping this in mind, it was important that both the sales (pre-sale) and patient concierge (post-sale) teams work from the same system and data. Through their custom Treatment Analytics Dashboard, the BioXcellerator executive team has visibility into the post-sales process.
Reporting and Dashboards: Performance and Process Visibility
Once you have your lead management structure set up correctly for your business in HubSpot, you can report on virtually anything that is important to your business. From the start, BioXcellerator recognized that they needed real-time visibility into their business from a variety of angles, including:
- What is our sales pipeline forecast for the week, month, quarter, or year?
- Where are patients getting stuck in the sales or treatment processes?
- Which marketing channels are resulting in qualified leads and sales?
- Which sales reps need additional coaching on our messaging, process, or sales tools?
- Which paid traffic campaigns lead to the most opportunities?
BioXcellerator executives, as well as the marketing and sales teams, have access to a dozen custom dashboards that highlight everything, from lead generation performance and tracking toward revenue targets to the effectiveness of the sales process.
These business-specific reports allow the BioXcellerator team to know the health of their pipeline and sales process at a moment’s notice. For the first time, the executive team can pinpoint the people and processes that are working and those that need special attention (before they begin to negatively impact patient satisfaction or revenue!).
Our Ongoing Revenue Ops Partnership Leads To Endless Opportunities For BioXcellerator
Once the sales system we rolled out to the BioXcellerator team to turn more leads into revenue was full operational, our work was not done. Recognizing the impact that their selling system was having on their current revenue and future growth, the BioXcellerator team wanted to accomplish two things:
1) Protect Their Investment
They had invested in creating this sales system for their business and they didn’t want to it to collapse as the business evolved and their sales staff grew. They also wanted to avoid distracting marketers, executives, and the operations team with questions from sales reps about the process and tools.
2) Expand Their Use Of Sales & Marketing Automation
BioXcellerator saw the power of HubSpot’s toolset and efficiency of our system. They wanted to build on that foundation to expand the company. However, they didn’t want their internal team to have to figure out the best way to support new initiatives, make changes to sales roles, or onboard new sales reps.
We collaborated with BioXcellerator to set up an ongoing revenue operations engagement to ensure that marketers can be marketers, sales reps can be sales reps, and executives can be executives, without needing to become full time HubSpot sales enablement experts.
CRM Adoption Program
Our CRM Adoption Program provides a layer of advanced business-specific support and ongoing training to their salesforce to make sure they have what they need to be successful. This also includes troubleshooting oddities and providing proactive guidance to sales reps for whom the data tells us they need help.
Adjustments and Optimization
BioXcellerator is a fast-moving company. The high demand for their services is fueling a tremendous amount of opportunity for their team. However, to capitalize on that opportunity, the company must evolve quickly and often.
The Pipeline Ops team strategizes with our BioXcellerator counterparts to plan adjustments to their sales system, so that changes fit within the various components of their automation set-up - from lead routing and lead management changes to notifications and reporting.
Expanding Their Use Of Sales And Marketing Automation
When does setting up a simple automated drip campaign take 5 times as much time as a complex multi-channel automation system? The answer is when you don’t have your underlying lead management framework in place.
That is not the case at BioXcellerator. With their sales system, they are able to plan advanced multi-touch interactions to improve the patient experience from beginning to end. Mapping out those initiatives and building them into the system in a clean way takes exponentially less time because they invested in setting up and maintaining their lead management process in HubSpot.
We are truly a part of their team and working toward the same goals supported by the metrics available in BioXcellerator’s HubSpot system.
Results
The sales system we implemented inside the HubSpot CRM has impacted every part of their pipeline and set them up for future growth.
Here are some of the shareable highlights:
Sales Performance
Leads are no longer getting buried where the sales reps never get to them. When a lead comes in, it is assigned to the right sales rep who then tries to schedule a qualification call with the leads. The number of leads that sales reps have connected with and were able to qualify increased over 270% in three months (Sept. data from mid-point in the month).
Sales Process
The implementation of our two-step system and a custom chat bot resulted in a 400% increase in sales calls booked per month.
Furthermore, this part of the BioXcellerator sales system saved sales reps several hours each day, which they redirected toward qualifying and closing more leads.
Impact
The Fog Around Their Pipeline and Process Has Lifted
Every business has aspects that they are doing well and opportunities to improve. Smart business owners recognize the importance of identifying the good, the bad, and the ugly so they can reset priorities and direct resources accordingly.
The leadership at BioXcellerator now has visibility into the strong and weak points in their process.
- They know exactly where leads are getting stuck and how to fix it.
- They know which sales reps need additional coaching.
- They know the marketing campaigns that are resulting in the highest quality leads.
They have more productive sales meetings and everyone is playing from the same process playbook, so adjustments and coaching takes hold faster because it is built on an existing agreed-upon foundation.
The executive team has confidence in their sales process and their ability to know what is going on in their pipeline. The importance of this peace of mind that comes with knowing that as many leads as possible are being turned into patients cannot be understated. BioXcellerator was able to double down on lead generation because they knew no lead was going to fall through the cracks or rot on the vine.
Happier, More Productive Sales Reps
Sales reps like to sell, not update their CRM or do sales admin work. The BioXcellerator sales reps are no different. Baked into their HubSpot CRM usage is a model for making more money without adding hours to their workday.
With their new lead management process, they can handle more leads. They know that being able to work more qualified leads means more sales conversations. And more sales conversations means more closed deals and more commission in their pocket.
This buy-in drives adoption and that adoption drives revenue for the company (and job satisfaction for the sales reps). It’s a win-win.
Faster New Sales Rep Onboarding
As BioXcellerator adds sales reps, the Pipeline Ops team trains them on the lead management process and HubSpot sales tools. When new sales reps previously joined the company, they struggled to learn the sales process and messaging at the same time. It took them over 10 weeks to be ready to handle fresh leads.
The simplicity and excitement around the sales system we built for BioXcellerator means that new sales reps can begin working leads within 2 weeks.
There is no more frustration among new sales staff. They are more successful in a shorter time period since they can focus on learning the industry and messaging, without needing to develop their own sales process.
Takeaway From the BioXcellerator, HubSpot, and Pipeline Ops Journey
In the end, the BioXcellerator story is not about HubSpot. It is not about the Pipeline Ops team or rev ops systems. BioXcellerator is in the business of helping people. The more people that their team can engage with, the more lives their treatments can improve in a meaningful and tangible way. We are honored to be part of this mission.
About Pipeline Ops
Pipeline Ops (formerly known as Small Marketing Teams) is one of HubSpot's premier revenue ops and sales enablement partners. We serve people who are generating leads today or have target accounts, but too few of those leads are converting into revenue.
