Ever encountered the frustrating challenge of prospect procrastination?
You’re not alone.
It’s a common dilemma for companies offering central products or entering new markets; the biggest deal-breakers aren’t price or competition; often, it’s the inaction—the decision to do nothing—that kills deals.
As frustrating as it is for sales or marketing leaders, it got me thinking: how can we tackle this challenge effectively?
While you might be familiar with marketing nurturing workflows and sales sequences, let me introduce you to a game-changer: the post-opportunity nurturing workflow.
This hybrid approach is your key to boosting conversion rates. Let’s dive in.
Bridging the Gap Between Nurturing Workflows and Sales Sequences
As a marketing leader, you’re well-versed in lead nurturing workflows. These are efficient ways to progress leads toward the opportunity stage with tailored content supporting their journey through awareness, consideration, and decision stages.
These workflows are proven to convert leads into MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads), SQLs (Sales Qualified Leads), SALs (Sales Accepted Leads), and qualified opportunities efficiently.
As a sales leader, you’re an expert in sales sequences, strategizing over managing opportunities to secure meetings and follow-up discussions.
While both approaches utilize channels like email or multi-channel outreach (including LinkedIn and other impactful ICP social channels), they differ significantly. Marketing nurturing workflows focus on content to mature the buyer’s journey, whereas sales sequences are direct conversations aiming to engage prospects.
Procrastination: the more frustrating reason for losing a deal
As a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), I’m very interested in the reasons for closing and losing deals. I usually categorize them as pricing, losing over a competitor, lack of product fit, and more. However, one of the main reasons for losing deals is procrastination: The prospect does nothing.
Procrastination is a significant hurdle. It’s disheartening when a prospect recognizes the need for a solution but stalls at taking the leap, despite understanding the benefits.
It is a very frustrating situation.
How can we bridge this gap?
Typically, marketing efforts cease once an opportunity arises, leaving sales to take over. It is generally a distinct responsibility even if they’re aligned and work together.
However, what if we could synergize marketing and sales efforts to combat procrastination and drive more conversions?
What if a marketing strategic approach could help sales representatives reduce their procrastination quotas? What if we combine lead nurturing workflows and sales sequences to fill the gap and increase deal conversions?
Introducing Post-Opportunity Nurturing Workflows: the key to reduce procrastination
Welcome to the world of post-opportunity nurturing workflows. These workflows use the same principle as lead nurturing workflows but apply it to qualified opportunities.
The objective is clear: This is a way to train your prospects to understand why they must go now and how the project will happen smoothly.
Understanding Psychological Hurdles
First, you must detect the obstacles and why your leads are not taking action. Collaborate with sales to identify the reasons behind the hesitation. Is it timing, urgency, or hidden factors like demotivation or fear of change?
You must work closely with the sales team to identify and categorize these reasons.
You can also categorize them per verticals. To avoid work overload, start with one vertical (usually the one more impacted by procrastination) and test the approach with it.
Prepare to Address Concerns.
For these reasons, create content that directly counters these obstacles.
If time is the issue, offer them new ways to start, deploy small in a specific department, for example, or with a functionality that will give them quick benefits or ROI. Show them a fast track. You can, for instance, build a project timeline to provide them with an overview of the projected deployment, including retro planning and timeline, the internal resources they will need, and the overall time investment.
Show them how your solution will give them time immediately, giving them a quick solution to their main problem. Offer them internal support to decrease their internal loads. You need to understand your prospect’s specific problems and fight them.
You need to be creative, as they will be different each time, depending on your ICPs, industry, specificity of your product, etc.
Launch a Targeted Campaign
When you’ve identified the reasons and arguments to fight, create your content.
As a usual nurturing workflow, you can vary angles, formats, and media. Build a specific content calendar for it and align well with your sales team to adopt a more agile approach here.
Then, build your workflows. They can be based on industry-specific verticals or problems detected.
For example, you can have a “overcoming time constraints” workflow and a “embracing change” workflow tailored to combat identified challenges. You can also combine problems and industry to personalize the approach even more.
Discuss the temporality with your sales team here. It needs to be customized to avoid overreaching and sales disruption.
Iterate and optimize
Test and learn. No single approach fits all; adapt based on feedback and results to fine-tune your strategy for maximum impact.
Why Embrace Post-Opportunity Nurturing?
This innovative strategy not only reduces procrastination but also strengthens your relationship with prospects by demonstrating understanding and offering solutions tailored to their specific challenges.
For startup CEOs and sales and marketing leaders, post-opportunity nurturing workflows aren’t just a good idea—they’re essential for accelerating deal conversion in a landscape where every moment counts.
Good luck, and if you need guidance to craft the perfect post-opportunity workflow, reach out to Upki. Our blend of marketing and sales expertise can elevate your strategy, offering a fresh perspective and tangible results.
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