A healthy quote-to-cash (Q2C) process has long been considered the gold standard when it comes to managing your revenue operations\u2014but that doesn\u2019t make it perfect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It fails to account for what happens before a customer or prospect receives a quote. And it doesn\u2019t consider what transpires after they pay your business, meaning, it doesn\u2019t consider their experience as a paying customer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To help your organization excel at each stage of the customer lifecycle, from lead generation to customer retention, you can turn to lead to revenue <\/strong>(LTR)\u2014otherwise known as lead to revenue management (L2RM). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Michelle Wickman, the Head of Customer Success and Systems COE at TCV<\/a>, a private equity firm focused on growth-stage technology companies, helps explain what distinguishes lead to revenue from quote to cash<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLead to revenue comes in 2 parts. There\u2019s the customer acquisition process, where you want to identify demand and convert it. And there\u2019s the customer retention component, which focuses on delivering customers value so that you can retain their business and increase your chances of cross-selling\/upselling them successfully.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s further explore how lead to revenue works and review some best practices for implementing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Related: <\/em>The ultimate guide to finance automation<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n For any given account, you can break the process down into 6 steps:<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. Identify leads that match your ideal customer profile. <\/strong>They’ll likely arrive from a combination of sources\u2014like a lead gen campaign and a demo request page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Go through the traditional sales cycle. <\/strong>Generally speaking, this involves activities like showing demos, identifying the right product\/service, developing quotes, negotiating pricing, redlining the agreement\u2014up until you arrive at a fully-executed contract. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Translate the contract into your order management tool.<\/strong> From there, you can fulfill the sale and, assuming the order management system is integrated with your other systems, disseminate its information across your other systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. Bill the customer against the contract. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. Collect the payment and recognize the revenue. <\/strong>This involves keeping the appropriate contracting rules top of mind and following ASC 606. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 6. Onboard the customer and (hopefully) keep their business for years to come.<\/strong> This last step includes everything you do during the customer\u2019s time with your business. This covers revenue activities like managing the client\u2019s renewal and negotiating any upsell and cross-sell purchases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Related: How to streamline your lead nurturing workflows<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Now that you know how lead to revenue works, let\u2019s review some tips and tricks that can help you put it to use at your organization:<\/p>\n\n\n\n This involves reviewing both your business processes and your technology and asking yourself questions around each. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For instance: How far along is your infrastructure? Are your processes standardized? And are you able to implement best practices throughout? This offers countless benefits. It allows your team to avoid performing a significant amount of manual work; it lowers the chances of human error, as data can move between systems seamlessly; and it enables each team to stay informed and perform at their best. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, once a prospect converts into a customer, your customer success managers can get alerted in real time via your organization\u2019s business communications platform (e.g. Slack<\/a>), and they can receive all of the information they need about the customer through the platforms they\u2019re already using.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Building out and continuously improving your LTR process can be a challenging, if not impossible, task when done independently. To help you identify areas of improvement and your ideal LTR process, you can partner with an organization that\u2019s helped countless businesses tackle this very area.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHow Lead to Revenue Works<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Best Practices for Implementing Lead to Revenue<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The better you can answer these questions, the more detailed your roadmap can be for improving your lead-to-revenue workflow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n