You can accelerate your win rate and improve your forecast by developing and using the Opportunity Strength Scale or OSS. This blog shows you how to develop a custom Opportunity Strength Scale to
- Qualify opportunities more quickly
- Prioritize where to spend valuable selling time
- Build a reliable sales forecast
- Accelerate opportunities through the sales process
The OSS is a quick and easy tool for sales people to check their progress with an opportunity and build an agenda for each call to be sure they are progressing the deal with each customer interaction. It’s also a way for sales leaders to build consistency and repeatability in a team’s sales activities.
Developing Your Opportunity Strength Scale
Your Opportunity Strength Scale (OSS) will have five key elements: hallmarks of your successful opportunities. You or your team select the five in a group facilitated session with your sales leadership team and/or sales and sales operations teams. Here are some examples that might make up your five:
- Potential dollar value of the sales opportunity (eg: over $250K annually)
- Direct access to the economic decision maker (eg: the person who holds the budget and can veto others’ “no go” decisions)
- Ability to clearly articulate the customer decision process (eg: a series of demonstrations will be required with the business unit and IT being involved, final approval to purchase will be given by the CEO of the company, an RFP will not be required but legal will review and approve the purchase contract)
- Budget allocated to purchase for this project in current fiscal year
- Revenue of target customers (eg: over $50 Million in annual sales)
- Number of employees of target customer (eg: 1500)
- Target customer industry (eg: specific subsector of financial services industry)
- Competition is clearly identified and we are in a strong position relative to the competition
- Privately held company
After you identify the five components most salient for your business, create specific definitions on a scale of values for each. Here is an example for the ICP element: Direct Access to the Economic Decision Maker (EDM). The Economic Decision Maker is the person who holds the budget for this sales process and can make the decision to move forward with a purchase and override “no go” votes from others in the organization.
| Value | Definition |
| Ideal | Economic Decision Maker (EDM) has identified budget and salesperson has met and vetted the solution with Economic Decision Maker. Sales person has ready access to economic decision maker. |
| Strong | Salesperson has personally met EDM and has seen our product in a demonstration and given favorable feedback |
| Okay | EDM is aware of the sales process and of our product. Sales person does not have direct access to EDM but our key contact is representing our solution to the EDM on our behalf. |
| Developing | Salesperson knows the name and title of the EDM but does not have access. It is not known if the EDM is aware of our solution in the purchase process. |
| Initial | Salesperson’s key contact has revealed the name and title of the EDM but has not agreed to provide visibility for our solution nor to make a direct introduction for us. Salesperson also needs to validate this is the right person. |
| Weak | EDM for this sales process is not clearly identified. |
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The more detailed your definition for each OSS value and the more relevant for your particular sales process and market, the better your team will effectively qualify opportunities, generate an accurate sales forecast, and progress opportunities through the pipeline. In the example above, the value should change as the sales person continues to qualify the sales opportunity and work it to closure. The definitions for each value provide a clear guideline for the expectations of knowledge and activity expected in the sales process. If these are considered as part of a forecast review and in planning for sales calls and meetings, they provide a roadmap for qualifying questions and activities that should take place in the sales process. They can also be incorporated into your CRM opportunity fields.
Here is an abbreviated example of how a completed Opportunity Strength Scale might look:
| OSS Element | Ideal | Okay | Weak |
| Access to Economic Decision Maker | Economic Decision Maker (EDM) has identified budget and sales person has met and vetted the solution with Economic Decision Maker. Sales person has ready access to economic decision maker. | EDM is aware of the sales process and of our product. Sales person does not have direct access to EDM but our key contact is representing our solution positively to the EDM. | EDM for this sales process is not clearly identified. |
| Opportunity Size | $250K annually | $125K annually | $50K annually |
| Customer Size | $500 million annual sales | $250 million annual sales | $50 million annual sales |
| Clearly Identified Decision Process | No RFP required. All steps of decision process, approvals and involved parties clearly identified by customer | RFP required. RFP not yet issued. We have ability to influence RFP specifications and conduct sales activities prior to RFP release | Salesperson cannot articulate step-by-step decision process |
| Competitive Position | All competitors identified. Customer has indicated we are the front runner and why | Salesperson knows all involved competitors but our position vs. theirs is unclear | Salesperson cannot identify all involved competitors and their position |
Your Opportunity Strength Scale evolves over time as it is tested in the sales process. Review and evaluate it annually or as your market position and strategy changes. The OSS is a great tool for sales leaders to evaluate the viability of an opportunity. It’s also very useful for a sales person to use on a daily basis to evaluate his or her position in an opportunity and the questions and moves needed to progress to closed sale. A strong OSS will support your team in working the opportunities in which they are most likely to succeed and in support of company goals. It will also help to identify stuck opportunities which are not progressing to closure. In all of these ways, the OSS accelerates sales with sharper sales focus on the right activities in the right accounts.
