Challenge & Selection : 

 I am responsible for driving pipeline across the sales cycle in the IT industry , from an operations   perspective . My work lies between 3 defined teams with different functions : pre - sales , sales and   marketing . Marketing creates the awareness and interest in the market , pre - sales ( a group of technical   experts & engineers ) provides thought leadership in the market and helps build the final offer to the   clients , and sales which creates trust with the customer and walks them through the buyer ’s journey . 

 After much analysis of pipeline reports , I discovered that the teams are not aligned on criteria and   processes for leads and their handoff between departments . This misalignment impacts our collective   KPIs and creates friction between the working groups . 

 I first approached this challenge by sending a questionnaire to the teams asking them to define a lead and   when they felt they should take ownership of it in the sales cycle in the hopes of finding common ground .   This proved to be problematic when the results showed the chasm between departments . I called a team   meeting to discuss the results of the questionnaire and the gaps I was seeing , but that devolved into an   argument and apathy to even identifying a problem . I needed to try something new , something that would   help the teams empathize with this misalignment but also start a different type of conversation . 

 I chose to apply the visualization tool with the teams , but I wanted it to be interactive , and in the form of   a physical exercise . 

 Application : 

 I facilitated a sales funnel exercise , using real people , for the teams to actually see the sales funnel in   person rather than on a screen / spreadsheet .   The assumptions / rules established for this exercise are as   follows : 

 -   We are in a fictional addressable market where our company is already positioned well as a brand 

 -   12 people will physically represent our prospects from the addressable market 

 -   Accepting that prospects will drop off and for the purposes of this exercise , the reasons would not be   explored 

 -   When prospects drop off , they will physically leave the room 

 -   We will achieve 2 qualified leads and 1 sale ( i.e.1 person remaining from the original group of 12 ) 

 The experiment : 

 12 people are brought into a room facing representatives from sales , pre - sales and marketing . As the   facilitator , I pose the question “ what are we going to do to make 1 of these individuals buy what we are   selling ” .   Members of the team are to propose actions , assign who executes and after each action is taken   the same question will be asked for the remaining prospects until we end with 1 . 

 # of   Prospects   Actions   Team    Results 

 12 

 Social listening & digital   campaigns 

 Marketing   ( proposed &   executed ) 

 All agree on suggested actions and that they are   contacts , not leads 

 Email campaign w/ thought   leadership asset to download 

 Marketing   ( proposed &   executed ) 

 All agree on suggested actions and that they are   still contacts , not leads . No one knows when to   hand off or to whom . 

 Phone calls to further qualify   prospects interest 

 Marketing    ( proposed &   executed ) 

 All agree on suggested actions . Marketing   believes the people are leads , but Sales &   Presales does not . 

 Campaign w/ call to action :   Offer free workshop or   assessment or a lunch and   learn w/ a success story 

 Sales   ( proposed ) &   Marketing   ( executed ) 

 All can not agree on suggested actions , the type   of lead ( i.e. warm lead ) or if they should stay with   marketing or go to pre - sales and/or sales 

 conduct workshop or   assessment 

 Sales   ( proposed ) &   Presales   ( executed ) 

 Marketing agrees on suggested action . Presales   argues that it is wasted $ /effort w/o a high   probability for closing a deal . Team agrees the   people are hot leads , and that sales should own   the cycle from here 

 Requirements are gathered   at workshop / assessment .   Offers are proposed . 

 Sales &   Presales   1 sale is made 

 Insights : 

 This exercise allowed all parties involved to experience the gaps I saw from the questionnaire . In the   beginning when there were more people in the room , everyone relied on the ideas from marketing , as if   they were not vested in the entire end to end process . As the numbers of prospects began to dwindle , the   sales and presales teams became more engaged in generating ideas ( i.e. not just relying on marketing but   rather opening up to different suggestions ) .   Conversely as the numbers dwindled , marketing became less   engaged in the process . 

 Using people , instead of data points in a CRM , led to the teams speaking differently . For example , the   conversation went from “ handing off a lead ” to “ what is the handshake point ” between our teams on   where we take this potential customer .    It also created a creative environment for all of us to ask questions   objectively , such as “ what do you consider a warm lead vs a hot lead ” and to agree on a criteria . 

 We did not finalize the process , but rather discovered that we need to explore processes further , which   was a surprise to all . We even uncovered a problem no one had considered- what happens to the 11   prospects that did not buy , and do we have a process in place to stop funnel leakage and pull them back   in the funnel ? At the end of the day three different teams came together and left as one team with a   mission to further explore processes and improvements , bringing us one step closer to the “ what is ” phase   in design thinking . 

 Approach : 

 I feel this approach worked because it moved the problems to a collective setting rather than an individual   departmental one that no one wanted to champion .   I originally thought of mind mapping the roles of   each department , but after the initial meeting , I realized that the teams needed to empathize with each   other and that mind mapping was only facilitating me to empathize with them . In the end the visualization   approach built a bridge between the teams that was necessary for us to identify problems and work on   the solutions together . 


EMAIL: 
ID_NUM: 
NAME_STUDENT: 
PHONE_NUM: 
STREET_ADDRESS: 
URL_PERSONAL: 
USERNAME: 

### Task: You are a PII (Personal Identity Information) Detection. Given a essays written by students, you have to identify ONLY the following:
NAME_STUDENT - The full or partial name of a student that is not necessarily the author of the essay. This excludes instructors, authors, and other person names.
EMAIL - A student’s email address.
USERNAME - A student's username on any platform.
ID_NUM - A number or sequence of characters that could be used to identify a student, such as a student ID or a social security number.
PHONE_NUM - A phone number associated with a student.
URL_PERSONAL - A URL that might be used to identify a student.
STREET_ADDRESS - A full or partial street address that is associated with the student, such as their home address.
### Input: Challenge & Selection : 

 I am responsible for driving pipeline across the sales cycle in the IT industry , from an operations   perspective . My work lies between 3 defined teams with different functions : pre - sales , sales and   marketing . Marketing creates the awareness and interest in the market , pre - sales ( a group of technical   experts & engineers ) provides thought leadership in the market and helps build the final offer to the   clients , and sales which creates trust with the customer and walks them through the buyer ’s journey . 

 After much analysis of pipeline reports , I discovered that the teams are not aligned on criteria and   processes for leads and their handoff between departments . This misalignment impacts our collective   KPIs and creates friction between the working groups . 

 I first approached this challenge by sending a questionnaire to the teams asking them to define a lead and   when they felt they should take ownership of it in the sales cycle in the hopes of finding common ground .   This proved to be problematic when the results showed the chasm between departments . I called a team   meeting to discuss the results of the questionnaire and the gaps I was seeing , but that devolved into an   argument and apathy to even identifying a problem . I needed to try something new , something that would   help the teams empathize with this misalignment but also start a different type of conversation . 

 I chose to apply the visualization tool with the teams , but I wanted it to be interactive , and in the form of   a physical exercise . 

 Application : 

 I facilitated a sales funnel exercise , using real people , for the teams to actually see the sales funnel in   person rather than on a screen / spreadsheet .   The assumptions / rules established for this exercise are as   follows : 

 -   We are in a fictional addressable market where our company is already positioned well as a brand 

 -   12 people will physically represent our prospects from the addressable market 

 -   Accepting that prospects will drop off and for the purposes of this exercise , the reasons would not be   explored 

 -   When prospects drop off , they will physically leave the room 

 -   We will achieve 2 qualified leads and 1 sale ( i.e.1 person remaining from the original group of 12 ) 

 The experiment : 

 12 people are brought into a room facing representatives from sales , pre - sales and marketing . As the   facilitator , I pose the question “ what are we going to do to make 1 of these individuals buy what we are   selling ” .   Members of the team are to propose actions , assign who executes and after each action is taken   the same question will be asked for the remaining prospects until we end with 1 . 

 # of   Prospects   Actions   Team    Results 

 12 

 Social listening & digital   campaigns 

 Marketing   ( proposed &   executed ) 

 All agree on suggested actions and that they are   contacts , not leads 

 Email campaign w/ thought   leadership asset to download 

 Marketing   ( proposed &   executed ) 

 All agree on suggested actions and that they are   still contacts , not leads . No one knows when to   hand off or to whom . 

 Phone calls to further qualify   prospects interest 

 Marketing    ( proposed &   executed ) 

 All agree on suggested actions . Marketing   believes the people are leads , but Sales &   Presales does not . 

 Campaign w/ call to action :   Offer free workshop or   assessment or a lunch and   learn w/ a success story 

 Sales   ( proposed ) &   Marketing   ( executed ) 

 All can not agree on suggested actions , the type   of lead ( i.e. warm lead ) or if they should stay with   marketing or go to pre - sales and/or sales 

 conduct workshop or   assessment 

 Sales   ( proposed ) &   Presales   ( executed ) 

 Marketing agrees on suggested action . Presales   argues that it is wasted $ /effort w/o a high   probability for closing a deal . Team agrees the   people are hot leads , and that sales should own   the cycle from here 

 Requirements are gathered   at workshop / assessment .   Offers are proposed . 

 Sales &   Presales   1 sale is made 

 Insights : 

 This exercise allowed all parties involved to experience the gaps I saw from the questionnaire . In the   beginning when there were more people in the room , everyone relied on the ideas from marketing , as if   they were not vested in the entire end to end process . As the numbers of prospects began to dwindle , the   sales and presales teams became more engaged in generating ideas ( i.e. not just relying on marketing but   rather opening up to different suggestions ) .   Conversely as the numbers dwindled , marketing became less   engaged in the process . 

 Using people , instead of data points in a CRM , led to the teams speaking differently . For example , the   conversation went from “ handing off a lead ” to “ what is the handshake point ” between our teams on   where we take this potential customer .    It also created a creative environment for all of us to ask questions   objectively , such as “ what do you consider a warm lead vs a hot lead ” and to agree on a criteria . 

 We did not finalize the process , but rather discovered that we need to explore processes further , which   was a surprise to all . We even uncovered a problem no one had considered- what happens to the 11   prospects that did not buy , and do we have a process in place to stop funnel leakage and pull them back   in the funnel ? At the end of the day three different teams came together and left as one team with a   mission to further explore processes and improvements , bringing us one step closer to the “ what is ” phase   in design thinking . 

 Approach : 

 I feel this approach worked because it moved the problems to a collective setting rather than an individual   departmental one that no one wanted to champion .   I originally thought of mind mapping the roles of   each department , but after the initial meeting , I realized that the teams needed to empathize with each   other and that mind mapping was only facilitating me to empathize with them . In the end the visualization   approach built a bridge between the teams that was necessary for us to identify problems and work on   the solutions together .
### Output: 