How well do you know your company’s sales process? How does a customer reference program manager know if customer advocate resources are being used by Sales to the fullest? This is a really important part of setting appropriate expectations (yours and leadership’s), as well as establishing continuous improvement goals aimed at winning more opportunities.
When we help a client estimate the activity volumes they should expect, we ask a lot of nuts and bolts questions regarding the Sales function. Pieced together, the answers provide necessary context, and paint a complete picture.
For some program managers this might be the first time they dive into the weeds of your company’s sales process, but it’s important to do so. Here’s an example of how it works. The blue entries are the particulars needed from Sales or Sales Ops leaders.
A) # quota-carrying salespeople500B) Average annual quota per salesperson$1,500,000C) Average opportunity size$180,000Average # opportunities per year8.33Average # opportunities per quarter2.08Average # opportunities per month.69
A) If your team is fairly homogenous the number of salespeople is a single number. However, there may be material differences (commercial vs. public sector, or enterprise vs. SMB) that warrant calculating these numbers separately for multiple segments.
B) Average annual quota is new or incremental revenue where references are most commonly employed (versus add-on licenses, for instance).
C) Opportunity size, coupled with volumes identified in the previous two questions, helps estimate the amount of revenue references contribute to the metric, revenue influenced, one of the most quantifiable measurements in our domain.
D) % of opportunities that require references to close70%E) Average # of reference accounts needed per opportunity2
D) How many opportunities require a reference seems like a simple question, but consider these sales process scenarios where references aren’t needed:
E) The number of references per deal varies. We hear everything from 1 to 5, or more. In industries like insurance, it’s not unusual for a B2B buyer to request a few current clients, a mixture of long and short-term clients, and even some former clients. This is in addition to the requirement of a particular organization size, geo, products, etc.
Below are the anticipated reference request needs each salesperson would have, if evenly distributed over the year. Multiple by the number of salespeople (A), and you have a good guesstimate of reference demand. The next step is to find out where the typical peaks and valleys are throughout the year, and weight accordingly.
Each SalespersonAverage # account requests per year12Average # account requests per quarter3Average # account requests per month1
Most customer marketers assume that salespeople are using customer advocates effectively. Don’t. If they are hunting for references through Slack or email blasts, it’s an unpleasant task and therefore avoid to whatever degree possible. Sometimes a buyer concern/objection arises and a salesperson doesn’t think, “We’ve got just the customer video or customer contact to jump on a reference call to remove the obstacle!” Optimizing customer reference use throughout the sales process take on-going work. This is where education comes in at new hire onboarding, and at virtual “lunch and learn” sessions offered throughout the year. What a great opportunity to share effective reference use success stories!
Ultimately, no goals are attainable unless customer references are being used as often as possible. They can’t help move a deal to close if they’re not inserted into the sales cycle at the right time. In our opinion the fundamental objective should be to increase the % of deals leveraging references to whatever level makes sense using the numbers in our exercise as a reality check. If you expect 70% of deals to leverage references and only 40% do, then additional discovery work is warranted. What’s in the way of achieving the ideal rate of 70%?
When achievement of this fundamental goal is reached, then revenue influenced, win-rates (with and without references), and sales cycle acceleration come with it. For more on program metrics, check out this post.
So you’ve set your goals based on anticipated activity and suddenly you’re missing your numbers. What happened? The Sales world is dynamic, ever changing. Your forecasts should be revisited quarterly in order to adjust expectations for seasonality, and other events that affect buying behavior.
You’ll find that understanding the inner workings of the Sales process at your company provides insights that drive the bulk of what you do as a program manager. Whatever Sales is tasked with in terms of company growth all other supporting functions (PR, Social, Digital, etc.) will have customer advocate needs all facing in the same direction. And that makes your priorities crystal clear.
As this infographic illustrates, a mature advocacy program is responsible for continuously identifying advocates, maintaining accurate advocacy data, protecting customer relationships, and aligning with top company goals to accelerate growth.
The infographic contains six key components. Here's a description of each for you to translate into your own talking points.
Every advocate starts as a customer.
The journey begins when account teams, customer success managers, support teams, and services organizations create positive experiences that build trust and confidence.
As customers achieve success, some become enthusiastic supporters of the company, its products, and its people. These customers are identified as potential advocates and introduced to the advocacy team.
The advocacy team interviews these individuals, learns about their experiences, captures important details about their interests and expertise, and creates a searchable advocate profile.
The result is a discoverable advocate: someone who can be found, matched, and engaged when the business needs credible customer voices.
Without this process, valuable customer relationships remain hidden inside co-workers’ heads or team spreadsheets, unavailable to the broader organization.
Great advocates are rarely discovered by the advocacy team alone. It’s really just too much to ask of any one part of the organization. Every customer touchpoint plays a part in cultivating and retaining advocates.
Customer success managers see customer enthusiasm firsthand. Account teams hear success stories during business reviews. Support teams witness customer loyalty. Product teams interact with passionate users who influence future direction.
A successful advocacy program creates a systematic way for all customer-facing teams to identify and nominate potential advocates, as well as a means for customers to self-identify..
Think of it as building a talent pipeline.
The broader the participation across the organization, the stronger and more diverse the advocate community becomes.
This collective effort ensures the advocacy database reflects the full spectrum of customer success stories across industries, products, geographies, and use cases.
The advocacy team serves as the steward of the organization's advocacy data.
Their responsibilities fall into three primary areas.
First, they recruit continuously. Advocates change jobs, priorities shift, and customer enthusiasm naturally evolves over time. Maintaining a healthy advocacy community requires constant replenishment.
Second, they keep information current. Customer stories, product deployments, business outcomes, and willingness to participate all change. Outdated advocacy data quickly becomes unreliable.
Third, they measure and report value. Advocacy programs must demonstrate their contribution to business outcomes such as customer acquisition, retention, and expansion.
Beyond maintaining records, the advocacy team actively shapes the composition of the database to align with company growth objectives. This is essential if the program is to be seen by executives as a strategic lever vs. a low-level function an intern can run.
If the company’s strategic direction includes expanding into healthcare, launching a new product, selling through a new channel, entering Asia, or targeting a specific buyer persona, the advocacy team ensures the advocate population evolves accordingly.
In many ways, they function as portfolio managers for one of the company's most valuable assets: customer credibility.
Most organizations initially think of advocacy as a sales resource.
Sales certainly benefits from customer references, but advocacy creates value far beyond the sales organization.
The common thread is credibility.
Advocates provide something no marketing budget can purchase directly: authentic proof from real customers.
Most mature advocacy programs include additional components that extend value for both advocates and the business.
These activities are connected mechanisms that strengthen relationships, increase engagement, and create additional opportunities for customers to contribute.
Together, they help transform advocacy from a transactional activity into an ongoing customer experience.
The ultimate purpose of customer advocacy is not activity.
It is business impact.
In Summary
Advocates are valuable assets. The advocacy team's job is to make sure those assets are available when needed, protected from burnout, and aligned with the organization's most important priorities.
When done well, customer advocacy transforms customer success into measurable business value. It is an enterprise capability built on trusted relationships, reliable data, and authentic customer voices.
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