Who does what
- Tier 1, the rep: takes the enquiry, qualifies, sells a paid meeting or an order, filters out the wrong people.
- Tier 2, the expert: runs the consultation or does the work, and has no contact with the customer before payment.
When the model is needed
- The expert is expensive and enquiries are plentiful.
- The expert answers leads personally and so never gets to the actual work.
- Many enquiries are not your customers, and the expert spends time on free consultations.
- You cannot scale, because everything rests on one person.
On a legal project the sales team before us was effectively a support desk: reps advised instead of selling, and the lawyers answered leads themselves. Conversion into a paid consultation ran at about 3%. After splitting the roles and repackaging the scripts it reached 7.5% in five months.
What breaks inside it
- A handover with no automation. The rep agreed something, the expert does not know. Cured with a calendar.
- The expert keeps advising before payment. Then the model does not work, because the customer gets the main thing for free.
- The rep does not understand the product. They need a product guide and training, otherwise qualification is a formality.
- No boundary. It is unclear which questions the rep closes and which they hand over.
What to put in place
- A list of the questions the rep closes themselves and the ones they hand over.
- A product guide written for reps.
- Automatic transfer of date and time into the expert's calendar.
- One rule: the expert does not write to the customer before payment.