Recently, I went through the process of using DMAIC as a way of defining your marketing funnel. We looked at Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control and utilized these basic principles to walk a customer through the marketing funnel. In other posts, I discussed the ability to create a shorter cycle time by decreasing the non-value time in between each of these stages. One of the methods of doing this is to have a strong call to action for a prospect to move from one stage to the next. However, how do you know if a customer is ready to move from one stage to the next?
A lesson that marketers can learn from the Six Sigma Methodology is the utilization of the Tollgate. The tollgate is use to clearly define measurable objectives that will allow a prospect to pass through the gate or to the next stage, or be held until the objectives are completed. Consider how many times that a prospect enters another stage of your marketing funnel and has not experienced the previous stages. When this happens, do you find yourself explaining at the last moment certain objections that should have been dealt with previously? The tendency to slip into the next phase can be common early in the timeline. The desire to move someone quickly through the funnel and to the buy stage or the “close” will often compromise your original standards set. Our typical response is to flood the prospect with the additional information, or make additional sales calls to explain the situation. More than likely this situation will cause the process to be held and dealt with as a “special” situation. Other times, a tollgate is created on an as needed bases causing further confusion downstream.
Overview of a Tollgate: Tollgate Reviews help determine whether all the goals within each stage have been achieved successfully and whether the project can progress to the next stage.
Preparing for a successful Tollgate Review: Many reviews fail due to lack of preparation. If you are going to have a tollgate review, prepare for it. This should include a minimum of a check sheet, milestone list, deliverable documents, etc. for review. This could even be an automated process that the customer knowingly or even unknowingly completes.
Let the numbers be your guide. Spend time developing good metrics and methodologies for their capture. If you do Tollgate review process is as simple as you either made the numbers or you did not. If you leave metrics be general like using the words most in lieu of a defined number, you will create an ineffective tollgate. If you always find exceptions to allow someone to pass through the gate defeats the purpose of the tollgate. Stopping the line, will take some courage initially and that is why many times management or an independent party, in Six Sigma it is the Black Belt, must press the button.
A Tollgate is exactly what it sounds like. The gate comes down and you must pay the toll before continuing. Now, what makes this such a strong feature is how many times do you ever pay the toll without knowing where you are going?
Picture Source: 123 look at me
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What Kind of Questions would you ask at a tollgate?
In a recent post, Using the Six Sigma Tollgate in your Marketing Funnel I went through the concept of using a tollgate in your marketing funnel. Below is a list of questions that might help general a few ideas that you may want to consider. The list was derived from the book Implementation: How to Transform Strategic Initiatives into Blockbuster Results
Define stage:
Why is the change necessary?
What is the proposed scope of this project?
What if we do nothing?
What alternatives have been looked at?
What will be the key objectives for this project?
What is out of scope?
Who is the sponsor for this project?
Who are the key stakeholders?
What are the principal risk to success?
Measure:
What specific benefits of this project deliver?
How will this project contribute to our goals?
What budget and resources will be required?
What assumptions and constraints should be considered?
What dependencies or interfaces should be considered?
What are the major project deliverables and milestones?
Who will manage this project?
Analyze:
How will all the work is scheduled?
Who will be responsible for each work package?
How will identified risk be manage?
Improve:
How are we progressing against our schedule?
How are we doing against budget and resource requirements?
What issues do we face?
What new risk have been identified?
What changes do we need to make to the plant?
Control:
Have we completed our handover to the users?
Have we closed the project and communicated where needed?
Have we captured useful knowledge and lessons learned?
Have we evaluated the results that we have achieved?
P.S. Implementation is a great book to have as a companion before, during and after providing the leadership in a project management process. It is on my trashy section on my bookshelf with other highlighted, written in and dog-eared page books.