 I finally finished reading Founding Sales: The Early Stage Go-to-Market Handbook by Peter Kazanjy, and it was SOOOOO good. Even though the book is available online (and he was giving out free copies at some point), I still took copious notes because there was so much good stuff in there. I wish I had read this book two years ago! A lot of the lessons reinforced what I had learned from my sales coach and took it even further. I loved the tactical, specific advice, including many direct full examples from his own experience. Below are my notes and takeaways. I highly recommend this book to any founder or startup salesperson, especially anyone who has not done much sales before. It was so awesome! Intro
Books Predictable revenue Lean startup Four steps to the epiphany Part 1 experimentation mode Pre-scaling when you’re just starting out Evangelical sales is not scaling sales An org can’t start scaling until they’ve fired their first VP of Sales Founder just sell to ensure tight feedback loop to eng Do things that don’t scale like on-site visits and professional services for products less than $1K per year Evangelical scales which is a mix of profit management and product marketing Take partially baked product, build coherent narrative around it, present it, iterate Sales pros aren’t PMs or product marketers. They can sell a known good solution in a repeatable way for a known-good audience Sales is not inborn. Just another skill to be learned. 1 mindset changes in first time sales professionals Intro Embrace plenty, not scarcity Even if this one doesn’t work out, there’s a line of thousands standing behind it that I need to get to Close it out. On to the next. You’ll get them the next time around. What is scarce is sales time. Good time with good opportunities. Truncate unproductive conversations with marginal opportunities Put activity above all else Sales is about grinding Activity in equals value out Activity is the goal Jump first, prepare midair Template all conversations How can I do more X in a given time period? Don’t overthink. Just act. Don’t over-prep Be direct and get down to business Do you have the problem I’m trying to solve? Do you agree it needs a solution? Are you prepared to spend money to solve it? Asking for the sale is not optional Build many shallow relationships CRM excellence Assume the sale is inevitable and it just might be If prospect is qualified, this is going to happen. It makes sense for you. This solution is the future, and it will make you more successful now and going forward. We can do it now or later, but it’s going to happen, either with me or with a competitor of mine. This solution exists to solve this problem, and we have validated that you have this problem, so clearly this solution makes sense. Let’s figure out when and how it should be implemented. Expect to win but be unfazed by rejection 20-30% win rate is solid Record loss reason for product iteration Record everything but efficiently Setting future you up for success Lab notebook to record notes during discovery call (size of opp, what details) to be transferred to CRM Be expert and authoritative. It begets fearlessness. Become more of an expert in the industry and problem than your prospects Strike up conversations with strangers to build fearlessness muscles Make yourself at home in a glass house Win and loss notes, closing ratios, leaderboards, error checking Anyone can jump into anyone’s records and ask why a call went a certain way Activity levels should be clearly documented and inescapable CRM should show which hours of the day a rep is lagging CRM should show which opps have been missing activity for a certain time period and are in danger Failures are socialized do other staff won’t crash on the same rocks Sales is about math How many emails to book a demo How many opps to close a deal and how much opps worth Average contract value and if can hire an SDR Which sales rep most efficient at converting opps to wins 2 baking your narrative and product marketing basics Intro Quick two sentence overview Right formation Problem-solution framing Identify the problem, who has it, how currently solved or not, why unsatisfactory, what changed to make the problem solvable, what that means for the problem, how new solution solves it, quantitative and qualitative proof points that validate it Cohesive What is the problem “Doing x is hard. It’s hard to do x because of a, b, c, which leads to d, e, f problems.” Who has the problem Who spends the most time resolving the pain or who has the most budget for it Specific titles to look for. If they’re missing in an org, they might not have the problem Costs associated with the problem Direct savings = hard ROI Opportunity costs or other risks mitigated = soft ROI How do people currently solve the problem? Why do current solutions fail? Need to explain why current solution is insufficient to meet business needs No solution Explain it’s a problem worth solving Solution via process Explain why existing process inferior Time cost and frailty Solution via service providers Cost high Solution via product Good sign since the org knows the problem is worth solving with a tool Be a student of the game. Learn about competitive solutions and their benefits too to be credible What has changed to enable the new solution Change in tech or behavior How does the new solution work Explain easily Qualitative/quantitative proof of a better solution Our offering does more X or requires less Y Metrics based Third party validation (social proof, case studies, etc.) Pricing Charge even at the start Freemium Early adopter lighthouse customers who give feedback and get product for free Provide more value than you take early on Increase pricing over time but grandfather in early adopters Use this to tell new customers to buy now to lock in price or else will go up in price as you add functionality Approaches to pricing Existing solutions comparison Model off others and undercut them Don’t innovate on pricing models at same time as innovating on product ROI and value pricing Know the value you’re giving and run your own experiments Value alignment and thresholding The more value (storage, contacts, etc.) you’re getting, the higher the price Can an org or person just purchase your solution within their budget constraints? “Buy one to try it out” Pricing to perfection Be careful not to price too high Can create more churn Segmenting Don’t worry about it for a while Focus first on just ideal customer profile Putting it all together Write it all down together in long form Can later create collateral from it 3 sales materials basics: what you need to sell and how to build it Intro Speed more important than production quality initially Iterate fast to incorporate new objections into slides, record quick demo videos of new features, etc. Sales presentations Slide deck Can record overview video in which you talk over them Can post online to generate leads Send screenshot to make a point Can chop into mini deck Remix slides Don’t just go straight into demo A good presentation tees up a good demo Structuring your deck for extensibility Always a work in progress. Always shipping and iterating. Correspond to different parts of the sales narrative from before MVP is a slide on each part of the narrative Next iteration is a slide on each bullet point of the value prop slide with more details Next iteration is a slide with details for each bullet point on one value prop’s slide Screenshots, subtitles, metrics Zooming in vs zooming out Production value of slides Flashiness not important Templating mindset for new slide creation Start with fundraising template deck Spiff up with designer from Upwork Bullets that use your logo as an icon Drop shadows on screenshots Camtasia for videos of use cases and turn into animated gifs Content management and deployment Single large slide deck that lives on the computer of the person owning it Simply a repository of every possible angle of the product and market Repository from which to produce sales-ready versions of the deck or press-centric or investor-centric or whatever To use, fork a copy and make changes ClearSlide for sharing content for team to use Customization mindset Put specific customer info into the deck and the demo Screenshots of our solution dropped into screens of prospect’s website Examples of their current pain points Section specific notes on slide deck Problem and who has it Stats from industry analysis Press clippings Cost of the problem Metrics based Existing solutions and their challenges Show how you are different What has changed Check in on comprehension during the presentation How your solution works Conceptual visualization of the solution Quantitative and qualitative proof of a better solution Bucketed by value prop Build case for why now Demonstrate large opportunity cost to prospect daily of not adopting your solution Quantitative proof Large magnitude of benefits to get attention Case studies with conversion rates Qualitative proof Offer to write the testimonials for your early customers so all they have to do is approve Being made famous as a “thought leader” is what they get in response, but a tshirt or dinner gift card doesn’t hurt too Company centric proof points Press, analysts, etc. Just put in the logos and share in live presentations but not by email Later put in publicity rights into your MSA Ask forgiveness not permission Why this will be so easy Easy implementation and fast Pricing Include a slide that presents pricing and permutations Appendices Integrations Competition comparison Any time a question is asked a second time, add an appendix slide Deck for presenting, deck for sending ClearSlide helps Full on for presentation Abridged one for sending after Outreach materials Email templates Cold outreach in emails Include parts of the master narrative Hyperlink to slide screenshots or demo video screenshots Focus on pain point and customer’s point of view Plain text No marketing images Ultimate goal is to drive toward a presentation Figure out how to split up the message into several to go out over multiple days Warm outreach emails Look for shared connection on LinkedIn Check on intro opt in Send forwardable email template customized to the target with tracking pixel (yesware, tout, Hubspot sidekick) Follow up after directly with the target just like standard cold outreach but with added social context As you add slides to your standard deck, add corresponding email templates and maybe even embed the slide in them Fork off templates for sub-genres of customers Keep email templates in a source repository like a Google Doc or content management system like Yesware, Salesloft Phone and voicemail scripts Reformatting of your core narrative to be delivered in 30-90 seconds Just trying to drive to a demo Pair voicemails with emails to get a reply Demo scripts Follow framing of narrative Key use cases and features that enable them Rank the use cases Start with most compelling ones Tell the story of how your solution is used and start with the major pain points Customization Demo using prospect content Embed logo Import customer data Get info before the demo about prospect’s major use cases Sniff out some ahead of time and elicit others explicitly Spin up new instance just for the prospect Show immediate results and value to the prospect based on the data they send ahead of time Example demo script Start with most important use cases for customer and how it fits into their daily life Look up their info and needs ahead of time and use it as an example in the demo Think of the story of your product in the hands of the person you’re presenting to Video materials MVP overview video Goal is not to sell product; goal is to book call Highly shortened sales presentation and demo and record yourself narrating it YouTube Add tags and description Link back to website lead capture form Good SEO Explainer videos Higher production value Animated and voiced over narrative Website home page Show on monitors at events and conferences Link to in email templates Shorter than 2 min Epipheo vendor he used Other vendors Simplestoryvideos Other types of collateral PDFs, webinars, infographics, content marketing: can do later One off requests Think about the question under the question before building more material Usually can just explain how existing collateral addresses it On demand collateral Best if new collateral highly customized to the prospect Screenshot and screen capture and send to prospects I know you’re doing x. Check out these results for this thing you’re doing. See that it’s 4x faster/more? I’d love to show you more about how this can help. One off 5 minute recordings of specific results that was hyper specific to the prospect 4 early prospecting: finding your first customers Intro Find 50-100 potential clients that have the distinct pain point, get product in front of them for commercial conversation about how it can help Ideal customer profile: what does your prospect look like Don’t target based on relationship Better to just identify those who have the pain point If not qualified, say “we’re not really set up to do that yet but maybe in the future! If you have friend that need X though, we’d definitely be relevant to them” Who does have my pain point? Metadata characteristics to describe the level of attractiveness of a prospect or level of demand Finding outwardly available data Should be a description of an org not a person D&B Hoovers Salesforce data.com DiscoverOrg Zoom info Local businesses Yelp Radius Infousa Salesgenie Look at competitors and other industry search sites Look at what tools they use on their website to tell you what pain points they may have Builtwith Datanyze Datafox Similarweb HgData Wappalyzer DiscoverOrg Siftery Rainking Spiceworks Use hiring info Number of open hires Type of open roles Can see if they pay for premium profiles on sites like Glassdoor and monster Wanted analytics Specialized lead capture forms like Marketo and Eloqua vs salesforce built in one tells you level of sales sophistication Marketing list providers not great Getting data that isn’t outwardly discoverable Discovery questions on calls or inbound lead forms Content and inbound marketing to find people who meet your criteria Rolling up the demand signifiers Size of demand indicates more pain Customer attractiveness scoring algorithm Account sourcing: putting it into practice Prospect data management Start with google sheet (he has link to template in book) Rabbits, deer, or elephants Deer usually best for initial approach Geography Start with your own area Account or contact first? Decide which to start with for your solution People centric sourcing Start on LinkedIn Title search Limit by company size This gives you potential users Capture the account names and sizes Company centric sourcing LinkedIn company search by industry Points of contact discovery: who will be excited about your solution Look for titles on LinkedIn Cascading titles like director or vice or vp AND account or sales (can do complex logic in LinkedIn queries) Can target also complementary decision makers or internal customers who are stakeholders that care about the pain and can refer you to someone else Can also try bottom up and appeal to the end users See if you can find a mutual connection or warm intro to the prospect Find email address. Can guess and test with a tool like rapportive. Link in text to google sheet that spits out all permutations of emails based on name that you can then copy into email and mouse over and see which gives a hit in social lookup tools Tools to get emails: lusha, leadiq Capture phone numbers for later also LeadGenius for updated phone numbers Goal is to get a targeted list of 50-100 prospect accounts in ideal customer profile along with 1 or more contacts 5 prospect outreach and demo appointment setting Intros Just get started instead of preparing too long Stages Outreach and engagement Pitching Closing Founder does all these Can’t just hire a sales guy to do it. Sales guys do it for proven product with proven materials. You will be doing evangelical sales Tight feedback loop between interactions with prospects and modifications of sales materials (product marketing) and features of product (product management) Setting yourself up for success Just selling the next conversation, not the solution Position as research and customer development, trying to understand pain points and how currently solved But still keep conversation commercial Management and early CRM Salesforce is standard Can start with google sheet Or beginner CRM like Pipedrive, Close, insightly, salesforceIQ Eventually you’ll end up on salesforce, just a matter of when Materials and personalization Screenshots and little demo videos customized for the prospect Can do custom voice over for the prospect of a video Mail merge with customized fields of personalized info per prospect Emailing Break up message into several to drip out One thought per message Lightweight text based Use warm intro when you can Manual email and instrumentation Use instrumentation for open and click via yesware, tout, and sidekick by Hubspot Juicy enticing hyperlinks like to videos or photos If someone opens your email a couple times, it’s time to email again or call Mass mail and drip marketing Marketo, Eloqua Nurturing with small pieces of messages Use demand signifier metadata to make personalization really good. Requires better prospecting and templating. Number of users in house Calculation of time or month being wasted using some ROI metric you calculated Links to parts on prospect’s website Can make first email highly personalized manually showing a human did it (open pleasantries about university they went to or sports team) Single serving drip marketing Invest 5 minutes up front Have automated replies reply to same thread (which is what Outreach does) Customization research Prior companies/shared employers in past Shared online connections Twitter profile Timing Avoid Monday mornings 10am tue good or 6 or 7am or even after office hours like 7-8pm Software Outreach Salesloft PersistIQ MixMax Sendbloom Yesware and Touthave partial solutions Not spam if you carefully targeted and think it’s likely they have this business pain Clear messaging focused on them that adds value and teaches them something will be welcomed Second, third, fourth outreach message critical to get replies including an “I’m breaking up with you message” like “I’m not going to email you anymore, but I have conviction that this is relevant to you and will make you more successful in what you do” Calling Key is careful targeting and concise message Attempting contact Call timing White collar: early morning or end of day or very late calls to avoid gatekeepers Context sensitive timing Call after email instrumentation shows your prospect opened your email and clicked links Even better to call immediately after open and click Tool: Immediately Point of contact discovery Sometimes first need to sell to the gatekeeper on why they should share the name of the decision maker Use very simple statements I’d like to be in touch with the owner because I’d like to discuss how Groupon can make him $20,000 in one day. Who’s the right person to talk to? Want to make gatekeeper look like a hero and if he doesn’t then superior will be upset he missed the opportunity Ask who makes decisions about technology investment, when they’re typically in the office, and if you can get her email or direct phone Gatekeepers and directories Just ask for known point of contact by first name directly from operator Deliver short pitch Can ask to leave frank a voicemail mail. Ask for direct number for future reference (“can I get Frank’s direct line in case I get disconnected so i don’t have to bother you again?”) Voice mails Short and loaded with personalization, business pain, potential benefit of talking with you, that you’re the founder seeking to learn More like audio email Sneaky tricks like just saying “hey frank this is Pete call me back 650-892-4475 Always use voicemail in conjunction with email Live messages Not a good idea as won’t pass message along correctly “That’s so kind of you. It’s kind of involved. Would you be open to sharing Frank’s email so I can send to him directly?” If fails, ask for gatekeeper’s email and then send a very personalized outreach email instrumented with Yesware to see when frank opens Making contact If you actually connect, you have 30 seconds to sell her on an appointment You’re not selling the product. Just selling an opportunity to spend a limited amount of time to understand pain better, help learn something new, potentially solve a problem Just want to get on calendar for 10-20 min in near future Deliver concise pitch If success Don’t rely on scheduling over email Schedule immediately at calendar and send invite Don’t schedule too far in advance. Anything over a week out degrades attendance rate. Ask for email address, direct phone, mobile phone Send reminder email ahead of meeting Need phone if doesn’t make meeting to reschedule Ask if others in the company want to be included in the call and get their contact info for the invite Hot transfers Asking for demo right now Treat it as a demo lite because you haven’t done as much prep and personalization Do your relevant discovery and offer a preview of what a fuller meeting might be to sell the full demo for which you’re able to better prepare Rejection If keep hearing same answers, can say up front what you’re not doing in a humorous way Rejections are only not now, not never “Ok I understand. It sounds like this is something that might not be a priority right now. My only goal was to seek to understand (your business pain) and see how we can help with a 15 minute scheduled call. I know you weren’t expecting my call, but are you sure you wouldn’t be open to a conversation at a more appropriate time?” If fails, “I underhand. While I’m confident that we may be able to help your organization be more effective, we can table this for now. It will be my responsibility to be in touch at a more appropriate time.” This is still relevant and inevitable for you and I’m not going to give up Send a follow up email immediately with a subtle variation of initial outreach message crossed with conciliatory message in call retreat (templated “Rejected call template”) Thank them for time, show metrics of how your solution helps Close with call to action to get something on calendar and statement that you look forward to being in touch in the future Objection Never just comply and disengage Need to handle objections and help prospect understand why concern is unfounded in this case This is when the fun begins and is a good sign since the prospect is actually engaging Every objection is an opportunity to ask more questions and engage in a better convo about their situation and where your solution can help Record objections and responses to them Standard phone ones “Call me later” “I’d be happy to do that but if possible maybe we could spend 30 seconds right now to make sure that this is relevant to you. And if not, in a quarter, I won’t unnecessarily bug you and you won’t have to deal with irrelevant out reach. Great, right?” “I don’t have a budget” BANT (budget, authority, need, timeline) “that’s not a problem because I really just want to understand more about your organization‘s way of (solving this problem). If it turns out we’re relevant, there will be time to talk about that later. Based on what I saw about (your demand signifier), I am confident that a 10 minute conversation will definitely be worth your time. Can we schedule something for Thursday?” “Just send me info” “I'm totally happy to do that. But if I do, I’m going to do an amazing job and it’ll take me 30 minutes to put together something very personalized to you. I don’t want to do that if our solution is not relevant. Can I take 30 seconds to explain what we do and ask some questions to make sure this is a relevant conversation? That way if it’s not I won’t be in your inbox chasing you and asking about information that wasn’t even helpful.” If declined again and asked to just send info, then sell the demo: “well I’m happy to do that. But honestly given that I know this is relevant to you, a scheduled demo will really be a much better way of making sure you’re fully informed. I promise that you’ll learn things that are very relevant to (the thing you do).” “Oh we already use (competition)” This is a good sign since they are qualified and spend money solving the problem “That’s great. X has historically been the benchmark for Y problem. The good news is that we can help you do Z ten times better unlike X. Sounds pretty helpful right? I’d love to get 20 minutes on the calendar to show you how we are like X with rocket boosters attached.” “Do you have XYZ feature?” Assumptively close and set the appointment as he’s admitted interest “These are fantastic questions and show you really know the space inside and out. Typically folks find it more efficient and get a lot more out of putting 20 minutes on the calendar at a set time. Do you have 20 minutes on Thursday or Friday or we could spot that in?” “How much does it cost?” Don’t answer too quickly because you don’t know the magnitude of their pain and they don’t understand the value of your solution Parry the question and drive to a demo “While the solution does have a cost; it’s really contingent on a variety of factors associated with how much value a given customer would get out of it. People typically find it most effective to schedule a 20 minute demo so we can get a better sense of whether the solution is relevant and how helpful it could be to your business. Do you have 20 minutes this Thursday or Friday for that conversation?” “I can’t make that decision” “Got it. Well it sounds like this is relevant to your company but that you might be the wrong person to talk to about it. I tried to use LinkedIn to figure out who would be the most relevant contact but I guess I got it wrong. which of your colleagues should I be engaging instead?” Can also ask if you should talk to their manager Make the contact look like a hero for passing you along and bringing your solution to the fore Setting up the appointment Meeting invites First dozen customers: visit in person ClearSlide, join.me Send meeting invite and repeat location in description even if online Rich title to remind goal of meeting Consider including teaser material like demo video link in body of invite Invite all relevant participants mentioned in call Time blocking Block 15-30 min on your cal before and after the appointment to prepare and follow up Calling demos “$5,000 bills” based on average contract value and win rate Deserves adequate preparation and follow up Block travel time before and after if necessary Remindering Add reminder to meeting invite (notification) Use Yesware or Boomerang Send Later function to stage a reminder email to send early in the morning of the meeting in question If meeting gets moved, need to go into your Scheduled Emails and modify the date of the staged email Good opportunity to set expectations “Hey, Sarah. Looking forward to speaking with you and going over X. I understand that when we reached out to you to schedule this call, you had expressed specific interest in learning more about Y and Z. I will cover these in depth with you.” Cadencing: putting it all together Will need to interleave various touches like emails, calls, voicemails Outreach and SalesLoft can do this Email and call on day 1, call on day 2, call and voicemail on day 3, skip a day, email on day 5, then “I’m breaking up with you” email on day 7 Can tweak the cadence based on open and click activity Referral prospecting Connection discovery Use LinkedIn to see which prospects have a shared connection to someone on your team or in your network Reach out to joint connections and ask if they could connect you to the target, why it will be valuable to them, and that you can send a separate email that’s easy to forward along If one person connected to multiple targets, note them all at once Or sit with a contact and have them open their LinkedIn and tell you which of their connections would be good for you to talk to Contact outreach Qualify the orgs and contacts Send an intro request email for each target Subject: “Intro to (target name)?” In email, write why you want to be introduced and how it will be valuable to them, why you know their org is qualified for your solution, quick value prop statement Use Yesware to track email to see if it was forwarded by tracking how many unique IPs opened it If you get added to the thread, BCC requester and ask for call, providing times a week out Speed is critical If don’t hear back, go directly to target using same email thread Hook up referrer with gift card and another if you close the deal Teamable has software to consolidate all the contacts of your staff, advisors, investors into unified database you can query Inbound lead capture and response preview Request a demo button on website Email notification on form fill Need to respond fast 6 early inbound lead capture and response Intro Unlikely people will know who you are early on or that they have the problem you solve Creating content, blog posts, tweets, infographics, making sure they are well SEOd Mark Roberge book (sales acceleration formula) focuses on this Outbound inbound: sometimes you reach out to them and later they find you Sometimes need to qualify more carefully inbound leads vs outbound ones that you have already researched and prequalified Inbound lead qualification Need to ask them relevant questions Inbound lead capture forms Form for demo request with structured fields Make sure it works well on mobile Salesforce web to lead form Minimum info is work email and phone Name, title, company, email, phone Ask on phone what’s not observable from LinkedIn or target company website Can ask what other relevant tools they use if that helps or matters Can ask how someone found out about us Can put your phone number on your demo request form for those who want to call you up Inbound lead response Respond asap 100X dropoff in connect rate between 5 minute response time and 30 minutes 10X dropoff between 5 min and 10 min Can send auto response email with your phone number and thank you Chat interfaces like Drift and Intercom Can ask prospects automated questions via chat Lightweight discovery Confirm all pain points and demand signifiers Figure out what other people should be on the call Figure out size of prize Figure out who should be involved in purchasing decision Qualify the account not the lead. If that contact not qualified, respect their time and don’t do demo Work with them to loop in more qualified candidate Follow-up on inbound leads Each attempt to reach out again adds 15% chance of connecting, falling off after 6 attempts After 6 attempts, you have a 90% chance of connecting They asked for it, so you have nothing to fear Leave voice mails and use lead response email template If lead comes in looking unqualified, send a hard qualifier email. Say who the product is for and why you think it might not be relevant for that lead and ask to clarify if your thinking is wrong Sample email in book 7 pitching: preparation, presentation, demos, objections Intro Goal of pitching Persuading to end in a sale Persuade they have this pain and it is large enough that it must be solved, that your solution will solve it, and they will capture value (return on investment) by implementing your solution Pitching is about persuading them they need this now Opportunity cost of waiting is too high Not a one-call close New technology sales persuasion formula Potential value x value comprehension x belief = likelihood and magnitude of sale Maximize all these terms Potential value: target accounts with greatest need Comprehension: effective presentation, materials, tooling Believability: proof points, demos, customization of demos, proof of concept and pilots Inside or outside sales At beginning start in person Initially target accounts close to home Later can get more calls selling on phone/computer Batch travel to do multiple visits at once Pre-call planning Worth it to prep for a demo but not a cold call Calendar management Put prep on the calendar Block 15 min before on your calendar when sending demo invite Block travel time if needed. Arrive 30 minutes before so you can prep for 15 min and then check in 15 min early. Have list of known unknowns for discovery in your head for you to ask about Pain points and size of prize Outwardly identifiable demand signifiers Use LinkedIn to figure out count of potential users Complementary products, competitive products, and the capacity to pay Know the other tools the org is using Datanyze Builtwith Sniff out any competition prospect is using which tells you they are spending money to solve the problem Know their funding amount to know capacity to pay Potential users Use LinkedIn to scout out potential users in the company Shareholders and influencers Have awareness of others in the org as a credible threat “And you can imagine how happy Christina will be knowing that field reps you work with will be closing more business in less time because they’re not stuck in coffee shops updating salesforce!” Customization information Put in their info in your demo Use dev tools to drop in your app on their website and screenshot it Conversational guides/icebreakers Use LinkedIn to figure out what small talk to start on Shared contacts including existing customers of yours and mention that See where they worked before, schools Personal interests they posted about Concurrent side projects Follow prospects Known unknowns Note down what you weren’t able to find Pre-call planning checklist Discovery question checklist Log all these into CRM Stated pitch goal Either purchase decision or next call with decision maker Pre-call attitude Get in the zone Project confidence in solution and recommendation to prospect Jumping jacks Take sales calls standing Pitch materials and concepts Tools and materials Laptop and connectors for projector Show your own screen and sit side by side Bring own mini projector Personal hotspot Lab notebook to take notes in while machine is presenting and prepared with your pre-call planning notes Videoconferencing software Headset Have offline proof version of demo with key screens preloaded Sales deck Demo script Pitch format Quick pleasantries Discovery (so you can late show ROI) Might need separate dedicated disco call Initially don’t separate into 2 meetings until need more time for demo Slideshow Live demo Success proof points Pricing commercial discussion Who are you talking to? 3 personas Individual users Care about Make job easier Please internal customers Look good to manager Career progression Less worried about ROI First line managers Care about ROI Budget Efficiency Second line managers/CXO managers Care about Top line business value Cash flow Speak the right language to each Pitch introduction Rapport building and opening chitchat Deploy nuggets of info you researched before Transition topics by asking “how long have you been in (industry)?” Or talk about professional components of his role Discovery Quality them Spend 5-10 min on it Characterize as a benefit to prospect “I like to start with some questions so I have a better idea of how your team goes about its day to day and so I can do a better job of focusing on things you will get more value out of.” BANT Budget, authority, need, timeline ANUM Authority, need, urgency, money ChAMP Challenges, authority, money, prioritization Need to know they have the problem but also a process for purchasing solutions and who makes those decisions Need to know their level of urgency Show them the homework you did in checking they were qualified before and verify it’s accurate “You’re probably aware that your company has a 2.5 Glassdoor rating. Do you find it frustrating that negative employee content is crowding out the employer story you’d like to tell?” Preparation/research can help you ask leading questions “Based on what I saw on LinkedIn, you have sales reps in the Bay Area and Dallas. Do you find that, like with most outside sales teams, they have a tendency to do a poor job of x?” Document your discovery questions in a doc Pain and urgency Most important thing is if they have the pain, magnitude of it, have they tried to solve it previously and how successfully Keep cascading further asking leading questions about scope of the pain. “Are you like most of the people I talk to struggling with x?” Size of pain, urgency, downsides of existing approaches and record all this in notebook Touch on downstream business implications of not solving this pain point. “What will happen if you don’t solve this?” Ask discovery questions to validate the existence of the business pain your product features intend to solve Team, authority, commercials Ask how the org purchases things Find out about user team first Then ask who is the person who makes decisions about buying solutions for the org Do they know what the process is? Have they done it before? Is there a formal evaluation period? Any discretionary budget outside of typical cycles? Presentation, demo, and asking for the sale Overarching guidelines Repetition Key points that tie back to sales narrative Validation of attention and understanding Ask things like “can you see this right here?” Ask questions Does that make sense? Have you heard of some of these (other programs) before? It’s ok if you haven’t. Many are fairly new, and I didn’t even know about them before we even started TalentBin. Ask specific question that requires a specific answer, ideally correlated to a pain point, proof point, or feature “Do you find your reps have this same issue?” Ask a leading question to elicit agreement with one of our core points (“can you see how this sort of automation would reduce the amount of manual follow-up required to increase candidate response rates?”) Do you have any questions for me so far? Rolling discovery Ask more questions throughout the demo about pain points and existing solutions When showing pain point slides, ask if prospect has those challenges If asked before, repeat back what they said When demoing, repeat back what heard from prospect during disco Building agreement Elicit agreement that their worldview aligns with yours throughout Score points and ask for agreement at each step Leading questions they can agree to Pacing and pausing Frequent breaks Customization and curation Focus the demo on what you researched before will matter most to the customer Micro-contract creation and execution Before you do a step in the process, you articulate what you want to do and why and ask if they are in agreement that it is the correct next step Sandler Sales Methodology “upfront contracts” “It seems to me that you believe the solution can help your organization solve (problem) and that you believe it would be a good fit but in order to progress we need to involve Alice so she can validate the conclusion we have come to. Is that right? If so let’s get another presentation on the calendar for you, her, and me. Do you have her calendar and yours available to you?” Real objection will surface if won’t book the call Restate the contract at the start of the next meeting to establish the deal in flight: “Bob and I met last week to discuss your company's challenges in X. Based on the outcome of our conversation Bob and I believe that this is a very worthwhile investment for your organization and stands to provide a lot of value. But it is my understanding that we need to share this case with you so you can validate our conclusion before we progress to a commercial agreement. And that is the purpose of this call today. Does that align with your expectations?“ If prospect diverges from a commitment, “I’m confused. We agreed that you believed the solution made sense for your organization and is well positioned to help you save X dollars per year. Our next step was to meet with your CFO to help her validate your conclusion. But two of those meetings have been canceled at the last minute. Can you confirm for me that this is something that is a priority and that you believe is important for your organization?” Presentation Set mental model and context first Make sure pitch is interactive and not “show up and throw up” “Thank you so much for sharing all that great information with me. It’s really going to make this a productive conversation. So based on what you shared with me, I think that what we’re up to is definitely relevant to what you guys at X company are doing as related to Y problem. What I’d like to do next is share some slides that help set the tone on what we do before we get into the product live demo. Does that work for you?” Disqualification “You know what, Bob, based on everything we just talked about, I don’t think that what we’re up to is going to be super helpful in X efforts. We mainly help out people and organizations that (fill in a specific thing that your solution solves). I know you’re a busy person and don’t want to waste your time on something that isn’t helpful. I’m happy to send you some slides or demo videos but I would propose that we just go ahead and conclude this call and I can give you back 30 minutes of your time. What do you say?” Introducing your narrative Convey things harder to see in love drmo (pain points, failures of current solutions, how our solution works conceptually, qualitative and quantitative proof of why it’s better Features better for demo Can jump back to slides for a relevant point like benefits or ROI Demo Slides set mental model Demo shows actual product delivering on the promises Synchronous conversation live Customization Heavily tailored to the prospect as opposed to slides that are not as tailored Best is to use actual data or materials from the prospect Demo-ready data Clean up demo data Every time a new feature ships, update slide in sales deck and update demo data to showcase it Focusing on features that matter Speak language of prospect Use info learned in discovery Proof demonstration Switch to slides to explain why we know this works and why this is a great investment ROI and other proof points and visuals Feature by feature ROI studies Aggregated customer ROI info Customer by customer ROI info Qualitative proof Pricing and asking for the sale “Given all we’ve covered, is this something that you see being useful in solving your challenges?” Presenting pricing Frame the pricing in context of existing solutions, best alternatives, or opportunity costs “It’s $30 per rep per month so if you consider that your average rep is making 150,000 it’s 15 minutes of salary expense per rep; of course this will save them hours and hours per week.” Projected ROI Typically we charge one dollar per monitored submission per year; based on your organization's submission volume, that would be around $10,000. We would anticipate finding between 10 to 20 missed fees over the course of a year, representing between 125,000 and 250,000 in recovered fees for you. Not a big deal right? Start at most extreme case knowing you will be negotiated down Present a single unit of pricing (one seat) Don’t offer a discount. Just state the pricing and rationale that backs it up and shut up. If the reaction is positive or neutral, ask for the sale and close. If negative, handle the objection. Asking for the sale Ask directly Based on what we discussed this sounds like a great fit. Is this something that you would want to progress with? Is there anything that is preventing us from getting you started as a customer? If need to present multiple options, “excellent. Would you like me to put together a proposal that covers some options that you could go with?” If only one option, go to contract: “that’s fantastic. If you’d like, I can send over an order form that you can execute via digital signature and we can get started today“ Proposals Reserve proposals only for those who said they want to buy Don’t send order form until agreed to price and quantity Proposal can present a couple options Present 3 options where middle one is your target and each one has higher discount levels Middle option right below their budget. Lowest option very expensive per seat. Highest option super cheap pet seat. Don’t worry early on about cannibalization by discounting. Just get cash into bank now. Proposals can frame the ROI associated with each option Conga Composer, Drawloop, Optiv good tools to make proposals automatically Objections Respectful contentiousness - challenger sale Challenge existing mindsets Change minds to popularize a new approach to a business problem When a prospect surfaces an objection that runs counter to their business reality, you must address it head on If prospect being vague, ask “what specifically is blocking us from progressing right now?” Generic objections Lack of decision-making authority During discovery, you were supposed to figure out the org’s process for making judgments about tooling and who makes final decisions Now you come back to that Make sure prospect is fully bought in to serve as champion and help you navigate the org to get the sale “Is the authority to make this decision the only thing that is blocking us from getting you started?” If yes then project manage the next step You should be the one running point on setting up incremental meetings with other decision makers. Treat it as another demo. Don’t give up control over the next step to your prospect; they can drop the ball and won’t be as good at advocating for your solution as you “Fantastic, I am very excited to work with you to help X understand how helpful this will be for Y problem. I know you’re busy, so I would love to take point one setting an appointment so we can both present this to her. Is her calendar available to you? If so, we can get 15 minutes scheduled right now, and keep this ball rolling!” If calendar not available, volunteer to start email thread with champion and decision maker wherein scheduling takes place Assumptively propose times Treat the call like a second demo where you’re selling the decision maker on the fact that her deputy is bought into this solution. Make it clear this will be a good expenditure of budget. Have good ROI documentation in slides and proposal. We don’t have a need Find objective external signifiers of demand I’m confused. Based on our discussion at the beginning of this call and my research on LinkedIn, your company has 50 outside sales reps. And from what we talked about earlier, your sales management struggled with getting those reps to log meetings, emails, and contact info into the CRM because they’re mobile all day long. Is this not the case? Well from everything I can see, it appears to me that your organization definitely has the need for this, but perhaps there’s something else blocking us from progressing that we haven’t discussed yet? you can be straight with me, I can take it! We are happy with how we do it right now/fear of change Better than “we don’t have the need” because at least they acknowledge they have the need and now need to discuss why they should adopt a new way of attacking the need Take the hidden cost of business as usual and make it visible “Proof of a better solution” language from sales narrative and sales materials chapters works here. Quantitative and qualitative proof. Do the math on what they are missing out on. “ by continuing your current approach you’re wasting $15-$40,000 a year. That’s half a recruiting coordinator salary. Saving that from your budget would make you a hero to your CEO and your VP of engineering.” Flip to slides with proof points. Samples in text FOMO arguments Our solution is the emerging industry standard Which competitors are using it Frame the purchase as inevitable and the next logical thing This is an opportunity to look advanced and to advance his career because competitors will do so If truly afraid of change, explain how we will make this easy Proofs of success Real customer success stories “Here are all the resources we haven’t placed in sure that you capture the value. We both agreed is on the table for you. We will make you successful.” Timing is bad/we have higher priorities They agreed they have the need, the solution addresses it better than what they do now, they will get value out of progressing with the purchase Reduce the perception that implementing your solution will be a lot of work Explain how easy you will make it If says too busy rolling out another tool, say, “ that’s actually a great time to start using our solution because you’re already going to be changing business process around how you do X. It’s a great time to cement new, better habits. And the good news is we have six customer success specialists on staff who could run daily webinars for your team to get the best use of our solution and ensure that all your users have attended and passed out of the training. this is fantastic because as you roll out your new other system, you’ll see even better ROI from it by mixing the two solutions.” Or explain why working on your solution should be a higher priority Do some discovery around other programs they are considering implementing Position yours as higher ROI Use numbers to compare opportunity cost of not adopting your solution versus other one Get buy-in now and get deal done now and have it be on their list for a future date Pricing inducement (free months) or say pricing will go up next year Buy now and start contract in a month Price/value Need to know if talking about value or about discounting Ask, “I’m happy to talk about the value the product provides, and we believe that our pricing is a fair split of the value created. But could you help me understand what you think would be a fair price?” Or “Are we far apart here? How far would you say?” If answer is 10%, then about discounting and negotiation If answer is 50%, then talking about value Walk her through the way, the offering will create value piece by piece along with the projected return on investment associated with it or the relevant market comparables “Based on your submission volume and recruiter counts, we quoted you a price of 40,000 for the year. From the hundreds of customers we’ve serviced and hundreds of thousands of candidates submissions we’ve tracked, we know that over the ensuing 12 months, we will most likely catch 20 missed fees for your organization, not to mention the ones that we will identify from the last 18 months of suppression data and given that you make an average fee of $30,000 we anticipate that our product will drive an incremental $600,000 of revenue that you would otherwise miss. Given that, we feel that 40,000 is a very fair price and will be nearly paid for by your first collected fee. Can you help me understand where my analysis is falling down?” If pricing based on market comps, “you currently pay $9000 per year for a seat of LinkedIn recruiter. Our product only costs 7000 per year. Not only do we have 10 times the number of potential candidates, We also provide personal email addresses, something that can double the response rate. We also don’t capyour outreach. Lastly, we have Automation functionality. Given all that, can you help me understand how this isn’t a fair price for the value we will offer your recruiters?” Can make exceptions if value to customer is indeed more limited or they can’t use all your functionality or they already have a partial solution in house Better to get the deal done even if at a discount or a modified price. Document why it was modified so the concession can be removed at renewal time and so others don’t think it’s standard pricing Don’t sell to folks who won’t get enough value and not willing to pay because will just churn later and be a distraction and suck on resources We don’t have the budget for this Help them find the budget In discovery, did you validate that the organization does actually purchase tools for solving business pains, and that the decision maker has done this before, or knows that it can be done? Now I just need to make it clear that this solution is worth spending money on in much the same way that the organization has done before Figure out what the current budget is for solving the problem your address, and if it is recurring in nature, or already fully committed Ask if there is any existing source of budget that is coming up for renewal soon and propose that some portion of that could be allocated to this new better solution and bridge the time gap with free months Or find another budget like for hiring staff that could be reallocated here if this tool means less staff needs to be hired Propose using smaller experimental budget to land and expand Propose one-off budgetary justification to run by CFO with solid ROI argument If timing issue with budget cycle, get deal done now and just haha it start in the future or providing free months to bridge the gap I need a trial/I need a reference Demo with prospect actual data is close to a trial Could just be avoiding saying no or surfacing actual objection or putting off decision Risky if they don’t use trial or delay decision “I’m happy to help you get more comfortable with the value the solution provides. What sort of further proof would you be looking for?” Might just need more marketing collateral around customer success stories, ROI studies and customer references Alternatives to trial can include guided walkthrough and ride along. Let user control the mouse. Unless invested in tools to help a user get to value quickly, can’t just give them an unattended trial Some may want formal pilot: time bounded experiment to use product in key ways Frame pilot to outline success criteria and keep prospects accountable for participating in training sessions and check-in meetings and acting on defined activities which will be instrumented and reportable Biggest risk in trials is non-usage Only do this for the largest deals For small deals, instead of trial, do hour-long guided session where user has control Or invest eng resources to make unstructured pilots and self serve usage easier Solution specific objectives If you hear an objection more than once, build a slide to address it in appendix Keep running google doc of objections and handling If an objection shows up frequently, can include it in main part of pitch and narrative Competition objectives Don’t just address one-off feature comparison questions but address underlying and holistic issues to show broader benefits of your solution Answer the question you wanted them to ask Have slide that presents the competitive framework pertinent to you and how you win out in those buckets versus one competitor Don’t put multiple competitors per slide of tell the prospect about other solutions they should research Have competitive mini decks for each competitor of merit with a handful of slides describing how you are superior to each competitor in each bucket of your messaging framework Generic objection flow loop Catch objection, turn it to the question under the question, respond with quantitative and qualitative arguments supported by visual materials, validate understanding Keep uncovering more like “do you have any other questions or are you satisfied that this would be a fit for you?” Demo follow-up and further meetings Directly and concretely start the next action and hold prospect accountable with this micro-contract If further meeting or decision maker required, get meeting on calendar Set specific follow up appointment even if they need to discuss internally Even if they say to touch base in a month, get it calendared now and set the agenda to be reviewed (namely what’s keeping us from progressing right now and whether it has changed). Set crm task also to note whether prospect executed on their commitment Have time blocked off after demo for immediate execution of follow up actions Be quick in delivery of what you promised Always follow up a demo with a summary email, in the thread that set up the appointment or confirmation email Include the “for sending” version of sales presentation used in the call with any appendix slides used in their call Practice and iteration Do practice demos with objection handling and continuously mix those in when calendar light with non-sales teammates 8 down funnel selling: negotiation, closing, pipeline management Negotiation Start with inflated pricing in anticipation of being negotiated down Try to look for trades or exchanges of value Levers: price, amount, duration of contract, payment terms, legal terms like automatic renewal and opt-outs Priorities for startups: faster payment, longer contracts Retreat one increment of a given lever at a time If someone asks for a discount, move a different lever in your direction Basic negotiation tactics Cheaper price per unit Lower price if they buy more (seats or contract length) Cheaper total Remove seats or volume and make the per unit price more costly Reduce length of contract Shorter duration Make the per time price for shorter duration at least 2-3x what it would be for the full year Note that onboarding is a fixed cost that is very hands on with lots of customer success labor Split up payments Raise price Urgency Offer rest of month for free if partway through Customer success team only has limited slots available for onboarding Pricing and discounts only valid this month Pricing may go up in the future so lock in rate now Pushing back against discounts Remind about price/value Have authority backstop like manager Explain that the pricing needs to be this way because the company needs money to deliver the service and our engineers cost money and need to eat and there are only so many deals we can close in a month and each needs to be a certain price to keep the lights on Refer to the prospect’s product and that they don’t give it away for free for the same reasons Competitors and pricing Have a better product and charge for it Demonstrate the ROI and reflect in pricing If competitor offering lower price, ask for proof and can match or go partway Only offer discount if prospect agrees to execute contract the day the pricing is delivered Close winning Order forms and contracts Order form, contract, e-signature software Example order form Host contract somewhere and have it linked to your order form Have an actual MSA Getting paid Have contracts paid up front by credit card Customer success prep Intro via email Set up training session Close losting Better to mark lost early to save time if not going to happen When to close lost Often it’s not a no but a not now Always have the next meeting on the calendar If they’re not showing up to meetings, give them an easy off ramp. Spend time on good opps. Attitude of plenty not scarcity. Send an email like “we’ve missed a couple follow up appointments. While I think that our solution would be extremely valuable to your organization as we agreed that <the measure of ROI specific them>, I don’t want to occupy your time if it’s unlikely will be able to help you out, but I’d really like to know so I can prioritize my time effectively and also not bother you unnecessarily. Are you still interested in working toward becoming a customer? Is now a bad time? Or does it turn out that this is something that doesn’t make sense for your company after all? I can take the truth, but I would like to have clarity.” Closed lost metadata Document reason in CRM to inform product roadmap If lost to competition, have a picklist of competitors in CRM to choose from Closed lost notes You’ll be resurrecting these opps in 2-3 months so will want these notes Coming back around Ask when timing is better to follow up then If timing unclear, re-engage in 60 days “Hi there. We spoke a few months ago about how TalentBin can help you guys accelerate your technically recruiting, but it just wasn’t the right time. We’ve shipped a ton of great new features, making our solution even better, and from what I can see on your jobs page, you are still hiring lots of engineers. Want to hop on the phone and catch up on what’s new in your world and the new hotness we’ve made?” Inevitability mindset Pipeline management Staging Concrete deal stages and asking direct questions early on Demo scheduled, qualified, seeking approval, sent proposal, negotiation, verbal agreement, contract sent, closed won, closed lost, closed unqualified Each stage has clear definition Need explicit next step captured in CRM at each stage and calendared time for each action to happen Cadencing Pipeline review Forecast call Block an hour daily for pipeline follow up work Prioritization and cleaning Start at end of funnel Prioritize by magnitude of sale and ease of closing Send final breakup email to any that are stuck Report of down-funnel opps that haven’t had activity in 7 days Report of opps stuck in a stage for more than 2 weeks Report of opps without future meeting on calendar (“uncovered opps”) Calendar management and role specialization Calendar management Split calendar into blocks and each block focuses on a role (SDR, AE, CS) 2 hour chunks 2 hours prospecting 2 hours outreach 2 hours follow ups Early morning good for prospecting Planning calls and demos for midday and early afternoon End of day for follow ups, deliverables Mondays and fridays have high cancel rates for demos Double up on prospecting and pipeline management on Monday and Friday Role specialization Hire new college grad SDR to fill calendar with demos and respond to inbound 9 customer success basics: implementation, ongoing success, renewals Need to ensure success early and quickly and not let it drag, even if you have a long contract Fulfill the promises you made during the sales process. Have them hit the KPIs you promised. Methodical implementation, Cadenced check-ins, instrumentation of success markers, documentation of ROI achieved Mechanisms Implementation Credentials Training for users and managers Integrations Consider one time implementation fee (triple the labor costs associated with the implantation process) Implementation calls: one and done Single 60 min call Go on-site Pre call planning and prework Review crm notes from sale Set up User credentials Customize their instance with their logo Read customer’s site Understand their reason for buying Rediscovery Start kickoff call with what you believe customer’s goals are and how solution will be used and let them confirm or update Document the new goals in CRM Agenda items Crucial first, then important, then optional Setup and login items Core actions taken in solution Sometimes show a few slides of context and why the solution will help them Have the user execute the actions and do actual productive work Use your pointer to show them where to click Group calls vs. one on ones Group calls have lack of accountability if you just hope they follow along 1:1 training better Homework, follow-up calls, monitoring Set a check meeting for a couple weeks out Assign specific homework to be executed in the interim, which they know you will review by monitoring their usage Tell them you will monitor to ensure success and report to deal sponsors that the promised ROI is being achieved Doing x action y times by the end of the first week Tell them users who do this have x% more success than those who don’t which is why it’s assigned Don’t end the implementation call until next meeting is on calendar Materials and support contacts Explain how to get in touch for support and with you Send onboarding call recording Share script and checklist too Missed meetings and re-implementations Reschedule Video recorded canonical implementation call good collateral to have Weekly group implementation calls for anyone to join like when there is someone new on the team Implementation projects and multistage implementations Like multistage sales process Meetings should be calendared Use same micro-contract approach to ensure you have commitment for the next step at each stage Project kickoff calls and discovery Kickoff with all stakeholders to review timelines and what needed from each participant Get collective commitment in front of all others Involve sponsors and internal vendors Restate customer’s goal for the solution and walk them through what they need to do to get there and timeline Have visuals. Major steps, timeline, google sheet with deliverables, customer owner, target date, status Templated google sheet Create copy for each customer Ahead of kickoff, identify with deal sponsor the various customer stakeholders for each item Progressions and status reporting Update plan sheet Implementation thread in email Advanced progress tracking Move the sheet info to CRM Implementation item execution proactivity Do the work for the customers as much as possible Make it as easy as possible what they need to do themselves Snags and people wanting to diverge Reschedule if meetings canceled “The reason we need to hand this call is because I need 15 minutes with you to xyz. This is uk protest because it’s required for the next step of the implementation, which (sponsor) was hoping to get completed by (date). What can I do to help get this completed so we can attain that goal?” Don’t tattle to sponsor. Just keep pushing forward and keep all in the loop politely. Completion Notify deal sponsors when fully implemented Charging for implementation If requires lots of labor on your end or hooking into multiple enterprise systems Inducements for users/stakeholders Explain how this will make the users more in-demand in the future Create an actual certification in your solution Lightweight text after implementation, open book, and completing a certain set of actions x times Digital pdf certificate and entry into a registry that employers can check Send company swag to users who get through implementation Shirts, post-its, pens Evaluate CS staff not only on renewal metrics but on success precursor metrics (proportion of users they are responsible for who have logged in or attained some measurable outcome in last 30 days) Or compensate on net promoter score or customer satisfaction survey score Inbound response and support tickets Inbound support request capture Support email address Front, help scout Zendesk, freshdesk, servicecloud General support tenets Take all the blame for the issue Validate the frustration Probably your fault in some way (app wasn’t clear) Rapid response Direct phone call back Great support can paper over issues in an early solution Response tracking Only close tickets when it’s clear you have solved the problem. Want affirmative statement you fixed the problem. Canned responses and macros If someone complains, then probably many more out there with the problem who aren’t complaining Fix it in the product Write faq answers Links to support articles Ticket tagging/product feedback Bug fixes New features for unmet desires Add tags to tickets for areas of product like editor and feature requested like saving Other inbound support tools Live chat Faster resolution Social support Social listening to tell you when people talking about your solution Treat as inbound support ticket Acknowledge, let them know what you’re doing to solve Public reply saying you emailed them Phone Expensive but good to offer in case people prefer Proactive customer monitoring Look at usage metrics Inspection Allow support to log in as a user Look for value precursors and value outcomes that show the promised value is happening Custom reporting Trailing time intervals showing key value indicators and outcomes for each user and customer Reports showing which data sets need help and fell below designated usage levels Users who haven’t logged in for a while Dedicated tooling Gainsight or catalyst to pull user activity and act on it with templates, playbooks CS pipeline Acting on data Review the info periodically Find those with big success to give kudos and log as customer references Find those not doing well and act Reach out politely saying you want to help them be successful and learn what’s keeping them from being able to achieve success and fix it Pitch implementation and the user facing value props Later can involve their management and original decision makers Suggest they block off time and use calendar reminders and you help manage the process If someone with a license leaves, talk to decision maker to secure new user and run them through onboarding Instrument usage even for managers to do same for them if they leave Stubborn users: make case about how this will help them do all the great things they want now and in their future jobs. Show them opportunity cost. Involve deal sponsor to get a different user. Focus time on the C+/B- users not the D or F or A Success outcome capture Document and capture outcomes showing value and success In product Show evidence of outcomes Survey/conversation Ask what they’ve accomplished 30 day check-in call Net promoter score Survey after 45 days Capture all this into CRM as activities with time stamps so you can report on them How quickly do customers get to ROI payback? What portion of our customers get to what level of success in first/second/third month? Quarterly business reviews Reflect back the success they are having Reconfirm value Upsell to other groups Promote to their friends in other companies Participants Same folks who bought the software including the decision maker who spent the budget Customer wants you to give them the ROI info to make them look smart Tooling and approach Nice slide deck List shared goals that drove the purchase Chance to do rediscovery and sure same pains are still priorities When you bought x, you had y problem. I’d that still the primary challenge you’re facing? Note opportunities for more ROI with more adoption If some users aren’t using, show the high cost of non-adoption and sell retraining for them If they’re all using, sell participation in marketing collateral like videos, slides, and case studies where metrics of success are reviewed and documented in an easily shareable format to get in front of potential customers and make the client look like a brilliant thought leader Recommendations at end and buy-in from decision maker that these are the right next steps and proposed action plan to achieve them Can do on-site or virtual Can offer live retraining, Q&A, customer appreciation like pizza, cookies, swag Record if digital If product is low cost, develop automated QBR to deliver same metrics and proof via email and in the product Outcomes and next actions Summarize in follow up email Crank on agreed actions Reporting on QBRs Spreadsheet listing each QBR in a row which you populate when you first onboard the customer Eventually inside CRM Have an event of type QBR with completion state either to be scheduled or scheduled or completed When opportunity is closed won, set the QBR field to automatically populate at quarterly intervals so you can easily report on the to be scheduled QBRs in next 60 days to schedule and prepare materials for Support sites and asynchronous support materials Post a fully recorded kickoff call, ideally broken up by section New product announcements If a question comes up more than once, make a support article and a macro Send note and offer to help live if needed New release communications/ongoing training Tell existing customers about new features Materials Support site note as part of release process Animated gif demo video of new feature Webinar about new feature and record it Email to customers New feature announcement banners in portico Intercom can do this Send in email campaigns to introduce users to features over the first few months of onboarding Recipients Send to users and decision makers Type field in CRM for user or manager to allow different communications to each Implementation and monitoring Set up new implementation calls with all accounts when new feature comes out that is important and will require some customization Add to onboarding training for new accounts Renewals Automatic renewals Order form and MSA should have automatic renewal clause Just run the card on file Provide a courtesy email a month out Renewal calls Similar to QBR Summarize success to date compared to promised goals Customer goals for period ahead Jumbo QBR Timing Close enough to renewal to send renewal contract right away Renewal call 6 weeks before end of term Calendar the renewal call when final QBR happens If there are issues, extend the contract a month or two Materials and prep Prepare success metrics Grand finale QBR deck Closing and upselling Ask for the business again Glad that we got to review this and that we’re helping you with x. Your contract renews on x date, and we’re looking forward to working together in the year ahead. Ask about customer goals for year ahead to find upsell opportunities More hiring? Buy additional seats now so they can get volume discount rather than adding one at a time over the year. Learning from your customer success team Product development Which features too hard and create too many support requests Sales When a customer leaves one company to go to another, tell sales team Tell sales which customers willing to do reference calls with prospects (rabid fans) Marketing Point to real world examples of success Usage data Success proof Document successful outcomes in CRM to create “proof of success” collateral Events/customer advisory Identify cheerleaders who can help at conferences, events, feedback on new products Tell CS to look for these opportunities Incentivize CS for each upsell and new opportunity Customer success calendar management and specialization Block segments of time on calendar Meetings for CS (implementation, kickoff, check-ins, QBRs) get on calendar as soon as deals are closed so future is burdened appropriately Track all these in CRM with different activity types for Implementation Meetings, QBRs, etc. so a simple report can tell you all accounts that have a closed won opportunity but not yet had an implementation meeting After a dozen customers, hire someone to take this over Codify playbook (tracked in CRM) Get one CS person to success then copy more of them Responsibility specialization and compensation Who will do renewals? CS? AM? Or original AE? AEs should focus on new business Variable comp for renewals and upsells CS can do renewals or can specialize that in AMs and CS just does implemtations, training, support, etc. Early don’t need to split CS and AM Each CS rep can manage 100-300 accounts Later specialization Split out inbound response support vs implemtation vs ongoing success vs account management and renewals Part 2 scaling mode Taking what you’ve proven can be done and getting others to do it too 10 early sales management and scaling concepts One sales pod (1 SDR, 2 AEs, 1 CS) working then can scale up Scaling antipatterns and when to hit the gas Premature scaling Adding sales staff before proving that the sales motion works Hiring a VP of Sales to figure it out and hire their own sales team First need to do founder sales for a couple dozen deals Then prove you can repeat it with a couple reps the founder hired Premature scaling result in getting bad or wrong customers Lagged scaling Founders doing sales too long creates opportunity cost Need to package up playbook When is the right time to scale Good win rate in B2B is 15-30% Of all demos, 15-30% turn into closed won deals eventually If win rate higher, raise pricing Then see if other reps get same rate Total cost of AE and SDR and sales engineer should not add up to more than 20-25% of the revenue they close Full cycle rep costing $100K should close 500K in revenue per year Cost of sales should be 20-30% at most Must have high enough win rate and average contract value and reliable and consistent deal cycle to be ready to scale up Abstraction and specialization of sales roles Role specialization Benefits from focus and less context switching Specialization and sales maturity stages Step by step and validating hypotheses Founder doing it all Founder does appointment setting, sales, CS, renewals Antipattern is hiring a sales guy to figure it out Antipattern is not charging for the solution Antipattern is not investing time to prove the customer attains the promised value Founder plus SDR / founder plus CSM Success criteria is a few dozen customers acquired, onboarded, and getting to success with clear, repeatable, documented sales motion ready to be tested on one or more non-founder sellers all while maintaining healthy sales KPIs like win rate, attainment Antipattern is hiring a VP Sales to gifugre it out or acquiring a bunch of customers only a fraction of which get to success (spraying and praying) Founder plus SDR and two AEs Hiring, training, management to success of one or more sellers (typically two to start) aside from the founder seller Training, management, coaching, inspection, correction, tooling Exit criteria is engaging prospects, presenting, closing ideal customer profile customers who then get to success and value at least as efficiently as you were previously Antipattern: you want to do it “just right” (too much time playing instead of coaching) Antipattern: hiring too many too fast Initial sales pod of 1 SDR, 2 AE, 1 CS Founder fully steps out of selling day to day Prove out performance of a complete unit (lead gen, selling and closing, onboarding) Founder focused on sales orchestration refinement and management, process definition and implementation, tooling creation and adoption Introduce sales development and customer success roles and interactions and rules of engagement so they are tight and without gaps Exit criteria is unit producing revenue at predictable rate, all members hitting their KPIs (meetings booked by SDRs, deals closed by AEs, onboarding customers with high NPS scores by CS) with smooth handoffs and proper backchecks to prevent dropped balls Unit of revenue production and retention has solid unit economics, paying for its own salary costs and throwing off cash to the business Confident you can clone this Sales pod abstraction and initial scale Clone initial pod More managerial complexity More focus on metrics and analytics Add a professional sales manager, maybe after proving successful hiring and onboarding of another cohort or two of additional reps to fully develop the management motions before handing them off Exit criteria is for unit to be producing predictable revenue, all members hitting KPIs, returning lots of contribution margin to the business Confident you can hand a unit to a professional sales manager and they could manage and clone it Antipattern is handing the beginnings off to a manager before fully baked, not tending to additional complexity, or ensuring there is sufficient lead gen to power incremental AEs Fully scaled sales team of teams Leadership: Sales ops, VP Sales and Success Management: SDR manager, 2 AE managers, CSM manager IC: 6 SDR, 12 AE, 6 CSM Sales operations Sales enablement, sales strategy, sales effectiveness Metrics, process refinement, technology Makes sense when you have enough reps that a single sales ops headcount salary, blended across reps will be worth the time savings and revenue lift that stems from the addition of the headcount Could be as early as 10 reps Product management of the sales org Removing friction/bugs Adding functionality/features Early sales management Enabling, coaching, inspecting, correcting, celebrating group of reps Raise quantity and quality of activity Role of sales manager You should not be doing the selling and instead should be managing it Better scale by figuring out how others can sell even if you are better Hiring pipeline and onboarding and training reps Manager activities Building playbooks, materials Hiring, onboarding Monitoring and coaching reps Does this action have recurring impact and make more than 1 person successful? Don’t jump on calls Phone screen new candidates Mock pitches with new reps Review team metrics Hiring and onboarding The pipeline above the pipeline Use same rigor, process orientation, execution as selling activities Rigorous and excellent onboarding and ramp to success Process construction, adherence monitoring, tooling adoption Process documented in bullet points or graphical chart Rules of Engagement Metrics harness construction and monitoring Quantity and quality of activity done by reps, who is meeting the bar and why Inspection, coaching, correction Dig into issues the metrics show and find root cause with rep Radical Candor book and article Atrium article on making performance conversations easy Materials and documentation Document objection handling Central repo of best demos New slides for newly shipped features Docsend, showpad, highspot Performance management, professional development, offboarding Identify growth opps for individuals and soft spots that need correction and working to resolve them 1:1s Quarterly, biannual, annual performance reviews Frequent, regularly cadenced, documented performance management convos need to be happening Tactics to improve desired sales outcomes: for AEs more and bigger deals; for SDRs, more and better opp creation Issues discovered during metrics reviews discussed, solutions prescribed, progress against those checked until resolved Long term career development convos Identify desired path for each rep. SDR to manager or AE? AE into more complex deals or into management? Then actions to achieve that goal in set timeline Give one management task off your plate like “owner of all objection handling info” assuming rep hitting all numbers from output standpoint and they can do this as a 10% project (4 hours per week blocked on public cal and identifiable) Or someone who wants to move into enterprise selling to ride along with more senior rep on a deal Monitor employee engagement and morale Not player but coach. Not doer but teacher. Modern metrical sales manager Not just riding along or inspecting calls randomly but being driven by metrics to find soft spots or activity or quality issues Goal setting $80k in new business bookings per month per rep 10 new qualified meetings per SDR per week Sales methods definition and benchmark setting Need to know stages a deal needs to go through and how many of each stage needed for a number of deals Meetings per AE per week. How many first versus follow up How many opps should a rep interact with per week How many new opps should an SDR create per month How many emails per week How many accounts engaged per month Baselines allow validation that reps engaging in necessary quantity and quality of activity Recording and capturing activity Deals closed Meetings held Emails sent CRM or whiteboard with names and tallies daily/weekly/monthly for various tracked items Metrics consumption Bake metrics review into daily and weekly cadences Call out divergences from intended baselines Monthly postmortem where you review metrics in aggregate and per-rep level Anomaly detection Why one rep diverging from others and from intended baselines Root causing issues Metrics tree to drill into Sales motion inspection Inspect actual calls, meetings, and emails Listen to recorded calls (chorus, gong) or ride along on rep’s new deals Focus based on metrics Coaching and spreading success Diagnose the issue Identify the the shortfall Teach the solution Repeat it by mock repetitions until the rep gets it right Dig in and be hands on and forget concerns of micromanagement Prevent problems through rigorous new rep onboarding training Identify new best practices through improved metrics and teach it to the rest of the team Stage-specific management rigor Rarely there are downsides to being too rigorous too early Early on First couple of reps More organic Overinvest time in monitoring and inspection Want to prove the solution can be sold by non-founders Sit on calls, be CC’d on prospect communications Learn where reps have trouble to add that to onboarding and training materials At scale Half a dozen reps or more Solid metrics Zoom in on potential hot spots Goals Ensure good yields (few hires that flame out) Quick ramps to success Quicker identification and exiting out of bad hires Just like early on you were creating the model for selling the solution, now creating the model for managing reps Sales performance instrumentation Quantity, quality, mix Successful sales comes from high quantity of high quality activities Can’t look at just outputs Quantity metrics are counts (meetings booked, emails sent, pipeline value, etc.) Number of customer facing meetings, number of first meetings, number of new opportunities created, number of emails sent, number of calls made, number of presentations made, number of proposals sent, number of opportunity forward progressions, number of contacts engaged for the first time, number of accounts engaged, Number of opportunities currently in the pipeline, amount of pipeline value, number of deals won, number of deals lost, amount of revenue booked Start with quantity metrics but add quality ones soon Quality metrics typically ratios and averages like win rate, deal size, deal age, age of opportunities in pipeline, pipeline conversion rate, average time between interactions with an opportunity, average age of an opportunity in a stage, ratio of first meetings to follow up meetings Metrics change by role SDRs do more activity less deeply versus AEs opposite SDR quantity metrics Meetings created, amount of pipeline created, emails sent, calls made, connected calls, talk time, number of accounts engaged, number of contacts engaged, number of meetings held SDR quality metrics Response rate on emails, connect rate on phone calls, contacts engaged per account, number of activities per contact, activities per account, conversion rate of accounts engaged to meetings created, win rate on opportunities created, average deal size Compare between reps Track historical changes Report on deals with bad execution Track untouched opportunities over time to assess how on top of the pipeline a given account executive his compared to colleagues Use the list of opportunities now as to do list for a rep For an SDR, it might be the list of accounts that have fewer contacts engaged than a specified goal (3 per account for enterprise sales) Reading metrics Will tell you what your best reps do and how Maybe higher win rate due to involving more stakeholders earlier which shows up in higher number of contacts engaged per account Can track changes in rep performance over time and evaluate new classes of hires If a rep’s metrics get worse can indicate attrition Managerial operational cadence Standups Team meetings Pipeline reviews Individual 1:1s Monthly retros Quarterly business reviews Recurring meetings with set purpose Put agenda in meeting description Breadth of attendance: split into multiple meetings if not everyone required Cadencing: check in on what was agreed to in last meeting No need for weekly all hands 1:1s more often than monthly Time frame not too long: prioritize, use tracking document to record what was covered and action items Timing of meetings: lunchtime or start or end of day to not stomp on productive time Content and format set explicitly Examples of sales operational cadence meetings Example of an operational cadence calendar Adding managerial layers Add layers under you when you drop balls and don’t have time for all the management tasks you need to do The better metrics harness you have, the farther you can manage alone Initial capacity is 6-9 reps or just one pod; beyond that need management help Add an SDR team lead to manage day to day metrical performance of SDR team Nominate an outperformed to manage metrics monitoring and report out and first line of defense on questions about product, rules of engagement You focus on higher leverage managerial activities like hiring, onboarding, performance management Team lead doesn’t get people management topics like 1:1s, performance management, professional development, hiring, onboarding Professional development and promotion paths SDR to AE Midmarket AE to enterprise AE closing $40K ARR per month at 10-20K/deal Enterprise AE closing $50K deals can do 1-2M/year SDR to senior SDR to junior AE Practicing disco calls, open ended questions, presentation and demo, objection handling Topics normally covered in AE onboarding Recurring basis: couple of hours scheduled weekly with managers or riding along with AEs on disco calls and demos or listening to recordings of those outside of calling hours AEs and CSMs working larger and more complicated clients Managerial development path Helping others on team be more successful Helping with your management tasks Tooling and process projects Analyzing and improving specific part of sales motion Prospecting Outbound engagement Inbound response Pipeline management Building a strong org culture Who gets rewarded, promoted, let go Specification What org to run Who to sell to Who to hire Documentation Bullets in google doc Repeat values over and over Articulation Hire for it Onboarding Team meetings All hands Spot bonuses Shoutouts Screenshots Kudos channel 11 high impact sales hiring Scale sales through hiring and execution of sales work Starting to scale and the criticality of quality sales hiring Huge opportunity cost Scaling by specialization First add market development reps to load your calendar Then when you are overloaded on closing can add account execs Then when enough customers approaching renewals, add account managers Determining hiring profile Profile different than job description Set of characteristics of ideal hire, raw and professional ones Sales staff should be of same quality as engineering staff and hiring methodology should reflect this Don’t just hire mediocre people and fire them if they don’t work out Raw characteristics High intellectual acumen High “figure shit out” quotient (practical, resourceful, street smarts) High grinder quotient Need smart sales staff Need to quickly stay up to speed on new features and market dynamics Ability to work through large amounts of not terribly pleasant work because it’s important for their success Understand well the Space operating in Smarts Referral by people you trust College Resourcefulness Starting businesses Clever hacks Competitiveness Sports activity Coachability Competitive athletes who were coached Likability, charisma, leadership Leadership in teams, clubs, winning elections Detail orientation Look for errors in details, typos, grammatical errors Ask in written screen how they organize their lives What does their gmail inbox look like Photo of their desk Persistence Crew, swimming, cycling, long distance running, track Eagle Scout Positivity Even 35% win rate means most deals lost Pay attention to how they discuss failures or difficult experience Teamwork Team sports Founding a business Participant in service org Professional characteristics Market development reps out of college so look mostly at personal characteristics More senior staff consider prior experience Best to cultivate AEs from SDRs but sometimes need to hire AEs directly and can look at prior orgs as a heuristic Industry focus Look for those who sold to same decision makers at similar price point and budgetary tempo Role execution focus Did they focus on one part of the process or everything (focus is ideal) Sales cycle tempo mismatch High volume/quick cycle vs not Industry bellwethers Be wary of pulling staff from incumbents because they had a brand behind them Poor technical adoption, CRM misuse Mid stage startups Orgs that have hit escape velocity and sales staff looking to jump onto next rocket ship Customers People in the industry you sell to Achievement characteristics Ask about quota attainment, activity metrics Ask for screenshots of CRM revenue leaderboards showing the candidate Shows you the other top performers to recruit Screenshots of activity graphs Relationships or hiring a Rolodex Dead notion Use LinkedIn, jigsaw/data.com, Hoovers/D&B to find decision makers Articulating and documenting hiring profile Write down desirable characteristics Sources of hire or how to find your profile Staffing agencies Sales specific one TheLions, Betts Recruiting, Rainmakers Push back when getting bad resumes Look for candidates with good networks who can refer more future hires Tell recruiters to only submit one resume at a time and wait until you process it so they give you the best first Referral recruiting Best source Referral bonus Remind staff about it and engage in it proactively Bake into recurring team meetings Sit down with staff and review their LinkedIn and Facebook connections and build a lead list Share successes with team when it works Give feedback to referrers even if someone doesn’t work out Job boards Lower quality Worse signal to noise ratio Need thorough screening Be clear on required and nice to have things Specify interview process like mock pitches etc. target a dozen high quality resumes per week Direct sourcing Complex search queries on LinkedIn Find personal emails on profiles and contact those Sell, screen, sell Screening, interviewing, and closing Prove that they have the skills necessary Screening Asynchronous as much as possible Artifact-based pre-screens Written screen Dozen open ended questions for them to respond to Instructed to spend no more than an hour Lighthearted and pithy Examples Tell me about something you built that you’re proud of What do you think about Google glass? What sort of team sports did you play in high school or college? What was your favorite? Scale of 1 to 10 how messy is your room? Be honest. Tell me what you like about sales or recruiting in your awards Document for me a deal, either sales or recruiting, that went terribly. Be totally honest. Looking for clear communication with beginning, middle, and end and free of typos Mini homework assignment involving account research and voicemail pitching At end of written test, ask candidate to send me 30 sec voicemail pitching TalentBin as if I were head of recruiting at Airbnb Don’t leave your cell phone but instead see if candidate finds it in email signature or online Written GMAT questions Don’t skip written screens for senior reps Templated google doc that gets forked and shared with candidates Phone screen Authenticate intellectual acumen Ask them to talk through a lead gen and sales funnel they’re familiar with What were the inputs to the sales funnel What were the characteristics of the prospects and how could we find more of them scalably What were the competitive characteristics of the market What would lead to higher conversion of the sales funnel Can they keep up with the questions and explain their answers, can they problem solve with a scalability focused mindset How would they solve the issue of insufficient customers for the example sales funnel If you were king of the world, how would you solve this Could the funnel be more efficient by serving more product in a given time How to ensure customers were happy with the value provided How do we know they like the product and will tell others How to allow reps to do more demos in a given time period 30 min phone screen, last 10 min for their questions and selling them on the org Have candidates call you to test punctuality Purposefully miss their inbound call to test voice mail game, do they immediately email you, when do they call back, persistence Write down notes of green, yellow, red flags Mock presentation screening Sell me their existing solution I act as mock prospect which they can assign to me or I can concoct Instruct candidate to treat me as a prospect who has agreed to a demo and run the process all the way for real Send me a cal invite with screen sharing instructions Execute full presentation and demo for 30-60 min Follow up with proposal Things to look for Is the cal invite clear Do they send an email confirming the meeting Do they send a reminder How do they conduct the call What pre-call prep did they do to ensure they know pertinent details about my mock business which they assigned me Do they start with discovery questions Do they proceed to problem and solution statements in a way that is tailored to what we discussed in the discovery questions Are they consultative in their approach Do they engage in presentation comprehension check-ins, making sure I’m paying attention Are they facile with ROI and business driver calculations pertinent to my business Do they build agreement through the presentation How do they react when I feign confusion on an important topic How do they handle objections How do they react to aggressive, verging on combative, questions How do they handle my questions about competition Do they ask for the sale Judge coachability Stop them partway, give some pointers, request they start the section again Based on outcome, will progress to on-site interviews or end the process Interviewing Do all prior screening yourself before wasting team time Get team’s perspective Team interviews Specific goals for each staff member Recruiting acumen Tool adoption and tech understanding Culture fit Selling them on the job Script out each person’s questions Note down green, yellow, red flags and overall summation recommendation Block time for note taking after the interview Look for red flags missed before Group cultural interview by taking candidate out for beer Social beer interview Invite broader team beyond just interview team Require all staff to provide feedback in green/yellow/red flag format and summary recommendation Mainly looking for red flags Deciding between multiple candidates If too many good ones, hire extra as they will be revenue positive soon Reference checking Provided references On a scale of 1-10, how likely would you recommend them? Must be 8 or above or else find out why lower What would you need to do to become a 10? Backchannel references Look for shared LinkedIn and Facebook connections Look for people closer to you than them What are the top 3 characteristics of the candidate (to 3-4 people to see patterns) Post interview Move fast If there’s doubt, there is no doubt Compensation Look at market rates Glassdoor, payscale If average deal size is 10K and rep can close 5 per month netting you 50K in bookings, at a 20% cost of sales can’t be paying then more than 10K per month in base and commission. Can’t pay 100K base and 200K OTE Variable compensation 50/50 for AEs 60/40 or 70/30 for SDRs and CSMs Quotas a bit old school. CRM with metrics and charts and ratios better for management. But quotas still useful. Quotas best when you know the natural rate of sales New hires will ask what percent of reps are hitting their quota SDRs Salesforce SDR in SF makes 50K base and 70K OTE Variable comp based on verified qualified opportunities; AE has the meeting and confirms they’re qualified Weekly goals depend on deal size and type 100 calls and 100 emails per day that are high quality $50/appt set and held for 8 target per week for $20K variable comp Do not cap upside Don’t make variable comp all or nothing AEs 50/50 split 50-60 base and OTE 100-120K Expensive software like Workday could be $100K base and $200K OTE Want cost of sales not to exceed 20% of revenue Quotas should be attainable CRM should be able to show win rates, number of opps a typical rep gets a month from SDRs Figure out your rate of sales as a founder and then extrapolate to someone doing it full time Pay commissions on cash in the door not just bookings collected over time Jason Lemkin idea of rep gets no commission until they cover their base salary and then they get double commission Equity Substantially lower than for engineers A few basis points vested over 4 years Offering and closing candidates Verbal offer via phone followed by formal offer letter after they’re interested in progressing If not proceeding, just say it wasn’t a fit and not much else Just talk about what you pay and rationale behind it instead of asking for candidate expectations Get verbal agreement before sending offer letter “I only want to send an offer letter if you’re going to sign it, so will you accept this offer when I present it?” Don’t negotiate comp Don’t want disparities on team Explain market comp and business economics rationale and why it’s fair Large supply of qualified sales professionals Sell other parts of the role like personal development, career progression, put role and salary review 6 months after start After closing Move to start date as quickly as possible Target starting classes together Line up materials for onboarding and assignable pre-work 12 high impact sales onboarding and training Rigorous 1-2 week sales bootcamp Pre-onboarding homework Company culture Market subject matter and product Tooling and process training Drilling and repetitions Ramp Monitoring Onboarding 101 University style Give team names to classes; sparring drills. Camaraderie and competition Hire in classes and onboard that way too Really big google doc you fork for each class Then a series of google docs linked to google sheet checklist to track execution of each class Onboarding software like Parklet or Kin Pre-work Assign not-insignificant amount of work Readings, presentations, recordings Library of awesome calls and terrible calls organized by customer type; watch a set ahead of time Recorded feature demos and webinars Support portal with video content Provide a series of hyperlinks to work through Assign some reading including some books Or assortment of blog posts The Goal Getting Things Done The Score Takes Care of Itself 10 hours of work over 2 weeks Tell them their execution will be monitored and audited. This is not optional. It’s important. There will be a test. Deliver in way you can openly track progress and which they know you have ability to track Sharing in google doc and asking them to highlight sections as they complete them Standard admin work W2, etc. Cultural onboarding Explicitly share tenets and values of sales team and how it operates Nice example values from TalentBin Mention those values during hiring process Frame them in your organizational history Business and market subject matter onboarding Market understanding Full hour session on the history and state of the art of the industry, impacts from latest trends, other solutions in the market and nearby that work together Business driver understanding How does client business work, key cost and revenue drivers, how solutions impact them Diffenrces between verticals Common metrics to measure the drivers Have teammate do the training for an hour and record it and test people on it Technical understanding Key technical details in the industry Product and presentation onboarding Initial product walkthrough Key elements, use cases, business drivers Abridged version of customer facing demo Present and test with quizzing software Sales presentation and segments Walk through all parts of the presentation and explain context of each part Customer facing demo and demo segments Mock demo to class as if customer The point of this section is to demonstrate abc which help users do xyz to solve pain mno Objection handling Go through list of common ones Competition Go over landscape Tools and process onboarding Provisioning and configuration High quality equipment Pre-provision software Google apps, salesforce, act-on sales account, yesware, ClearSlide, insidesales.com click to call, insidesales.com power dialer, ringcentral Add to recurring meetings Shwag ready on day one Configure accounts like email signatures in a group setting together Google chrome setup and bookmarking Gmail setup: email signature, keyboard shortcuts, undo send, send and archive, auto advance, other enablers of inbox zero Adding browser and gmail plugins like rapportive, Yesware Voicemail setup for phone Jing for screenshotting and screen casting Corporate email on cell phone Demo environment in product they will sell Training: basic tools Cover all tools they’re expected to use Browser GTD mindset Closing tabs that aren’t needed anymore Creating a new window for a new task that may create multiple tabs Closing windows when a task completes Keyboard shortcuts Email for sales GTD If no next action, archive Audit this: when reps have already read unimportant email in inbox, tell them Remove email push notifications Close email and work out of CRM and calendar Teach well written emails Clear topical subject lines How to use CC properly and reply all Messages with whitespace for readability, bold, bullets, headings, calling out individuals and action items Write for searchability so it’s easy to find How to proofread and expectations for rigor and grammatical excellence in client-facing communications This will be audited in the CRM Templating mindset Save time and reduce errors Provide templates for new product releases Encourage reps to create own Culture of template sharing Keystroke shortcuts Print out cheat sheet for all reps J, K X E Command enter Enter R G I Calendaring Using calendar to manage prospects Using calendar to manage self Sending, confirming, declining Compelling invites Venue in the where Clear and actionable title Agenda items in body with repetition of venue Removal of items that aren’t relevant Prep and follow up blocks for meetings and no back to backs Blocking stretches for follow up time, midpipeline management, inbox maintenance Painting the calendar: book block by block the entire day so you spend time on the correct things Training: sales tools CRM If it’s not in salesforce, it doesn’t count or get paid Audit it Data model Explain accounts, contacts as children, opps as unit of potential commerce with an account, activities record info about interactions and as to-dos for future Show how to create each object and important fields like projected revenue, stage, size of opp/size of prize, contact info and title How to disposition items like marking a demo as held and recording notes, retiring tasks, noting closed won and lost opps Key reports and task views Bookmark key ones Console viewer for easy task viewing and execution Pipeline reports Error checking reports like open opps with insufficient activity or demos or tasks in unexecuted states Sales-enabled email Act-On marketing automation suite Yesware to BCC to salesforce, open and click track, templating IHance for catching and pushing to Salesloft inbound emails from prospects BCCing to salesforce Open and click tracking Templating and mass mailing Mass mailing to midpipeline template to “check out this new feature” How and when to use open and click tracking (how MDR outreach is received and how follow-up collateral is shared) Presentation software Clearslide, zoom Standard slide decks Recording Post follow up like sending instrumented deck hyperlinks Dispositioning of demo notes Power dialing software Making calls Leaving pre-recorded voicemails Sending follow-up emails Sales cycle and cadence How customer purchases Budgetary cycles Walk through tempo of typical deal Who is responsible for what part Sales org cadence Solid weekly, monthly, quarterly cadence Review goals of each meeting Weekly hour long Monday call Previous week stats and revenue progress Share product and customer success progress Team wins Team learnings and mistakes Twice daily standup (before lunch, at close) to review activity, wins, learning Weekly hour long pipeline meeting to review deals, drive accountability, get team feedback Monthly company all hands Weekly happy hour close of Fri Drilling, repetitions, shadowing Group drilling and repetitions Must drill demo and presentation Don’t burn valid opportunities doing this Have each rep present each chapter of the presentation and demo step by step to the whole class and stop to get feedback from instructor/you and rest of team Sparring Split class into groups of two Each pair trade off as presenter and prospect Series of mock presentations Do this for presentation and negotiation calls and cold calling for lead gen Run sparring in full game situation using normal tools not just sitting in room looking at each other Pair programming/ride alongs Recorded calls as assigned pre-work better than riding along during selling hours Pair programming: pair new hire with seasoned individual in their role to follow key workflows in a production environment Can do it for SDRs and AEs Bluebirding, ramp, monitoring Bluebirding, proactive call review, KPI tracking Bluebirding, throwaways, and teaming When AEs starting, give them bluebird opportunities (easy ones likely to close such as those that come in inbound like lead capture forms) Team with reps on early calls You’re not there to correct slight wobbles, just if wheels come off Give reps printed script for presentation and demo Opposite is throwaways that are inbound and unqualified. Helpful as practice demos for onboarding Proactive and ambient call review Sitting in on live calls too expensive if done too long Record all sales calls Require reps to surface to team at standups when they’ve had an awesome or heinous call Awesome ones to in hall of fame used for future onboarding Heinous ones discussed and listened to to analyze Listen to calls happening around you KPI tracking and 1:1s Hold rates for demos by MDRs Win rates for AEs Activity levels and stuck opportunities Ongoing learning and development Train on product and market updates and test on it Cadenced coaching and professional development An hour blocked at end of day Fri SDRs do drilling with management and each other on objection handling, messaging review, demo practice AEs work on different parts of sales motion Invest in building machine that can take junior SDRs and train them into top AEs Releases and market changes Embed product updates into a cadenced meeting Have product management or product marketing come for 10 minutes of weekly sales team meeting to show what just shipped and what’s on deck Plus one off training exercises on new releases New slides for deck New part of demo Special event over catered lunch or take over Fri training session for it Same with market changes or competitors; treat it like a product release 13 where do you go from here Conclusion Are you ready to hire a sales leader? Exit criteria is a set of sellers selling as well as you were Who to hire? Want hands on tactical sales leader Similar sales motion and average price Someone who scaled farther than you but not to massive conglomerate Reference and backchannel reference References Selling Transparency sale Challenger sale Triangle selling Spin selling Sales management Cracking the sales management code Revenue acceleration formula Blueprints for a SaaS sales organization Prospecting and SDR management Sales development playbook Leading sales development Fanatical prospecting Startup sales David skok blog forentrepreneurs.com
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