Notes on Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross and Marylou Tyler

I finally got a chance to finish reading another sales classic: ​Predictable Revenue: Turn Your Business Into a Sales Machine with the $100 Million Best Practices of Salesforce.com by Aaron Ross and Marylou Tyler.

While some of the material is a bit dated, I found the general framework and advice to be really useful. I also liked a lot of the concrete examples (especially the charts in the dedicated website for the book) with sample schedules, sample campaigns, etc. Some of my biggest takeaways were around the power of specialization as well as asking for referrals and "mapping calls."

Below are my main notes from the book. I definitely recommend it to anyone working on B2B sales.

---

1 where the $100 million came from
3 keys
Predictable lead gen
Sales dev team that bridges chasm between marketing and sales
Consistent sales systems
Outbound sales development team focuses 100% on prospecting; no closing deals and no inbound leads (those go to separate market response team)
Shifting from organic growth to proactive growth through new systems
Not about adding more sales people or making them work harder
Lead gen causes new customer acquisition
Experienced sales people doing prospecting doesn’t work
Figure out how much new pipeline needed to be generated per month to meet goals
Outbound sales dev team that focuses on generating leads from businesses with no activity and cold for at least 6 months. Inbound leads handled by separate team. Either team passes qualified folks to quota carrying AEs
Quick ramp in productivity to product ROI on sales (3M per 100K spent on rep)
Self-managing systems, no bottleneck, doesn’t depend on CEO or sales execs
Make your lack of money an advantage

2 cold calling 2.0 ramp sales fast without cold calls
The first breakthroughs
Not about making cold calls
Prospecting into cold accounts without cold calling 
Proactive, predictable, revenue intersection
Short and sweet emails asking for referral to best person in org worked better than typical sales email
Mass emailing execs at fortune 2000 can generate 9% response rate
RIP cold calling
Results matter more than activity metrics
Qualified leads vs dials
Research calls vs cold calls
Super short emails
Why AEs should not make cold calls
Short targeted top 5-10 leads ok but not general prospecting. Focus on current customers, past dead deals, relationships at larger targets.
Dedicated sales dev team does higher volume prospecting 

3 executing cold calling 2.0
Need someone 100% dedicated to prospecting
Separate role from processing inbound leads and closing
Marketing response function handles inbound
Specialize your 4 core sales roles
Outbound reps (qualifiers)
Organize by territories
1 Can support 2-5 AEs
Enterprise Business Representative
Inbound reps/market response reps (qualifiers)
1 rep can handle 400 inbound leads per month
AEs (closers)
CSMs/AMs (farmers)
Funnel
Put new reps through training and time in another function like support before they start selling
Prospecting cycle length: Measure time from prospect response to qualified opportunity creation
Takes 2-4 weeks usually
Sales cycle length: time from opportunity qualified to closed
Process
Prepare
Get clear on ideal customer profile
Ideal accounts
Ideal contacts at those
Functional teams
Influencers
Business issues
Fit
Core challenges 
Graph revenue potential x likelihood of winning and target those that are high on both
Red flags
Just installed another system for x
Bad geography
No budget 
Know it alls
Too much education needed to teach value of solution 
Build your list
Onesource
Infousa
Jigsaw
Insideview
ZoomInfo
Hoovers
Datasalad
Prospect 
Run outbound email campaigns
send x emails
Plain text not html
Short and easy to read on mobile
Establish credibility like with customers and social proof
Ask for one thing like referral
50-100 emails per day per rep
Goal is to generate 5-10 responses per rep per day 
Expect 7-9% response rate excluding bounces
Don’t email Monday or Friday but Sunday is ok
Email before 9 or after 5
Clean up bounced emails from database
Log all responses and handle them timely
Out of office replies: extract names of more people to target
Follow up emails with phone calls 
Make y mapping calls
Generate internal referrals 
Work responses (9% response rate)
Sell the dream 
X call conversations
Connect their need to your solution
Y demos/appointments
Begin sales cycle
Hand off to quota carrying salesperson
Z new opportunities 
N closed deals
Email response handling from outbound
Goal is one of these: who is the best contact to talk to OR when can we set up a call to discuss
If referral: Then email the one you were referred to directly and cc and mention the referrer
If intro call: Intro call focused on their not your business to understand if there’s a high level fit. Don’t talk more than 30% of time on prospecting call. 
If not interested reply; ask why
No doesn’t matter until it comes from ceo or final decision maker and even then need to ask why to learn
Often prospects don’t understand what you do
Emails opened but not replied to
Report on this and see who opened email a lot
Review report every few hours
Call those who opened many times 
Example old opportunities campaign
Those that died before and had no activity for 6 months
Process notes and metrics goals in website for book https://predictablerevenue.com/audiobook/
Sending unsolicited emails and can spam compliance
No misleading subject
Physical address and opt out link in email

Step 4 sell the dream
Establish vision of solution that solves their needs and connect your product to their vision
Challenge them: how serious are they who it solving their challenges. Interest vs action. 
Are we connected with those with power and influence?
Disco questions
How are your teams and functions organized
How does your process work today
What systems do they use for x
How long have those systems been in place
What challenges do you have now
Have you looked at alternatives yet
Have you tried and failed with other solutions and why
Where does x fall on your priority list? What is higher?
What would an ideal solution look like for you?
How does your decision making process work?
Why did you buy the old system and who made the decision to purchase it?
What is the probability a project will occur this year/nexf 6 months
Why do it now or why wait until later
Call low before exec convo
Call employees to get inside scoop before talking to higher up
Where do you have pain today? What’s not working as well as it should?
Ask for referrals. Who else should you talk to at other divisions or teams?
Schedule next step while on phone
Building champions
If contact not ready to proceed, help them become a champion who does the selling for you internally 
Focus on what will make that person successful 
Ask how you can support them

Step 5 pass the baton - when is an opportunity qualified?
SDR prospects, sends emails, does mapping and qual calls then hands off to AE
AE assesses needs, does custom demo, addresses concerns, negotiates, closes
Sample qual criteria for handoff
At least 20 users
No red flags
Generated by SDR
Does company fit ICP
Are we speaking to someone with influence or power
Clear interest in next step like scoping call with AE
Opp passed over but still not compensated to SDR until AE qualifies the opp again
Passing over opp smoothly
Hot transfer and intro live
Schedule time on lead and AE’s calendars
Worst: email intro them
Use an audit process
Check every opp upgraded to qualified for proper process and criteria followed
Details entered into CRM
AAA call planning
Answers you want to get
Attitudes prospect should feel
Actions to take after the call
Call flows
First learn about prospects needs
Position solution to handle needs
Next steps
Leaving voicemails
Use as tool to get email reply
Casual tone
Repeat your number and name at start and end
Repeat their name twice
Send email as soon as left voicemail
Examples of voicemails 
Move prospects through account status assembly line stages
Cold
Untouched or no activity for a while 
Working
Calls
Demos
Nurturing
Check quarterly
Old lost opp
Avoid
Customer
Waste of time
Duplicate
SDR comp
Base plus commission of 50% of base
Commission broken up into 2 parts
Half based on number of qualified opps generated
Half based on deals that closed
SDR training
Weeks 1-2 general company and product training
Week 3
Daily 3 goals
Daily training
Configure CRM
Sit with SDR daily
Adding accounts
Deduplicating leads
Send a mass outbound email
Transition a territory
Weeks 4-5
Every day set 3 goals
Send 100 outbound emails before Fri
Practice logging and responding to emails correctly
Work up to 5 call conversations per day 
Have a veteran SDR sit with you every day
Draft a personal dashboard
Discuss a new section of the training materials with the team
Sample beginning daily goals
Pick a new module of the CRM manual to study
Call 5 old, not cold, leads to practice discussing needs in a business conversation 
Learn about account status
Discuss ICP criteria with colleague
Add 5 new contacts to crm
Send a mass email
Meet with a mentor
Meet someone from another team
Listen to a sales call
Listen to a prospecting call
Draft your day in the life
Sample intermediate daily goals
Configure crm reports and dashboard
Customize own cheat sheet
Practice mapping calls into cold accounts
Call exec assistant of president and ask for referral to right contact 
Role play calls with teammate
Large account mapping project: map out 3-5 divisions
Draft plan for month: vision, method, metrics
Business problem vs solution role play exercise
Run a dead opportunities campaign

4 prospecting and sales best practices
A day in a prospector’s life sample schedule
Prioritize goals for day at beginning
Respond to leads in morning (important and urgent)
New calls in afternoon (important not urgent)
Afternoon scheduled calls and demos
Evening email campaign to have fresh responses in morning 
Maintaining enthusiasm: breaks ever 90 min and full lunch with coworkers
Stop work at reasonable time like 6pm
Top 6 prospecting mistakes reps make
Expecting instant results
Can take 2-4 weeks of talking to a company just to get to a qualified opportunity 
Writing long emails 
Short and just one question
Going wide not deep
Hit 10 accounts 10 times instead of 100 only once
Giving up too quickly at ideal targets
Keep going to understand fit until get clear no from right decision maker
Pleasantly persistent 
Not giving up quickly enough at not ideal targets
If not ideal, move on
Depending on activity metrics, not proven process
Dials per day less useful than calls per day or appointments per week 
Favorite prospecting questions
Did I catch you at a bad time?
Shows respect 
May I ask how your x effort is organized?
Easy one for prospect to warm up with 
Explain why you’re calling: researching their company to understand if we are a fit
If you were me, how would you approach your org?
Ask if they’re nice but not the right person 
Do you have your calendar handy?
Get the meeting while have them on phone
Quick prospecting tricks
Call/email high
Get referred down
Attitude
Nonthreatening researcher not pushy salesperson 
Phone questions
Did I catch you at a bad time
Who is the right person to talk to about x
May I ask how your x team/function/process is structured today
Would it be a waste of time to discuss x to see if we could help?
Think bite-sized emails
Ask only 1 question per email
If they aren’t interested, find out why
Is x not a priority?
No budget?
Org in chaos?
This tells you your next step
Don’t give up too easily with ideal prospects
Don’t stop until get no from right decision maker and not even from another executive
Always set up the next step
What will help your process and the prospect
Frame it as valuable to them
The best way for us to save time is x
The fastest way to a decision is x
Your team will learn x
If they have their own idea of next step, enhance that with your own idea on top
What we’ve found as the next step is to x
Time management and focus
Map out 3-5 goals for next day
Have and log 5 calls
Send a campaign of 50 mass emails
Qualify one new opportunity 
Schedule two scoping or discovery calls
Map out a success plan for next month (activities, goals, metrics)
Predictablerevenue.com/templates
Example dashboards
Team dashboard
SDR dashboard
Images on website
Team Three column format
Left current month activity
Center current month results or deals
Right long term results YTD
Individual
3x3 grid

5 sales best practices: sell to success
Shorten sales cycle
Improve sales productivity 
Want long term successful customers not just ABC (always be closing)
Customers don’t care about your sale. They want to improve their business
Sell past the close to their success plan. Not just deployment but adoption. 
Push selling vs pull selling
Pull through buying cycle
Don’t care too much about the close
Create joint vision with customer. Close becomes just one natural step
Include simple success plan step before close. A few bullet points. 
9 ways you lengthen your sales cycle
Wrong prospects, wrong messaging
No sales process
Fantastic but unused sales process
Selling selfishly vs solving. Need to disqualify 
Selling too low. Start high
Poor understanding of buyer’s process
What’s your usual process to buy products like this
What would it take to close in 30/60/90 days
How can we get this done
Not caring about them
Care about their success
Share resources, news, advice, referrals
Telling instead of showing
Give something for free of value 
Free trial
Dragging your feet on disqualifying
Clear out clutter from pipeline monthly 
Obsess about decision making process not decision maker
Who is involved
How have you evaluated similar products
What are the steps to have a check cut
Build internal champions first
9 steps to create free trials that maximize conversion rates
Design the trial with your prospect and help them run it
Understand their true business issues before you begin
Agree with prospect on where free trial fits in their buying process
Better to nail a single problem than to solve many problems for everyone. Where can you show biggest bang for buck/prospect’s time? Easiest success first. 
Define with client what success trial means
Create milestones for the trial
80% of users trained in week 1
3 dashboards built
Enroll prospect and their team
Preschedule activities and check-ins on calendar in advance
Simplify the trial process
Set expectations 
3h15m sales process
How reps can be more efficient per deal
Disqualify early
Get access to key decision makers
Step 1: 15 min first call: is this a waste of time?
Set expectations and lay out process to decide if good fit to save them time
1 hour deep dive discovery call
If goes well, then group whiteboarding session 
Step 2: 1 hour discovery call: is this a fit?
If it’s a fit, Create plan for group whiteboarding session with their key decision makers
Step 3: 2 hour group working session: do we want to work together?
Create joint vision together
Whiteboard to create vision together
Killer sales people uncover true problems behind desired solutions
Ask why, why is that important, so what
Prospects should earn proposals out of you
If someone asks for pricing, say would be happy to send it but first need to set up scoping call with key people to ensure the proposal is accurate and meets their needs
Favorite sales call with question
Did I catch you at a bad time?

6 lead generation: seeds, nets, spears
Seeds word of mouth 
Happy customers
SEO
Take a long time but highest close rate
Nets marketing
Email
Conferences
Advertising 
Spears outbound sales
Targeted efforts
Example funnels for each in website images
Prospects: names who haven’t responded positively yet
Leads: names who responded positively in some way
Opportunities: qualified leads
Clients: have given you money
Champion: client or not who has referred you business
Use layers of the onion to sell for you
Let prospects get to know you on their own time
Let them choose own adventure
Mutual trust and commitment goes up with each layer
How to generate a steady flow of inbound leads
Referrals
Free tools, free trials
Organic SEO
Blogging
Email newsletters
At least monthly 
Webinars
Teach people something useful, don’t sell
Have customers be the presenters 
PPC
Affiliate marketing
Social media 
Marketing automation best practices 
Marketo
Email marketing, lead nurturing, lead scoring
Revenue funnel in website image
Stage 1: awareness
Anonymous
Activity still tracked and graphed weekly 
Site visits
Searches for Marketo
Blog content 
Stage 2: inquiry
Registered with name and email
Progressive profiling. Asking for info bit by bit. 
Stage 3: prospect
Colder than leads
Lead score from 1-100
Less than 65, prospect; at least 65, lead
Scoring considers how recently visited, how frequently visited, keywords, actions
Score decay over time
Demographics 
Lead source
Behavioral engagement
Some things add to score, others take away
Specific points and rules in book
Stage 4: lead
Sample lead conversion rates based on source in book
Automated lead nurturing campaigns 
New prospect email campaign when first register 
Automated email from rep when content downloaded 
21 day follow up campaign
Details in book
Stay in touch campaigns
Drip
Marketo lead lifecycle (image on site)
Various actions and alerts for custom touches for most interested leads
Fast track: Personal follow up within 5 min
Normal within 24 hours
5 primary qualification criteria
At end of process, 2 more emails and 1 call before recycling back for ongoing nurturing
Make it really easy for reps to prioritize 
Dashboard image in website
Stars and flames
Maximize your ROI with trade shows
Bad reputation for generating leads
Quality not quantity

7 Seven fatal mistakes CEOs and sales VPs make
Not taking responsibility for understanding of lead gen and sales
Thinking AEs should prospect or be jacks of all trades
Assuming channels will do most of selling for you
Talent fumbles: hiring, training, incentivizing
Taking resume at face value
Insufficient training
Misguided ramp time expectations 
Promoting wrong people
Thinking product out instead of customer in
Focus on Impact to customers not just product features 
Softly tracking and measuring
New leads per month and what source
Conversion rate of leads to opps
Number of and $ value of opps created per month
Conversion rate of opps to closed deals
Booked revenues in new biz, renewals, expansion
Command and control management 
Telling vs coaching
Read 7 day weekend book, CEO flow
Underinvesting in customer success 

8 sales machine fundamentals: specialize
Happy customers create growth
Sales 1.0 promotion vs sales 2.0 attraction
Pleasantly persistent 
Experiment
Don’t do one off projects
Don’t use excel, only CRM
Focus on results than activities
Track fewer and more important metrics
Separate four core sales functions
Pod structure

9 cultivating your talent
Happy employees develop happy customers
Training bootcamp
Product recertification ongoing 
Role playing

10 leadership and management
Six responsibilities of manager
Choose people carefully
Starter role to test for 6 months
Set expectations and vision
Remove obstacles
Inspire your people
Work for your people
Improve next time
Retaining Star employees
First break all the rules book
V2MOM planning process
Vision
Values
Methods
Obstacles
Metrics
Alignment from top to bottom
Self-managing teams
Rotate team lead positions
Engage whole team in designing comp
CRM adoption
Execs lead by example
Exec dashboard reviewed regularly
Comp dependent on CRM

11 next steps and resources