Revenue Operations—aka “RevOps”—is an emerging business function that’s proving invaluable to an organization’s goal of scaling revenue growth. It involves aligning sales, marketing, and customer success operations across the customer lifecycle to drive growth through cross-team alignment and operational efficiency. The RevOps function aims to break down silos between departments and empower sales and customer-facing teams with processes and tools to perform more effectively. Sales leaders look to RevOps to enable data-driven insights for strategic forecasting and refine sales processes to foster productivity and efficiency. RevOps teams also oversee the alignment between CRM workflows and sales strategies, shouldering responsibility for ensuring sales data hygiene and up-to-date CRM record-keeping. Ultimately, RevOps exists to increase revenue-generating teams’ capacity and shorten sales cycles. However, RevOps leaders and their teams have their share of challenges – which, when left unaddressed, can hinder an organization’s success and growth.

Challenge #1: Outdated, static sales playbooks 

Many sales playbooks are created by an experienced team leader for the company’s current needs. But as companies evolve and grow, their sales strategies must shift. Most RevOps teams lack the time and resources to continually assess what’s working and what’s not, and playbooks can become outdated and ineffective.

Challenge #2: Inefficient, manual data collection and updating 

Sales reps are notoriously bad at creating complete CRM records and keeping them updated. Poor CRM record-keeping leads to bad data hygiene, causing deficient pipeline visibility and inaccurate forecasting.

Challenge #3: Siloed data 

Because data is stored in disparate sources, RevOps teams spend time organizing the data before they can analyze it and implement new coaching strategies. Once data is collected, logging it in the company’s CRM is another hurdle.

In combination, these challenges can lead to sales inefficiencies, lost opportunities, and missed revenue targets. To address these issues, RevOps teams can look to AI-powered revenue intelligence technology to streamline processes, update playbooks, centralize disparate data, and improve sales efficiencies and performance.

Through automation of sales activity data capture that integrates with the CRM system, sales teams no longer carry the burden of manual data entry and sales activity updates. This improvement alone can give sales reps significant time back to focus on selling, rather than Updating.

Additionally, connecting various data sources enables accurate insights and forecasting, and enables AI-generated actionable insights that help sales team members easily spot at-risk deals, receive guidance on what actions to take for every deal in the pipeline, and increase customer adoption. AI-powered revenue intelligence also helps RevOps update and improve playbooks based on which communication methods lead to the best outcomes and effective strategies for sales team members to win more deals, faster. Let’s take a look.

Automated data capture speeds sales performance

Comprehensive, automated activity data capture that integrates with a company’s CRM system can track every interaction that takes place and update the CRM record accordingly. This saves sales team members hours of manual labor each week so they can focus on the activities that generate revenue. RevOps gains assurance that data is automatically updated, consistent, and accessible to anyone who needs it, whenever they need it. As a result, sales leaders gain clearer pipeline visibility and can make accurate sales forecasts and strategic decisions. As an example, a major hospitality brand’s commercial sales and support teams were responsible for manually inputting and updating records in Salesforce, which was time-consuming and inefficient. To relieve sales reps of this arduous task, group leaders searched for a connector that would integrate its Outlook email system with Salesforce and automatically update the customer record when any interaction took place. Through automated activity data capture, the team was able to track every interaction and every deal without manual effort, significantly improving their efficiency, productivity, and collaboration, and helping them bring in more deals.

Connect disparate data in a central location

Revenue intelligence technology connects all the systems and tools sales and revenue teams use, securing and centralizing data and making it accessible to those who need it, as determined by a company’s permissions structure. As a result, RevOps teams no longer spend many hours organizing data from different touch points and can more easily identify the most impactful communications methods and sales processes. When data is centralized and safeguarded as a single, shared source of truth, teams gain better visibility into the pipeline. AI can then absorb all the data and use it to build revenue signals that guide sales teams with data-driven insights through each step of the sales process.

AI revenue signals speed revenue velocity

By harnessing AI technology, companies also gain powerful, actionable insights that take industry benchmarks into consideration and help teams identify opportunities for improvement throughout the sales cycle. AI-powered revenue signals, an essential technological capability, are interactive, contextual alerts that help spur sales and customer success teams into action. These signals offer guided selling about what steps to take and when. They foster better communication, faster response times, improved collaboration – and ultimately, higher win rates.

For example, business consultancy Slalom’s RevOps team wanted to create processes to automate and advance deals through the pipeline and improve the sales team’s close rate. First, they implemented an automated activity data capture solution. When looking at the data and leveraging AI insights, RevOps realized that sales reps were not consistently sending pre- and post-meeting emails, which kept some deals from advancing. Additionally, they determined that ​involving product and industry experts ​in opportunity planning could increase the likelihood of deals closing. The team leveraged AI revenue signals to digitize sales coaching, create consistent workflows, and guide the team through the right actions to keep prospects advancing through the pipeline. As a result, their conversion rate grew one percent, generating an additional $60 million in Sales.

Blend AI and automation to create dynamic playbooks

Sales playbooks are a vital ingredient to the success of any sales team and sales strategy execution. Keeping them updated based on what’s working – and what’s not working – is critical. Without data-driven insights, however, RevOps teams rely on guesswork and intuition to determine what components or processes must change – or they simply don’t make needed changes due to a lack of time and resources.

Revenue intelligence technology connects AI insights and enables RevOps to create dynamic playbooks that can easily be updated and scaled for fast-growing companies or as market forces shift. AI helps teams quickly identify which communication strategies lead to better results and offers guidance on exactly what changes to make, while automation facilitates changes and updates in real-time.

With these insights and capabilities, playbooks are transformed into living sales guides based on the most effective best practices, keywords, or tactics. This enables sales teams to work in unity with the most up-to-date tactics to close more deals.Take VDA, an elevator and escalator consulting services provider. They wanted to create a playbook to build a superior digital customer engagement process, as there were lapses in communication, particularly among team members who were new to online customer engagement. To scale best practices and playbooks, VDA configured contextual, actionable notifications to guide consultants and support staff on the next best step when action is required on an existing lead, opportunity, or project.

As a result, VDA saw significant improvement in customer engagement, which resulted in stronger relationships and the sales team’s ability to offer additional services and value.

The bottom line on revenue intelligence

Revenue intelligence that leverages automation and AI can be a powerful tool in helping RevOps teams enable cross-team collaboration between sales, marketing, and CRM owners and ensure smooth, consistent processes and workflows. The results can be foundational to bottom-line growth: complete data integrity and visibility across systems, 360-degree pipeline visibility, data-driven decision-making, and accurate sales forecasts. Technology is not the answer to every challenge, but using it in thoughtful ways can help remove roadblocks, automate time-intensive, manual tasks, accelerate sales cycles, and give sales teams more time to focus on what they do best: sell.

The post Boost Sales With AI-Driven Automation appeared first on RevGenius.

B2B contact lists are just as the name suggests–compiled lists of contact information and details on individual target customers working in a B2B capacity, or contact information for B2B companies.

They’re basically lists of the contact info for every target B2B customer you want to get in touch with. However, list building is more than simply compiling a list of email addresses and phone numbers, especially in the B2B SaaS industry.

When you’re building B2B contact lists of companies, you’ll probably want to know more than their contact information, like their firmographic data.

Firmographic data for B2B companies might entail their funding info, company tax structure, technological stacks, and more.

What you need to know about B2B contact lists is that you want to be able to capture your total addressable market (TAM).

Why do you need B2B contact lists?

Successfully capturing your TAM helps you avoid revenue leakage. Revenue leakage is basically the revenue you miss out on due to inefficiencies in your sales pipeline.

Here’s a more formal definition of revenue leakage from BoostUp:

“Revenue leakage is the potential revenue that a company misses out on or fails to capture, despite having a reasonable chance to earn it. It happens when there are inefficiencies or blind spots in the processes of identifying, pursuing, and closing sales opportunities.”

If your B2B contact lists are:

• incomplete
• inaccurate
• outdated

…You’re most likely only capturing a portion of your TAM, resulting in eventual revenue leakage. 

It’s like a domino effect: low-quality B2B contact lists lead to missed sales opportunities, which leads to missed revenue.

Simply having and compiling B2B contact data won’t help you prevent revenue leakage, but there are ways to streamline the process of sales prospecting and contact list building to do so.

How to build a B2B contact list at scale 

The truth about contact list building is that it takes a long time. Plus, it’s difficult to ensure your B2B contact data is complete, accurate and timely. 

Building a clean B2B contact data list at scale starts with choosing the right list building method and tools. With a strong tool and list building method in hand, you’re able to overcome the potential drawbacks of list building that most others run into.

Let’s explore some of the more traditional B2B contact list building methods and their drawbacks.

Traditional B2B contact list building methods

1. Manually combing the web.

If you’re a small business just starting out with your contact list building, manually building your contact lists and working out of spreadsheets might be all you need.

However, if you’re a more mid-sized or enterprise-grade business, manual list building and working out of messy spreadsheets can be a nightmare.

While you can do your own research on Google for your ideal customer profile’s contact data, the traditional way of manually building your contact lists also entails:

• Gathering email address contact information through email newsletter subscriber lists
• Manually verifying each phone number for each contact you have on the list
• Building gated content on your website or landing pages to gather email addresses and other contact information
• Running ads on social media pages like Facebook to gather more contacts

…And the list goes on. 

Needless to say, building a B2B contact data list manually is time-consuming and requires a lot of upfront work. This traditional method of list building doesn’t cut it for businesses looking to scale their sales or marketing outreach efforts.

2. Purchasing pre-built lists.

If you’re at a more mature company that needs a more efficient and timely way of contact list building, you’ve probably thought about buying pre-built, pre-verified contact data lists.

This includes purchasing access to B2B contact databases, which are structured collections of B2B contact data organized and verified by other organizations that own this data.

While this list building method is surely much easier and efficient than manually building your own lists, traditional B2B contact databases still come with their own drawbacks.

Traditional B2B contact databases:

• Are typically old and outdated
• Only update and verify their data based on a certain time periods
• Get their data from limited sources
• Don’t take timely events into consideration (i.e. contact job changes, changed contact details, etc.).
• Are not always compliant with current data privacy laws and regulations
• Typically focus their data coverage on enterprise businesses, not SMBs

Despite these drawbacks, a lot of sales professionals opt to use B2B contact databases for their ease-of-use and accessibility. But if everyone is using a traditional B2B contact database, that means most SaaS sales professionals are getting access to the same databases.

That’s where a “real-time search engine” for B2B contact list building comes in.

Using a real-time search engine for B2B contacts

If you’re looking for a sales list building tool that helps set you apart from other sales teams, you need a tool that can help you research and verify B2B contact data as efficiently and accurately as possible. 

The concept behind an AI-powered data tool is simple: It’s like doing a Google search for B2B contact data that’s already verified in real-time.

A few great sales prospecting tools that help you do just that are Seamless.AI, LinkedIn Navigator, and ZoomInfo–to name a few.

Imagine using a traditional B2B contact database to reach out to an ideal sales lead, only to find out that you have the wrong email address or phone number. 

Now imagine finding out that your B2B contact database only contains 50 contacts from your target leads out of the full 300+ sales lead contacts that actually make up your TAM (total addressable market). 

This means you’re missing out on opportunities to reach your full target audience. 

With a lead search engine like Seamless.AI, you can set filters to narrow down your search results to timely, verified, and accurate contact data in real-time. 

Whether you’re searching for small business or large enterprise data, this type of sales intelligence software helps verify your contact data in real-time with AI and machine learning.

Related: Learn more about Seamless.AI’s “Total AI” lead scoring system that rates how accurate, up-to-date, and complete a single lead’s contact information is.

10 Best practices for building B2B contact lists

There’s no right or wrong answer to building a B2B contact list, but there are a few best practices to help you do it efficiently at scale.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by messy spreadsheets or inefficient list building, use these tips for B2B contact list building to help you overcome bottlenecks.

Related: Watch this webinar on the “10 Pitfalls to Avoid with B2B Contact Lists” on-demand to learn advice from real-life sales experts about list building. 

1. Don’t solely rely on B2B contact databases.

Traditional B2B contact databases can be outdated and unreliable. Instead, take a smarter approach to B2B contact list building with real-time search engine tools for lead data.

Most typical contact databases don’t automatically track job changes for you. The second you reach out to a prospect addressing them with the wrong title or company email address, you’ve already spent time crafting a message designed for a job that they’re not at anymore.

Make sure to look for lead contact data tools that have a system that notifies you of job changes, or at least automatically updates these contact changes to save you both time and face.

2. Understand the type of B2B contact data you’re looking for.

Are you looking for SMB data? Or are you looking for enterprise-level data?

Are you looking for funding data for B2B companies?

Knowing the type of B2B contact data that you need is part of knowing what information will help you not only get in contact with prospects, but also the information that will help you personalize and tailor your offers to highly qualified prospects.

Start with defining your ideal customer profile (ICP). What are their job titles? What kind of technology or software do they already use? How mature are their companies?

If you’re selling a small business project management tool and looking for small business owners, this helps dictate your contact data tool shopping. 

Browse around for B2B contact data tools that focus on offering data on small businesses rather than contact databases built around enterprise data. 

Case in point: A prospecting search engine tool like Seamless.AI provides much more data coverage on SMB contact data as opposed to using a B2B contact database provider like Lusha. 

If you’re struggling to find SMB contact data with other providers, narrow down your tool search to sales intelligence tools that offer more data coverage on SMBs.’

The bottom line of this tip is to have a goal in mind for the type of data you need to ultimately close sales deals.

3. Don’t skimp on data privacy regulations.

In a world where data-based sales approaches are applauded, data privacy should be top-of-mind.

You’re bound to run into the common sales objection or response, “How did you even get my information?” 

The last thing you want to run into is get hit with an unexpected, hefty fine for not complying with data privacy regulations. It’s also a situation that would automatically dissolve any foundation of trust that you want to build with prospects.

Our suggestion? Either get familiar with data privacy regulations yourself, or use a tool that has earned their data privacy badges (for GDPR compliance, CCPA, web privacy practices, device safety, etc.).

4. Know what features to look out for in B2B contact data list building tools.

Not all list building tools are the same. Some offer features to build email lists, some offer chrome extensions, and some even offer AI-powered sales scripts.

Regardless, you need to be a smart SaaS shopper and understand what features will help you the most in building a powerful sales pipeline.

Here are some must-have features to look out for in list building tools:

• Bulk search and saving emails: Find hundreds or thousands of contacts at scale,
• Coverage of data: Does this tool mostly cover enterprise-level B2B contact data, or does this tool offer more niche coverage of small to mid-sized businesses?
• Data refresh rates: How often does this tool refresh or verify their collection of data? Do you need contact data that’s refreshed and verified within a certain time frame?
• Intent data: Buyer intent signal data that helps you identify accounts that are ready-to-buy. 
• Data quality: You want to make sure your data is accurate, up-to-date, complete, and relevant.
• The number of B2B contacts you can access: How much data do you get access to with different list building tools? Compare the data coverage of your ICP between each tool. 
• Filtering and lead management: Most list building tools should enable you to filter your contacts based on specific criteria like industry, company size, job title, or more.
• Data security and compliance: B2B contact databases should always comply with current data compliance laws, like GDPR or CCPA.
• Integrations with other tools: You want a contact database that provides automations with pre existing tools in your tech stack.
• Customer support: If it’s your first time using a list building tool, a responsive and resourceful customer support team makes a big difference.
• Ease of use: You should find a tool that’s easy-to-navigate so your team can quickly learn to use it as well.

5. Focus on personalization beyond B2B contact data.

While this tip sounds very simple and obvious, it comes with some more not-so-obvious advice.

Building your B2B contact data lists is only one part of building a powerful sales pipeline; it’s the first step you need to start reaching out to your dream customers.

Think beyond simply building a contact list. Once you have a list of great potential prospects or leads, how are you going to reel them in?

You might have the most accurate, up-to-date, and complete list of B2B contacts, but there’s no use if you have no strategy to reach out to them.

Use your B2B contact data to your advantage. Lead contact data tools usually provide insights into a prospect’s preferences and organizational needs, especially through intent data, buying signals, and more. 

Use the information from your B2B contact data lists to generate actionable insights–insights about how to craft tailored messages to prospects that will pique their interest and make offers that align with their unique needs.

Case in point: With a sales data intelligence tool like Seamless.AI, you get visibility into a prospect or a company’s technological stack. 

Take some time to understand the type of tools that they currently have in their toolstack. Figure out how your offering or product can fit into their toolstack, or even better, bend and evolve with their current tech stack. 

Bonus points if you already offer integrations with the tools they already use. Use this knowledge to tailor your outreach messages to them and show them the value of adding your tool to their current stack.

6. Focus on lead qualification.

Not all of your leads in your B2B contact lists are equal. Some may be more likely to convert while others are simply interested in your product.

That’s where lead qualification comes in. Lead qualification is about focusing on selling to prospects who have both interest and intent. 

The process of qualifying your leads is like a sauce reduction. 

You’re reducing your piles of data down to the most qualified sales leads to start prioritizing your outreach efforts there. It’s like boiling down your sauce reduction down to flavors that you want to bring out most.

Here’s the simplified way to qualify your sales leads:

1. Define your ideal customer profile.
2. Create a lead scoring system.
3. Engage in active listening and ask qualifying questions.
4. Review past interactions to identify patterns of interest.
5. Assess budget, alignment with your product, and identify purchasing decision-makers\

The key thing to remember here is to prioritize high-quality leads that are more likely to convert.

Learn more about qualifying sales leads in this step-by-step guide to lead qualification.

7. Avoid buying email lists!

While there are many ways to find email addresses for your prospects, buying email lists shouldn’t be your main option.

Buying email lists can be considered:

• Invasive
• Illegal (violates the CAN-SPAM ACT)
• Detrimental for your email deliverability

Rather than taking the shortcut to buy email lists, focus on building your own email list through opt-in methods. 

Here are a few proven techniques to help you grow your email list organically:

• Gated or high-quality content marketing
• Optimize your website for email opt-ins
• Host webinars or virtual events
• Personalized email campaigns

Learn more ways to organically grow your email lists and why buying email lists can do more harm than good.

8. Automate data enrichment and data cleansing.

Not all data is accurate, complete, or up-to-date. According to Leadspace, B2B data decays at a rate of 2.1% per month.

By the time you’re finished building your B2B contact data lists, there’s a chance a small portion of your data might fall victim to data decay.

That’s why it’s important to enrich your data and cleanse your contact data lists regularly. 

In other words, you should supplement your raw data with more layers of data for more accuracy and reliability (data enrichment), and practice removing inaccurate, outdated, or irrelevant data (data cleansing).

You can either bake data enrichment and cleansing strategies into your list building process, or you can use a smart sales intelligence tool to help you automate this tedious task.

 If you decide to go the data enrichment tool route, keep an eye out for these techniques:

• • Data appending: Adding missing data to your existing data set
  • Data cleansing: Removing or correcting inaccurate, incomplete, or irrelevant data
  • Data normalization: Organizing data into a standardized format
  • Data duplication: Removing duplicate data
  • Data validation: Verifying data’s accuracy, completeness, and timeliness
  • Integrations with other sales platforms
  • Multiple export options for B2B contact data
  • Fast data refresh and verification rates

9. Focus on sales channels that are relevant to your business.

Not every product or service does well on every sales channel. While we recommend using a combination of various sales channels, it’s important to learn which channels work the best for your business or industry.

For example, if you’re an SDR for a commercial plumbing company, you might not do so well doing sales prospecting on LinkedIn. Instead, you might have a higher chance of building a strong contact data list through targeted ads on Google. 

Prioritizing certain sales channels over others doesn’t mean you should completely ignore the less successful ones. 

Once you figure out which sales channels provide more list building opportunities for your business, focus on those first and then figure out ways to optimize the other low-performing channels. 

10. Be genuine.

This tip for list building sounds cliche, but it’ll take you far.

Forget about being “salesy” and focus on bringing a human element to your list building efforts. 

SaaS sales can come off cold and inhuman, and most sales prospects immediately roll their eyes at the thought of getting another cold email.

Your job while list building and planning for sales outreach is to find ways to deliver genuine and authentic value that directly benefits your prospects on your list. 

While you’re building a massive list of B2B contacts, do your research and gather important details to provide more context about each prospect.

Understanding your sales prospects in terms of their unique industry, challenges, needs, and organizational structure will help you craft genuine sales outreach messages that actually resonate with your prospects.

In a nutshell…

Use this list of best practices to start B2B contact data list building smarter and more efficiently.

Here’s a brief overview of each list building tactic for your review:

• Don’t be over-reliant on B2B contact databases. Find smarter sales intelligence tools to help you prospect smarter.
• Know the type of B2B contact data you’re looking for to build a strong sales pipeline. 
• Don’t skimp on data privacy regulations.
• When shopping around for B2B contact list building tools, know what features are “must-have” and “nice-to-have”.
• Leverage buyer intent data or signals to help you personalize your sales prospecting efforts beyond simply knowing a prospect’s basic contact information.
• Always qualify your leads to prioritize ones that are most likely to convert.
• Avoid buying email lists and focus on growing your email lists organically.
• Always enrich and clean your data sets, and find ways to automate these tasks.
• Use multiple sales channels to build your lists, but prioritize the ones that are most successful and optimize the low-performing channels later on.
• Research your contact data to find ways to deliver genuine value for sales prospects.

Related: What is a Business Directory

The post Building B2B Contact Lists — Best Practices appeared first on RevGenius.

One well-accepted lever that has downstream effects on each of those major goals is ramp time.

Ramp time, within the sales domain, refers to the period a new sales representative requires to reach full productivity—this encompasses onboarding, training, and experiencing a complete sales cycle. It’s a critical metric because it directly influences a company’s capacity to expand its sales pipeline effectively.

Here’s why ramp time is so significant:

• Sales Pipeline Growth: Shorter ramp times mean new reps contribute to the pipeline faster, increasing the number of active sales engagements.
• Deal Size: Experienced reps are more adept at understanding customer needs, which can lead to securing larger deals.
• Sales Cycle Efficiency: Proficient reps can navigate the sales process more effectively, potentially shortening sales cycles through better qualification and closing techniques.
• Close Rates: As reps become fully productive quicker, they’re likely to close deals at a higher rate due to improved sales skills and product knowledge.
• Financial Planning: Accurate ramp time is crucial for forecasting revenue and aligning sales rep hiring with revenue goals​​.
• Strategic Decision-Making: Understanding ramp times allows sales leaders to make informed decisions on when to extend training or initiate sales coaching​​.

It’s been observed that the average sales rep ramp is a company’s normal sales cycle plus three months​​. Businesses that can improve this metric often see tangible benefits across all aspects of their sales performance. 

Current ramp times can cost companies up to three times the employee’s base salary. The time needed to get a new sales hire up and running can account for up to 5% in annual revenue losses.

Components Contributing to Ramp Time

In general, the time it takes a new sales rep to ramp up to full productivity depends on their Quality, Experience with the Product, and Experience with the Market. Let’s start with Quality. 

Quality — The Combination of Tenure and Skills

Quality can be thought of as a combination of tenure and skills: 

Tenure: A nuanced view takes into account not just the years spent in the industry but also the depth of experience in relevant roles and the salesperson’s history within the company. It’s enhanced by the breadth of their professional network. However, tenure’s true value shines through the lens of success—measured by pivotal metrics such as Quota Attainment, Customer Retention Rate (CRR), and Sales Cycle Time. 

These indicators show how effectively a salesperson has applied their tenure in practical terms.

Skills: While tenure is a static attribute once a salesperson is hired, skills are dynamic and can be cultivated. They encompass a range of competencies from the art of questioning and listening to the technical mastery of product expertise and understanding the nuances of the sales cycle. 

Skills are actionable levers in reducing ramp-up time and enhancing sales effectiveness.

Cost Considerations

The higher quality a rep is, the more expensive they’ll be, although it’s likelier they’ll have a lower ramp time. 

One method to decrease costs associated with ramp time is to decrease ramp time. Another is to enable lower-quality (cheaper) reps to ramp as quickly as higher-quality (more expensive) reps. 

Compensation Breakdown

Salary: Fixed cost. Reducing total salary costs through a tool like Nayak saving new hire salaries during extended ramp periods would directly increase profits.

Commission: Variable cost tied to salesperson productivity. Shortening ramp time accelerates when a rep starts closing deals and earning commission income, enhancing overall contribution margin.

Experience with Product

A rep’s experience with a product is a combination of familiarity, training, prior knowledge, and strategic product insights. 

Let’s break this down: 

Familiarity: Sales reps need to be well-versed in the product through case studies that illustrate the product’s real-world success, detailed marketing content, and messaging that clearly communicates the product’s value proposition. The effectiveness of familiarity is contingent upon easy access to these resources. 

Training and Prior Knowledge: While formal training is standard in many organizations, its long-term efficacy is often limited by the natural tendency to forget learned information over time. In contrast, experiential learning — learning that occurs within the flow of work — tends to have a much higher retention rate. Prior knowledge, often tied to tenure, is a static variable post-hire, yet it forms a significant part of a rep’s initial ability to understand and sell the product.

Strategic Product Insight:

• Business Impact Analysis: Beyond product features, top salespeople understand and articulate the financial impact of solving the customer’s problem with the product, framing it as a critical and strategic investment for the buyer.
• Product Vision Contribution/Feedback: Richard Feynman said, “What I cannot create, I do not understand.” Contributing to a product’s roadmap allows salespeople to have a role in its creation, and is therefore the highest level of mastery a salesperson can have in understanding the product they are selling. 

Experience with Market

Knowledge of the market comes down to understanding the space – the competitors, the partners, the news, the trends, and the customers. 

• Competitor Knowledge helps a salesperson understand the landscape they are operating in and how to differentiate their offerings.
• Complementary Technologies provide context for integration and expansion opportunities that could be leveraged in sales discussions.
• Industry News is vital for strategic agility and ensuring that the sales strategy is aligned with external factors that influence buyers.
• Market Trends inform the long-term sales approach and product development, helping to anticipate future customer needs and market shifts.
• Customer Insights ensure that sales efforts are customer-centric, improving engagement and conversion rates.

Ramp Time Benchmarks

The Average Duration of Ramp Time

Ramp time varies on the complexity of the product and the sales cycle, and is therefore contingent on a company’s average sales cycle length. 

The overall average ramp time for all B2B salespeople is the average sales cycle + 90 days. 

Costs Associated with Ramp Time

Direct Costs

Xactly puts the estimated cost of a seller’s ramp time at 3x their base salary. This comes down to a mix of salary investment and training, development, and tools. 

• Salary Investment: During a salesperson’s ramp time, they are still drawing a salary. If it takes a seller 6 months to fully ramp, they have incurred 6 months salary as a cost – potentially without closing a single deal.
• Training, Development, and Tools: Many sales organizations have a formal training program for new sales hires. These often take place at an in-person offsite, such as a hotel, and involve a lot of time and resources, including a lot of manhours from in-house leadership. 

Other costs associated with training and development include an ongoing cost of sales enablement, sales operations, and, for the organizations that have it, ongoing training time. While a seller is ramping, they have access to the tools, support, and resources of fully-ramped reps while making minimal direct contributions to bottom-line revenue.

Indirect Costs

The opportunity cost

The opportunity cost of an extended sales ramp time can be substantial in terms of lost revenue potential. We can estimate this impact with a hypothetical scenario. 

Imagine a case where the following is true:

– Average deal size for a rep: $25,000 

– Average number of deals per month for a ramped rep: 4

– Average ramp time: 6 months

In this scenario, the company is missing out on $600,000 in potential deals due to that rep not being fully productive during their ramp period. This lost revenue could fund additional headcount, be invested back into the business, or simply contribute straight to the bottom line.

The costs extend beyond just one rep as well. If the company needs to hire 5 new sales reps in a quarter to meet growth goals, a lengthy 6 month ramp time means they won’t reach their intended revenue target until a full year after making those hires. 

Accelerating ramp time directly translates to achieving revenue goals sooner.

Team Disruption 

Integrating a new sales hire onto an existing team can hamper short term productivity:

• Training/shadowing time: Experienced reps must spend time training instead of selling.
• Limited capacity: Managers have finite time for 1:1 coaching/monitoring.
• Sales complexity: Introducing a new dynamic can disrupt established customer relationships.
• Opportunity ownership: Sales territories/accounts may need to be shifted or shared.

These can have a tangible impact on metrics for current team members in the form of:

• Lower sales activity volume (calls/meetings made, demos given, etc)
• Fewer new opportunities created during training period 
• Potential decline in short-term conversion rates or win rates

While these impacts tend to be short-term and are often unavoidable, the downstream costs could include missed quotas for current reps or the inability to capitalize quickly enough on time-sensitive market opportunities.

Consequences of Extended Ramp Time

Reduced Productivity: Individual

During the ramp period, a new sales rep’s productivity in terms of hard metrics like calls made, deals closed, and revenue generated will be lower compared to their output once fully ramped. Factors contributing to this include:

• Learning curve with sales methodology, tools, CRM
• Building pipeline and establishing customer relationships 
• Limited product knowledge and inability to effectively position value prop
• No existing book of business to generate rapid sales

As a result, their activity metrics, sales velocity, and commission earnings will be substantially lower over the first 3-6 months. This reduced individual productivity translates to an extended waiting period before the rep can positively contribute to team and company goals.

Reduced Productivity: Team

An incoming rep being ramped can indirectly disrupt the productivity of other established team members in a few key ways:

• Manager time diverted from existing team to train and coach new hire
• Shadowing by new rep takes time away from current reps doing regular sales activities
• Potential decline in response times or customer service levels 
• Additional ramping support duties assigned to high performers on the team

As a result, key performance metrics across the team could be impacted over a quarter or two, including:

• Average sales cycle length increasing
• Win rates decreasing 
• Total calls and meetings completed declining 
• Fewer new opportunities created
• Lower total closed revenue

This highlights the need to have a ramp process that integrates new reps seamlessly without materially impacting the established high-performance culture.

The key things to monitor are activity volume, cycle times, and conversion rates across the team before and after onboarding new sales hires. 

Delayed Return on Investment (ROI)

Time to Profitability

Even after a rep is fully-ramped, they will likely not deliver a positive ROI to the business. That’s because of factors like sales cycle length, months to contract start, average deal size, churn rate, and cost of goods sold. 

Harry O’Sullivan and Paul Bianco of ffVC wrote an article titled ‘A Data-Driven Approach to Investing Salespeople’ outlining how long it takes salespeople to become a profit-driver for businesses.

Their assumptions are outlined here:

• Salesperson Ramp-up: 6 months
• Annual Bookings Quota: $1,000,000
• Sales Cycle: 60 days
• Average Contract Size: $20,000
• Months to Contract Start: 4
• Contract Length: 12 months
• Annual Churn: 10%

Using these assumptions, a salesperson is a cost-driver from month one to month 11, a break-even on cost from months 12 to 19, and ROI positive from month 19 onward. 

Many business leaders falsely assume that an increase in the number of salespeople lead to an increase in revenue, whereas in most cases, for between 12-18 months after a salesperson is hired, they are in fact a cost driver and not a revenue driver for the business. 

Financial Implications

Hiring additional sales reps represents a major investment for any business in terms of hard costs like salary, benefits, expenses, and training as well as opportunity cost. During the extended 12-18 month period where newly hired reps are driving net negative ROI, this creates significant financial strain in a few key ways:

Cash Flow Issues

With no offsetting revenue being generated by new reps to cover their costs for over a year, hiring them requires either drawing down on cash reserves or seeking additional financing to fund operating losses. Most early stage companies have limited cash runways, so this exacerbates burn rate concerns.

Deferred Growth Initiatives

Since the incremental hiring puts negative pressure on cash flows, companies may be forced to forego or delay other growth plans and investments in order to divert budgets to fund the rep – slowing overall progress.

Equity Dilution Risk

If the cash strain requires raising additional capital before the reps generate positive returns, further equity dilution results. This represents a permanent non-revenue cost of hiring and delays potential value accretion for existing shareholders.

Loss of Risk Tolerance

Carrying operating losses for over a year can tap available funding reserves intended as buffers against other major business risks. This tightens margins for error across the company.

In essence, the over 12 month delayed ROI from new sales hires acts as a financial drag by exacerbating burn rates, restricting investment capacity, increasing dilution, and reducing risk tolerance. 

Minimizing this lag time is key to sound financial planning and executing growth.

Lost Sales & Market Share

When reps are still new and ramping up, they cannot capitalize on opportunities as quickly due to insufficient product knowledge, smaller networks, and lack of sales experience. This causes:

• Longer sales cycles from lack of credibility with prospects
• Lower win rates due to ineffective pitches or proposals
• Smaller average deal sizes from inadequate needs assessments

As a result, the company loses out on potential sales. Additionally, competitors with tenured reps can more effectively capitalize on opportunities and gain market share during this window of advantage.

Each quarter a rep isn’t fully ramped represents missed market opportunities that competitors can seize instead. The downstream effect is losing footing in key accounts or verticals which is difficult to regain once established. This can permanently depress market share.

Customer Perception

Early interactions with prospects when reps are new or still training leaves a less polished impression. This may negatively impact customer perceptions if reps seem:

• Overly scripted instead of consultative
• Unable to answer technical questions
• To push unwanted products vs solutions

Once ramped, reps better understand buyer needs and tailor pitches accordingly through consultative discovery. But negative early interactions could linger and hurt customer confidence.

If customers get a poor first impression of a company’s sales team, it makes it far harder to build authority and trust – even after reps improve. The cost of recovering from early missteps with accounts is high. An experienced sales team signals competence and quality to buyers.

How to Improve Ramp Time 

Start with in-workflow learning — Learning in the flow of work (LIFOW) is a concept that emphasizes the importance of integrating learning into everyday work activities. Traditional training sessions — picture a multi-day offsite at a hotel with learning sessions modeled on standard classroom practices — yield only 10% knowledge retention. LIFOW can bring knowledge retention up to 90%. 

Some tools to help improve Ramp Time

• AI-powered sales coaching tools like Nayak – Provide real-time guidance and feedback during customer calls to improve skills on-the-job. Microlearning modules reinforce best practices.
• Sales analytics platforms – Dashboards from Clari, InsightSquared, and Gong track individual and team metrics to identify skill gaps needing coaching. Managers can course-correct faster.
• Learning management systems – Platforms like MindTickle, Brainshark, and PandaDoc centralize training content and guide reinforced learning to boost retention.
• Sales methodology training – Shortened bootcamp-style sales training, microlearning content, and virtual workshops ensure methodology sticks. Combining with tools drives adoption.

The key is embedding ongoing training and enablement tightly within the normal sales workflow for accelerated skill development. Blending cutting-edge tools, AI guidance, and shortened structured learning forms a powerful stack to slash ramp times.

The Revenue Impact of Improving Ramp Time

Reduced Training Costs

• Traditional multi-week training programs cost thousands per rep in materials, facilities, and lost sales time. Tools that embed learning in daily work simplify skill building.
• Ongoing sales methodology and product training takes a fraction of the time compared to offline workshops. Reps learn as they work.
• Less time spent in training means reps start selling and earning revenue faster.

Decreased Turnover Costs

• With LIFOW practices in place, junior reps are set up for success, avoiding frustration that leads to turnover.
• Replacing a salaried sales rep costs between 1-2x their annual salary from lost sales time, recruiting fees, training.
• Decreasing turnover from 30% to 15% could save hundreds of thousands in turnover costs annually.
• Higher job satisfaction improves sales culture and customer service.

LIFOW can dramatically reduce onboarding costs while enabling scaled hiring at lower salaries, potentially cutting sales team costs by 50% or more.

Revenue Implications

Quicker Revenue Generation

With a shortened ramp-up time, salespeople can start contributing to revenue sooner, which improves cash flow and could potentially lead to a faster growth trajectory for the company.

• With shortened 3-6 month ramp-up periods, new reps start closing deals and generating revenue much quicker.
• For example, if the average sales cycle is 6 months, a successful LIFOW program could have reps fully productive in just 1-3 months. This accelerates revenue generation by 3+ months.
• For a 10 rep team with $100k average deal sizes, this means $1M in additional revenue in their first year.

Increased Sales Capacity

With compressed ramp times, overall team capacity increases as reps gain productivity faster. The faster reps ramp, the more time they can spend closing deals.

• Deal capacity: The more time each rep spends at full productivity, the more deals they can actively engage with.
• For example, 10 reps ramped in 3 months versus 6 months equates to a 50% capacity boost, allowing pursuit of 50% more leads and 50% more deals.

Enhanced Profits

Faster rep productivity flows more revenue to the bottom line sooner, and cost savings from lower salaries and turnover further increase profit margins.

Competitive Edge

Shorter ramp up gives advantage over competitors still gaining skill.

• Ability to capitalize on opportunities faster seizes market share.
• More skilled reps provide strategic value beyond just order taking

Shortened ramp time drives faster revenue generation, increased sales capacity, and improved profit margins – providing a competitive edge.

Long-Term Implications

Salesforce Scalability

Efficiently scaling a salesforce is pivotal for companies poised for rapid growth. Traditionally, expanding a sales team has been a cautious, deliberate process. Companies often scale their teams slowly to reduce the friction commonly associated with new hire ramp-up periods. 

The common wisdom is that smaller new hire cohorts are necessary to minimize ramp-up time. The smaller the cohort, the more resources the company can give, and the faster the new hires will ramp-up. This conventional approach, however, inadvertently shackles revenue growth, as the slow assimilation of new team members can hinder a company’s ability to capitalize on emerging opportunities

Compressed ramp times enable a company to onboard larger cohorts of new hires without the typical dip in productivity. This transformative approach allows the sales organization to scale at a pace previously unattainable. This means the transition to full productivity is significantly shortened. Such dynamism in scaling equips companies to expand their reach and accelerate growth.

Summary

Extended ramp times are a major challenge facing B2B sales organizations today. The average ramp period of 3-6 months before new hires reach full productivity results in substantial costs and revenue losses.

During lengthy ramp cycles, reps are drawing full salaries while contributing little revenue. This strains finances and delays growth. Meanwhile, missed sales opportunities and slower expansion of the salesforce constrain market share gains

Prolonged unproductive periods also risk poor customer interactions that could tarnish the brand. Once ramped up, reps may retain knowledge gaps that hamper sales outcomes.

There is an urgent need for solutions that compress ramp times to minimize lost revenue, curb excessive expenses, and avoid negative buyer experiences. Quickly upskilling reps will realize the full potential of the salesforce faster while seizing markets.

The answer lies in sales enablement tools that embed efficient training within daily workflows. Assistive technologies like Nayak bridge knowledge gaps and equip reps for customer interactions in real-time. Such innovations hold the key to transforming ramp productivity.

The post Ramp Time for Sales: Your Guide to Accelerating Productivity appeared first on RevGenius.

Inbound Sales Funnel Sets the Stage for Your Entire Pipeline 

The top of your inbound sales funnel sets the stage for your entire pipeline, determining whether your team succeeds or fails. We’ll dive into real tactics and tricks to avoid common rookie mistakes to fully optimize your inbound sales funnel to bring in the best potential buyers and maximize your pipeline throughout your customer sales journey.

Key Takeaways:

• Optimize your inbound sales funnel to better qualify prospects
• Create a better, more targeted experience for potential customers
• Boost your sales team’s performance and time management by using automation and AI.
• Figure out how to reach and connect with buyers who have high intent

Let’s dive in!

Today’s Sales Funnel Is Not A Straight Line

The sales process isn’t straightforward anymore, with buyers engaging more before reaching the sales team. As solutions diversify, buyers expect seamless experiences, so it’s vital to connect well with them. Let’s look at some common rookie mistakes that slow things down and how to fix them.

Mistake #1: Making Buyers Jump Through Too Many Hoops 

We now know that conversions are about eight times higher when a connection is made within the first five minutes versus waiting six plus minutes.

Buyer’s number one focus is NOT looking for our solution. They have their own tasks and goals. They want to talk to you right now.

Once prospects move on to other tasks, it’s easy to lose their attention. To keep them engaged, simplify the process by allowing them to book meetings directly on your website after filling out a form. This not only increases meeting bookings but also alleviates the pressure on the GTM team to ensure timely follow-ups. 

How can marketers step in? How can we make things less painful and have less friction? 

Marketing teams can empower sellers by enabling them to focus on… selling. Providing comprehensive account information allows sellers to personalize interactions from the first call, delivering value within the initial five minutes. Research shows that demonstrating ROI within the first ten minutes significantly boosts the likelihood of closing a deal. Instead of burdening sellers with unnecessary questions, marketing and sales should collaborate closely to streamline processes. By taking initiative to gather information independently, marketers can ensure that sellers are well-equipped to succeed in every interaction. This approach not only reduces buyer frustration but also enhances the overall experience for both parties. After all, nobody enjoys completing a lengthy survey before a meeting just to address a couple of pressing questions.

Real-Life Example

If a prospect has visited multiple pages on your site, it’s essential to prioritize the products or areas they’ve shown the most interest in when making initial contact. This approach not only meets the customer’s expectations but also lays the foundation for a strong relationship from the outset. Sharing and leveraging this data effectively can make a significant impact on the customer experience and ultimately contribute to successful outcomes.

It’s crucial to book meetings within the first day. While accommodating different time slots can be challenging, ensuring there are enough options available for immediate or next-day discussions is key. We often set a buffer of four to six hours for scheduling, but research suggests that being the first to connect significantly increases the likelihood of securing a deal. 

Around 80% of buyers tend to go with the first vendor they engage with. 

This early engagement allows us to make a strong impression, showcasing our solution before competitors enter the picture. Once we’ve wowed them with a demo or conversation, other solutions become mere checkboxes in their evaluation process. Being proactive in reaching out first can make all the difference.

Mistake #2: Not Qualifying The Lead Before It Gets to Our Sales Team

The key is to qualify leads before they reach the sales team, right at the form-filling stage. While some may rely on sequential workflows, where leads are passed to the next available salesperson, this approach can lead to issues if the connection between buyer and seller isn’t optimal. 

Only 27% of inbound leads are truly qualified and sales-ready. 

Marketing can play a pivotal role in lead qualification, understanding that people ultimately buy from people. Starting with a simple form, we must strike a balance, gathering necessary information without bombarding prospects with excessive questions. The approach should be tailored based on the target audience and how they typically engage with content. While debates around forms and MQLs persist, there are instances where forms are necessary for effective qualification.

Streamlining forms with enrichment features can be incredibly beneficial, allowing us to gather essential information without overwhelming prospects.

For instance, in the B2B SaaS space, a simple question like “What CRM do you use?” can provide valuable insights and help weed out irrelevant leads. Utilizing workflows ensures that leads are routed to the appropriate team members based on their industry or other relevant criteria. While adding questions like industry or B2B/B2C designation may be necessary for larger companies with diverse business units, it’s crucial to keep forms as concise as possible while still gathering relevant context. 

Mistake  #3: Every Lead Is Going to Your Sales Team

You don’t have to talk to everyone. And actually you shouldn’t. Don’t be afraid to route people away from your sales team if they’re not in your ICP.

Marketers’ primary concern often lies in optimizing the top of the funnel and ensuring we’re attracting quality leads. 

One effective strategy is to guide leads through a post-form submission journey that provides value and narrows down their options. This can involve directing them to a thank-you page packed with on-demand demos, customer testimonials, and trial invitations, while still offering an option to connect with the sales team if needed. By tailoring the follow-up process based on user behavior and preferences, we can increase the focus on higher-quality leads, ultimately boosting win rates and average contract value (ACV). 

This approach also allows us to fine-tune our paid channels, ensuring we receive leads that align with our criteria. 

It may seem tempting to engage with every potential lead, but it’s essential to prioritize quality over quantity. By focusing on prospects who are more likely to convert and investing time in nurturing those relationships, we can drive meaningful results. 

Mistake #4: You Conversations Aren’t Personalized 

Buyers are nearly 70% through their buyers’ journey before contacting sales. 

They’re coming into that first meeting with different objectives, with different questions, different needs, and different pain points than all of the other buyers.

• We don’t want to give them more information than what they can already find online.
• We don’t want to provide the same experience to every single person regardless of who they are. 

Best practices to follow:

• Personalize demos and personalize the agendas.
• Have conversations that resonate better with the prospect.

People don’t just buy software. They often buy organizational change. 

The “Hubspots of the world” can fundamentally change the way people do marketing.

What should you consider? 

• If you already have some information about your buyers, let them know about it. Let’s solve their problem before it’s even called a “problem”. 
• Be human: let them feel seen.

Different buyers care about different things. If you address their specific needs, you’ll improve your chances of making a sale. Using personalized approaches increased success rates from 1.5% to 5-7%. This improvement applies to the whole sales process and makes your team’s efforts more valuable. So, focusing on quality leads to better results than just aiming for quantity.

Can Chat GPT help?

Chat GPT is a super helpful tool but you can’t depend on it entirely. One great use is summarizing long calls. People are still learning how to use it to understand their company’s image online. Make sure to double-check its insights and compare them with your knowledge and SEO data. It can also uncover new insights or help research new industries. Think of it as a copilot, freeing up time for more important tasks. But remember, don’t let it run on autopilot; personalized conversations matter. Use your best team members for meaningful interactions.

Mistake #5: You Forgot About No Shows Or Abandoned Bookings

Many salespeople give up too soon, but research shows that it often takes five or more follow-ups to secure a sale. Buyers are busy, so missed appointments don’t mean they’re uninterested. It’s important to keep trying. Marketing can help by keeping leads engaged and automating follow-ups, while sales teams can use alerts and SDRs to chase leads. If appointments are being missed, it’s crucial to figure out why. Regular checks can identify problems like boring agendas or limited time slots, so you can fix them and improve your chances of making a sale.

Instead of a wide funnel, think of our goal as a narrow pipe to capture every lead. It’s disappointing when interested prospects seem to vanish. 

Using leadership connections or different communication channels can help re-engage them. Remember, ‘not right now’ doesn’t mean ‘never,’ so keep nurturing these leads. Each lost lead had a problem we could solve, and by staying connected through webinars or collaborative content, we can address their needs.

Nurturing isn’t just about emails—it’s much broader. Multi-threading, for instance, involves engaging with various people in the company, especially in today’s complex buying landscape. You’re not just dealing with one decision-maker; you’re navigating through a whole committee. It’s about understanding the organizational change process and addressing it through different channels, like inviting them to webinars or events. It’s also crucial to track missed meetings and ensure everyone is informed. By automating this process, you can effectively re-engage prospects through targeted campaigns.

Mistake #6: Setting and Forgetting 

Optimizing the inbound sales funnel isn’t a one-time task—it requires ongoing evaluation and adjustment. Many of us set up our tools and processes and then neglect to revisit them. To ensure effectiveness, we need open communication between marketing and sales teams. Experimentation is key—setting aside small budgets or ideas to test can provide valuable insights. 

If you wanna watch the whole show, check it out here:

The post 6 Mistakes Sinking Your Inbound Funnel appeared first on RevGenius.

Kevin White, Head of Marketing at Common Room, discussed 10 signal categories to look out for. You can watch the webinar on demand here or dive into the key takeaways below.

Market Conditions and the Need for New Strategies

Generating sales and closing deals has become harder due to changes in the market. One big reason is that companies, especially the bigger ones, are getting less money than before. In the last year and a half, there’s been a noticeable drop in funding compared to what we saw more than two years ago. This decrease is making it tough for many businesses, including those selling software and tech.

With funding drying up, especially for later-stage companies, and a wave of layoffs, businesses are facing significant challenges. This environment has led to a decrease in software spending and growth opportunities. 

The Role of Signals in Today’s Sales Environment

It’s estimated that around 95% of potential customers in your target market aren’t actively looking to buy at any given moment. This means only about 5% are actually considering purchasing software solutions. The key to successful selling is focusing on this small, active segment. These are the buyers who are more likely to make quick decisions and potentially spend more. Identifying this 5% – those who are ready or nearly ready to buy – is crucial.

Signals play a vital role here. They act like a bridge or a spotlight, helping sales teams pinpoint these active buyers. By catching the right signals, you can tell when someone shifts from just looking around to being ready to buy. 

Ten Categories of Signals for Effective Selling

Product Signals

Many of us use a product-led approach, which means understanding how customers interact with our products.These data points are vital for identifying potential buyers. For those who don’t have access to this data, it’s essential to collaborate with your data team — product signals are among the strongest indicators of buying intent. 

Here are a few examples:

• Consumption Ceilings: Monitor accounts that are nearing the limits of their current plan. This can be a prompt to discuss their usage and potential upgrades.
• Surges in Product Activity: An increase in how much an account uses your product often means they’re finding value in it, whether for new applications or confirming its effectiveness.
• New Integrations: When a user connects new integrations, particularly sophisticated ones like Salesforce or a data warehouse, it often indicates they’re exploring new ways to use your product.
• New Users: Adding new users to an account is another strong signal. It suggests expansion within the account and new use cases emerging.

Expiration Dates

Expiration dates are another category of signals, similar to product signals, but they’re specifically tied to deadlines related to product usage. A prime example is the timeline of a free trial. Reaching out to potential customers just as their trial period ends gives you a chance to understand their experience with the trial and what they were hoping to achieve. For sales reps, offering an incentive, like extending the trial, can be effective. This approach works well if the prospect needs more time to assess the product.

Another important expiration-related signal is the renewal date of a competitor’s product. Gaining information about when a competitor’s contract is up for renewal offers a strategic opportunity. You can approach these potential customers and suggest they consider your product as an alternative, highlighting what sets your solution apart.

For situations where you don’t have specific expiration dates, creating time-bound offers, like special holiday rates or end-of-year discounts, can also be effective. These offers can act as a motivator for potential customers to engage and make a decision.

Cries for Help

This category is about recognizing when potential customers are actively seeking help. You can find these signals in various online spaces like Stack Overflow, Reddit, or Quora, where users often discuss issues they’re facing with software. Interestingly, even review sites like G2 can be insightful. While you might expect only positive feedback, there’s a section for users to express their dislikes about a product. This information can be invaluable, especially if your product can address those pain points.

Support forums dedicated to specific products or technologies are also rich with signals. They’re filled with bug reports, feature requests, and general user feedback. Tapping into these discussions can lead you to potential buyers who need solutions your product offers.

GitHub Activity 

For those working with software developers, places like GitHub are goldmines for signals. Activities like contributing to open source projects or reporting bugs can indicate a readiness for more professional solutions.

Important to remember 

It’s crucial to approach these signals thoughtfully. Not every signal allows for an immediate sales outreach. It’s about understanding the context and acting in a way that’s genuinely helpful. When reaching out, it’s important to be empathetic, offer real support, and avoid being aggressive. This approach ensures that your interactions are well-received and more likely to build positive relationships with potential clients.

Legislation and Policy Changes

Moving on to the fifth signal category, which is often overlooked but highly impactful: changes in legislation or platform usage policies. These changes can create significant opportunities for sales.

For example, GDPR, the data protection regulation, had a profound impact. When GDPR was about to be implemented, it spurred many discussions and led to an increase in purchases of security and compliance software. This shift essentially created a whole new sector within the industry.

Another recent instance is the updates to Gmail’s sender policies. With these changes imminent, there was noticeable concern among those who rely heavily on outbound email campaigns. Such policy updates can prompt businesses to look for alternative solutions or technologies, particularly if their current methods might no longer be effective or compliant.

In essence, when your product or service aligns with new policies or legislative changes, it presents a prime opportunity to initiate conversations with potential customers. These shifts in the legal or policy landscape can act as catalysts, driving demand for specific solutions.

Employment activity

Another important signal to consider is employment activity. While changes like a customer moving to a new company are well-known signals, there are other employment-related actions worth monitoring.

Firstly, promotions within a company can be a significant signal. When someone is promoted, they often look to make a notable impact in their new role, and your product might be just what they need to achieve this.

Layoffs can also be a telling sign — in situations where a company reduces its workforce, there could be an opportunity for your technology to fill some of the gaps left behind. This could be a chance to propose how your product can streamline operations or handle tasks previously managed by a larger team.

Additionally, the presence of open roles can indicate a resource gap within an organization. This presents an opportunity for your product or service to provide a solution, either assisting the new hire or addressing the needs that the open role aims to fill.

VIP Activity

One of the key signals we pay close attention to is activity from VIPs. This includes engagement from high-level decision-makers like VPs, directors, and above, who typically are less active but highly influential. Noticing any activity from them, such as being added to a workspace, following a competitor, or engaging with your brand, is significant. These actions indicate a strong interest or consideration for your product.

Another important form of VIP activity comes from roles in security, IT, or procurement. When individuals in these positions show interest, it often signals a serious consideration for your product and potentially indicates a higher contract value. These professionals usually deal with multiple stakeholders and seek comprehensive solutions, preferring structured contracts like MSAs and annual agreements. They are detail-oriented, ensuring all compliance and requirements are met, which usually correlates with substantial deals.

The takeaway here is the importance of who is interacting. The level and role of the person engaging can greatly influence the potential value and intent of the interaction. For example, an intern’s actions might have a different implication than those from an executive. Recognizing the significance of these VIP activities can be crucial in identifying high-value prospects.

Tech Stack Activity

It’s important to monitor changes in a person’s or an account’s technology stack, as these can provide valuable insights.

One key area is complementary technologies. If your product works well alongside another, and you notice a potential customer has started using a compatible integration, it’s a great moment to reach out. You can highlight how your product, in combination with the one they’re using, can create enhanced solutions for them.

Another less obvious but equally significant signal is changes in a website’s technology, like the addition of new advertising or analytics tracking. For instance, adding a tool for advertising tracking might indicate that a company is planning to increase its marketing spend, or perhaps a new marketing professional has joined the team. Similarly, changes in analytics tools, like switching from Google Analytics to another platform, can signal that the company is seeking more in-depth website data analysis. These tech stack changes can open opportunities to present how your product or service can meet their evolving needs.

Company Milestones

Moving on to the ninth signal, let’s consider company milestones. While fundraising events are a common focus, as they indicate investment and growth, they also present a challenge in standing out. If you’re reaching out in response to a fundraising event, it’s crucial to add value and differentiate your product.

Beyond the obvious, less apparent milestones can also provide significant signals. For instance, a new product launch might imply a need for enhanced analytics to gauge the product’s performance and effectiveness. This could signify an opportunity for solutions that support analytics and market understanding.

Another notable milestone is company acquisitions. While less common, acquisitions demand substantial integration and adaptation, presenting opportunities for products that facilitate these processes.

Additionally, changes in leadership, like a new board member or C-level executive, often herald shifts in strategy or new initiatives. These changes can open doors for solutions that align with the company’s evolving direction.

Website Activity

The final signal to discuss is good old website activity. While visits to pricing pages are common and certainly valuable, there’s more to be gleaned from deeper engagement on these pages. For example, time spent on the pricing page, interactions with a pricing calculator, or toggling between different plans are all highly indicative of serious intent. These actions represent a much higher level of interest compared to a mere visit to the pricing page.

Another area to pay attention to is visits to integration pages. If someone is exploring how different integrations work with your product, it’s a great opportunity to reach out and discuss how your product can enhance their existing tech stack. This ties back to the importance of understanding tech stack activities and how they can inform your sales approach.

Finally — the documentation pages. When visitors are looking through documentation, they are often seeking solutions or troubleshooting specific issues. Identifying such visitors can be a cue for your team to offer assistance, potentially leading to a meaningful engagement.

Note on the Inverted Signals: Recognizing when a lack of activity or removal of a service might indicate a need.

Navigating Signals with Technology

One of the tools allowing for signal-based selling is Common Room — by aggregating data from various channels, it provides actionable insights, enabling sales teams to approach prospects with precision and relevance. 

If you wanna watch the whole webinar, check it out here:

Also, make sure to check out our upcoming events on all-things-GTM!

The post Signal-Based Selling: 10 Signals To Hit Your Target appeared first on RevGenius.

Sales reps might know the product inside out but may lack insight into the specific needs of individual buyers. This is what we’re calling the “expertise gap.”

In this article we’ll explore the reasons behind the expertise gap in B2B tech sales and share strategies to overcome it! 

The ‘Expertise Gap’ 

Changing Buyer Behavior

Today’s buyers aren’t what they used to be. They come armed with research, questions, and, most importantly, options. They’re discerning and demanding, meaning sales reps can’t rely on outdated tactics.

The Old Model vs. The New Reality

The Informed Buyer’s Perspective

Customization as an Expectation

The digital age has made buyers smarter and better informed. They’ve read the blog posts, seen the competitor pitches, and they know what they want. They expect individualized solutions to their unique challenges. For them, customization isn’t a ‘nice to have’; it’s a ‘must-have.’

The Disconnect

The expertise gap becomes problematic when a sales rep who is geared towards larger metrics and process efficiencies interacts with an informed buyer seeking a customized solution. The buyer asks specific, nuanced questions, and the sales rep responds with general, boilerplate answers. It’s like asking a sommelier about terroir and getting a lesson on how to open a wine bottle.

Why Is There an Expertise Gap?

Let’s break down some of the major factors contributing to the expertise gap:

Complex Sales Cycles

Lengthy sales cycles come with more stages, challenges, and chances for pitfalls that sales reps must navigate.

Stage Difficulty Ratings

Here’s a snapshot of common sales stages with difficulty ratings and average time requirements:

The Buying Committee – Who’s In the Room?

Understanding the needs and roles of these characters is critical in how you position your pitch. With the new roles come new strategies that need to be adapted. Here’s a snapshot of the buying committee: 

• Decision-Makers: The final sayers.
• Influencers: The naysayers or yea-sayers.
• Gatekeepers: The red tape masters.
• Champions: Your inside advocates.

It is a crowd, right? 

High Competition

The surge of new entrants into the market has fundamentally shifted the dynamics of sales. Back in the day, holding an innovative product was often enough to warrant attention, but oh, how the tables have turned. 

Sales reps can no longer rely on product innovation alone. They now need deep expertise in the customer’s problem space.

Easier to Enter, Harder to Win

There’s a double-edged sword to the low barrier of entry that’s characteristic of the SaaS world. On one hand, startups can easily launch a product and attract early adopters. On the other, the space is cluttered, making it increasingly difficult to stand out.

Factors fueling the competition:

• Scalability: SaaS solutions can scale rapidly, reaching a large audience without requiring massive infrastructural expenses.
• Investment Influx: Venture capitalists are constantly on the hunt for the next unicorn, pumping capital into myriad startups.
• Globalization: With internet accessibility, geography is becoming less of a limitation.

What Does It Mean for Sales Reps?

You’ve got to fight to be heard, but yelling louder won’t necessarily get you more attention. In this melee, differentiation is the key, not decibels.

Hyper-rapid Scaling

It’s a moment every startup dreams of: The time to scale has arrived. The thrill of growth often triggers a hyper-focus on processes, tools, and larger accounts. However, as companies scale, a strange paradox emerges—the more you grow, the harder it becomes to maintain the level of expertise and individual attention that got you here in the first place. Let’s dissect this conundrum.

The Gravity of Big Metrics

As businesses grow, there’s a natural inclination to focus on macro-level metrics like MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue), market share, and enterprise-level deals. These numbers are intoxicating, no doubt. Yet, there’s a risk. The gravitational pull of these metrics can divert attention from the individual client’s needs.

The Risks of Scaling

In a small organization, sales reps often have deep knowledge about every prospect and client. But when a company scales, sales teams are frequently restructured. The net result?

The expertise gap.

Transience of Salespeople

Salespeople are the gears in the machinery of business, especially in the B2B tech space. But what happens when these gears keep changing? When sales teams experience high turnover rates, it’s not just a numbers game. It’s an issue of lost expertise, hollowed institutional knowledge, and an ever-widening gap between what a sales rep knows and what a buyer expects.

The Stats Don’t Lie: Turnover in Numbers 

According to various reports, the turnover rate in the sales industry ranges between 35–40% annually. To give you a quick snapshot, let’s lay this down in a table:

Bridging the Expertise Gap

Keeping that in mind, what are the strategies you need to employ to successfully bridge the expertise gap? 

Going Beyond the Initial Sale

Selling a transformation means the sale doesn’t end when the contract is signed. Think upselling, cross-selling, and renewals. For instance, after initially securing a client’s email system, you could extend to offer data storage security or network security. Each of these “mini-sales” warrants its own cycle.

Digital Proficiency and SEO

Not only are you dealing with human gatekeepers but also digital ones like algorithms and cybersecurity solutions. A solid understanding of SEO and digital marketing has become an unofficial requirement for modern salespeople.

The Emotional Quotient

While a data-centric approach can indicate WHAT to sell, understanding emotional aspects like pain points and aspirations can guide you on HOW to sell it.

How Empathy and Active Listening Bridge the Gap

Personalization Through Understanding

Empathy helps you get beneath the surface-level “wants” to the deeper “needs.” When you understand the underlying challenges your buyer faces, you can tailor your solutions more effectively.

Building Trust Through Genuine Engagement

Active listening sends a clear message: I’m interested in your problem. This cultivates trust and opens doors for more fruitful discussions.

Practical Tips to Harness Empathy and Active Listening

Being present

Keep distractions at bay. Give your buyer 100% of your attention. This involves body language too. Nods, eye contact, and the occasional “uh-huh” can go a long way.

Reflective listening

Paraphrasing what your buyer just said not only confirms that you’re following along but also gives them a chance to clarify points that may not have been communicated clearly.

Asking Open-Ended Questions

Empathy thrives on understanding, and open-ended questions are your best tool for gaining that understanding. They invite the buyer to share more about their situation, making it easier for you to offer a tailored solution.

Checking for understanding

Before moving to solution-mode, recap what you’ve learned from your buyer. Confirm your understanding. This will make them feel heard and ensure that you’re solving the right problem.

Employing Tactics for a Streamlined Cycle

• Active Listening: Understand the spoken and unspoken needs.
• Building Trust: Foster long-term relationships through genuine interactions.
• Flexibility: Be ready to adapt your strategy based on real-time feedback.
• Data-Driven Decisions: Use analytics to refine your approach.
• Balancing Autonomy and Control: Empower your sales team to make on-the-spot decisions.
• Leveraging Social Proof: Use testimonials and case studies to validate your claims.
• Staying Agile: Keep updating your team with monthly or quarterly training on market trends and competitor movements.

Know Thy Customer (and Thyself)

• Deep Dive into the Industry: You should know the industry you’re selling to as well as, or even better than, your buyer. Keep up with industry news, attend webinars, and join online communities.
• Understand Pain Points: This requires a consultative approach. Instead of pushing your product, focus on listening and identifying the unique challenges faced by each prospect.
• Master Your Product: Knowing your product inside and out will allow you to tailor your solution to address these specific pain points.

Add Value Before the Sale

• Educational Content: Produce valuable resources like eBooks, webinars, or even just insightful social media posts that establish your brand as a thought leader.
• Free Tools or Assessments: Offering something useful upfront can help warm up leads and set the stage for a more receptive sales discussion.
• Consult, Don’t Pitch: Change the nature of your sales conversations. Move from a model where you’re selling to one where you’re solving problems.

Use Tech to Your Advantage

• Automation: From lead scoring to follow-up emails, automating mundane tasks can free up time for more strategic activities.
• Real-Time Insights: Use analytics tools that offer real-time insights into customer behavior and market trends. Adapt your strategies accordingly.
• AI-Assisted Selling: Tools like Nayak, for example, can act as a real-time coach during calls, helping you stay aligned with your sales plan.

The Two Edges of the Data Sword – Use Data in the Right Way 

Data is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it equips you with actionable insights to fine-tune your sales strategy. On the other, too much reliance on data can lead to an impersonal, ‘cookie-cutter’ approach. This pits you against two major challenges:

• Informed Buyers: The democratization of information has created a breed of well-researched buyers. These aren’t your grandad’s customers, willing to nod along with whatever you’re saying. They’ve done their homework and they come to the table ready to scrutinize.
• Information Overload: While you’re drowning in spreadsheets and dashboards, the risk of losing sight of the human element in sales increases. It’s easy to become fixated on metrics and KPIs, missing the forest for the trees.

The Data Paradox

Humanizing Data

The Story Behind the Numbers

Every data point has a story. Imagine that each number represents a pain point, a failed solution, or an untapped market. Your role is to act as a translator, converting raw data into a relatable narrative. For instance, if analytics reveal that 70% of your prospective clients use outdated software, don’t just push your latest software as a solution; explain how this technological lag is a bottleneck affecting their operational efficiency.

Tailoring Consultation through Data

Data can serve as a powerful guide to understanding your customer’s industry, pain points, and even corporate culture. Here’s how you can use data to enhance personalized consultation:

• Pre-Call Research: Utilize data to prepare a tailored call plan, ensuring that your discussion is laser-focused on the buyer’s needs. 
• During the Call: Rely on real-time data to tweak your pitch. This is where tools like Nayak can be invaluable, offering live hints to keep the conversation aligned.
• Post-Call Analysis: Use call analytics to assess what worked and what didn’t, which can inform the follow-up plan and future interactions.

Leveraging Internal Resources

When it comes to B2B tech sales, an expertise gap often separates sales reps from providing the deeply personalized service that today’s savvy buyers crave. While you might consider beefing up your tool stack or investing in another training program, sometimes the solution isn’t external. It’s within your organization. 

Types of Internal Resources to Leverage:

Product Teams

Your product team knows the ins and outs of what you’re selling. Weekly catch-ups or even a Slack channel dedicated to product updates can keep you in the loop.

Customer Service

These are the people on the frontline of customer complaints and compliments. Their insights into customer pain points can be gold when tailoring your sales pitch.

Fellow Sales Reps

Who better understands the challenges you face than someone in the same trenches? Share successes, failures, and lessons learned.

Data Analysts

If your organization has a data team, use them. They can provide market trends, buying habits, and client history that can all contribute to a more informed sales approach.

Cheatsheet: 

Final Thoughts

Selling in a world where the buyer is often as informed as you requires more than just a product pitch. It requires you to be a provider of solutions and insights. 

It’s no longer enough to know your product; you have to know your customer, their needs, and even their customers.

To close the expertise gap, focus on these three critical tactics:

1. Commit to continuous learning about your customer’s industry and pain points.
2. Actively listen and ask thoughtful questions to tailor solutions.
3. Focus on building trusted advisor relationships, not just closing deals.

By mastering these areas, you distinguish yourself as an invaluable resource, not just a sales rep. This pays off with higher conversion rates, larger order values, and loyal long-term customers that drive recurring revenue. In an increasingly competitive market, closing the expertise gap is what sets the thriving reps apart.

By embracing these strategies and dedicating yourself to becoming a trusted advisor, you stand to not only close deals but also to open lasting relationships. In an industry rife with competition and informed buyers, your ability to offer value beyond the product can set you apart. 

So, lean into your human side, offer actionable insights, and build relationships that stand the test of time! 

The post Bridging the Expertise Gap in B2B Tech Sales appeared first on RevGenius.

Someone in the RevGenius community asked how to write a great breakup email, which made me curious about what’s out there. 

I have written many breakup emails in my time, but I when went to find inspiration on the subject—there was little to see.

It makes sense: Most salespeople are not interested in breaking up with a prospect. 

When only about 60% of reps make quota, walking away from people with a pulse and budget is not ideal. But in sales, shi… things happen. 

Surprises turn up. Prospects waffle. Showstoppers emerge.

It’s good to create clarity for where things stand. And sometimes, it’s appropriate to end the opportunity—or at least make it seem like you think it already is to draw your prospect back in. 

Most guides on breakup emails—like this one and this one—make the sales lead sound whiney and desperate. They remind the prospect that they’re ignoring you and implicitly give them your blessing to keep doing so.

Here are four better ways to get your counterpart to engage—while leaving them feeling in control and respecting you as a partner. 

Cutting Through the Crowd

Sometimes, you’re in a crowded space, and you need to grab your prospect’s attention by appealing to their better angles—and poking their FOMO into overdrive. 

Let me show you a great breakup email we once used to cut through the noise and leave our prospect wanting us and only us. 

For context, once, a prospect asked us—to our surprise—to participate in a competitive RFP process. 

In the year prior, we had built relationships with several decision-makers on the team, and we felt good about our company’s standing with theirs. 

Then, suddenly, they released an RFP for the product and service we offered. We had no idea this work would go to bid, as it was not required to go to bid.

Nevertheless, it did, and our counterparts did request that we submit a proposal. 

We read the bid requirements, and something felt off. It seemed like they wrote the RFP for a specific bidder—and it was clear to us that we weren’t that bidder. 

We went back and forth on whether to submit a proposal for a few days.

On the one hand, we wanted the work. This work would give us a marque client and a significant source of revenue.

On the other hand, we didn’t want to walk into a process wired for someone else and be on record as losing a bid to our most visible competitors. 

After all our deliberations, we decided to decline our client’s request, but we didn’t just say “no thanks” and take our ball and go home. 

We crafted the perfect breakup email, knowing it would either end the opportunity because we weren’t the right partner or draw them back to the table. 

[Client first name] and team, 

We appreciate your invitation to bid for this critical work. After much consideration, we respectfully decline to submit a response for this RFP process.

We understand your team is on a mission to radically reimagine how your industry delivers value to customers. We believed you wanted a collaborative partner to pioneer that path with you—to push the boundaries of what’s currently possible.

As we read the requirements of the bid, it seems you have a specific vendor in mind and are seeking more of a transactional vendor than the transformational partner we aim to be with you.

Our mission is to elevate the best in the industry to new heights of innovation and impact. Should that mirror your path, we’d love to continue the conversation.

And if not, we respect the effort you’re putting in the direction you’re going, and we wish you great success in the path ahead.

Sincerely, [signed by the lead sales rep]

Why does this email work?

There are two possible scenarios when sending this email: Either you’re “wrong,” and they do want to partner with you, or you’re “right,” and they don’t. 

• If you’re wrong, you will trigger their bias to correct your understanding of the situation. It’ll be a “whoa, whoa, whoa” moment.

Your message will likely result in an immediate response and a meeting to clarify the current state and how to move forward. 

When we sent this email, we captivated their attention and eventually moved the process from competitive bid to sole source procurement. 

• If you’re “right,” you empower your customer to take a graceful out from working with you. 

Ending the pursuit this way positions your team as one who honors and respects your prospect. They feel like they are in charge and that you operate in their best interests. And sending the message from the lead sales rep shows you’re not playing power games and trying to shame or intimidate them. 

So, while this opportunity may be over, treating a prospect this way keeps the door open for future opportunities and continued engagement going forward. 

Compelling Them to Reengage

How many times have you had several rounds of back and forth with a prospect, only to have them blow you off and ignore you when it’s time for them to make a decision?

It’s the worst. 

It leaves you asking, “Was it me? Was it something I did or said? Or something I didn’t do or didn’t say?”

It’s possible, but I would bet good money that nothing substantive has changed. It’s much more likely your prospect got busy, overwhelmed, or distracted.

That’s why this next breakup email is so effective—it grabs your prospect’s attention and puts you top of mind without aggressive tactics, nagging, or judgment.

Here’s how I do it:

• Two (or so) days after your last message, reply to that message to bring it back to the top of the inbox with a simple message like, 

“Hi, [client name] — could we follow up on this message in the next [reasonable time frame]?”

• Then, for whatever time frame you used, wait that long and then another day or so to send the breakup email. 
• Don’t rush it—you don’t want the prospect to feel time-pressured by the message. You want them to feel overdue to respond when they see it. Send them a single-line question in your email that assumes they want to end the conversation, such as:

“Should I assume that we are no longer moving forward with this engagement?”

Or, 

“Have you decided this initiative is no longer a priority?”

Or,

“Should I assume you’ve found a better partner for this work?”

Etc.

Do not start this message with “Hello” or use their name. You did that in your last message, which is probably readily visible on the screen. 

Do not remind them you said you would check in. They already know that, and they may have even agreed to it.

Your one-line message should feel direct and firm but not judgmental.

Why does this email work?

The structure and tone of this message trigger three things:

• First, people hate feeling misunderstood. If you’re assuming something incorrectly, they will want to set the record straight. They will feel compelled to correct you.

“No, no, no—we still need this work. Can we meet tomorrow at 1 pm?”

• Second, it puts them in the driver’s seat and gives them an out. What you’re suggesting—that they don’t want to work with you—may indeed be true, and since you’re “already assuming it,” there’s significantly less embarrassment in admitting it.

“Hi, [sales rep name]. I’m so sorry for the lack of response. There was a sudden leadership change on my side, and now everything is up in the air. I don’t think we’ll be moving forward. I wasn’t sure how or when to tell you—I appreciate that you reached out. It’s been a pleasure working with you.”

• Lastly, this message reminds them you’re a partner and an equal, not a servant. This note shows you’re willing to move on. It doesn’t scream that you want to move on, but it shows you’re not desperate. You show that you’re in charge of yourself, and if moving on is the right thing to do, then that’s what you’ll do.

“Not at all! I routed your last proposal through legal and finance, and we’re about ready for final signatures. Let’s meet later today if you have time.”

If your prospect ignores you, they probably already feel they “owe you” a response. This simple message prompts them to do that in a direct, respectful, and empowering way.

Letting Them Go—It’s Them

Sometimes, you get involved with a prospect and later learn they are not someone you want to do business with. 

Maybe they’re unreasonable. Or disrespectful. Or abusive. Or they aren’t your Ideal Customer.

No matter what it is, sometimes the right thing to do is walk away.

But the difference between building your brand and destroying it can come with how you walk away. 

I’ve written breakup emails to clients like these in the past. They are always gut-wrenching because no one wants to receive—or give—unfavorable news. 

But the longer you go between knowing you need to end the relationship and sending this email, the harder it will be. 

Before the example, it’s essential to keep these two guiding principles in mind:

• First, unless the prospect is abusive, this email should never be the only form of communication. You should talk directly after giving the news.
• Second, this email should never be a surprise. A reasonable person should see it coming.

With those two things in mind, here’s how I’ve approached this email:

• First, I send the email. Then, separately—and immediately after sending it—I set up a meeting for the same or the next day.
• The client might need to adjust the time, but I’m proactive about setting a time to show I want to have this conversation and think it’s important.

My email reads like this:

[Name], we have decided to stop pursuing this work. 

We set up a meeting at [date and time] to discuss our decision further. We understand if you prefer not to meet, and there would be no hard feelings for that decision. If the time we proposed does not work, please let us know what does.

As we close our collaboration, we’d gladly refer a couple of companies we know and trust who we think would do great work with you. Please let us know. We can discuss this during our meeting later.

[Lead sales rep name]

Then, use the follow-up meeting to give a human voice to the message in the email. 

This meeting is not a negotiation. It reinforces the decision and sets a plan to bring the process to a close, should the pursuit require one.

Why does this email work?

Maybe the more important question is, why not call first? 

There are good reasons to call first, but sending the email first serves two purposes:

• First, documentation. This note is an official notice of a decision that leaves no ambiguity as to your intentions or the time and manner in which it happened.
• And second, it gives your prospect time and space should they have an emotional reaction rather than a measured response. 

One might argue that an email over a call shows you’re unwilling to share this news directly. However, sending the meeting invite immediately after the email demonstrates you are not trying to avoid the tough conversation.

So now, why does this email work? 

• First, the message is simple and direct. It conveys what they need to hear in unambiguous terms.

It’s like Brad Pitt said in the movie Moneyball, “They’re professionals. Be straight with them. No fluff, just facts.”

• Second, it doesn’t arm them with details to argue. Once you’ve made the decision, there’s little use needling in a thousand points on why.

Again, the prospect should not be completely surprised by this message—if they are, you probably owed them more feedback leading up to that.

• Third, it asserts your place as an equal partner. 

Offering a product or service to a prospect does not make you subservient to them. This approach reinforces that you have agency over how you operate and with whom you work.

Use this email to cut ties with prospects who will make miserable customers and thank yourself later.

Letting Them Go—It’s Me

Not every prospect you let go is one you want to walk away from. 

Sometimes, you want to break up with a prospect not because they are a pain to work with but because irreconcilable logistical issues emerge that you can’t get past. 

Maybe implementation requirements (assigning resources, timing, etc.) aren’t quite aligned. 

Or the buyer can’t get their IT or security team on board. 

Or they won’t give you the data rights you need. 

Whatever the scenario, you don’t want to end the opportunity, but you know it won’t lead to an engagement that will create a good experience for your customer or your business. 

It’s critical in this moment to lead with kindness and respect. 

Remember, every touch point you have with a prospect—especially prospects that don’t convert—adds a brushstroke to the tapestry that is your brand. 

Avoid harsh marks by giving prospects an out without creating nightmares for you.

Hi, [client name]. 

After much deliberation, we’ve unfortunately decided we cannot move forward with our collaboration. 

Our understanding of resource prioritization of this work means we would not start our engagement for at least 6-9 months. Our current capacity planning makes it difficult to guarantee that we will have capacity available then, and as such, cannot agree to an engagement under those terms in good faith. 

Should your priorities shift and capacity become available within the next quarter, we’d love to renew the conversation. 

Sincerely, [lead sales rep]

An email like this lets the prospect know you do want to work together, and you believe the work together could be successful, but that you are unable to overcome a specific issue that would hurt both you and them. It’s the perfect way to put the people above the issue in a conflict.

What Makes Breakup Emails Work

No matter if you’re secretly hoping to move the relationship and opportunity forward or formally ending it, a great breakup email creates clarity on where things stand. 

Most sales reps are great at starting relationships, but fewer excel at acknowledging when a relationship should end. 

If you want to master the breakup email as a tool to ‘define the relationship’ with your prospects, remember these three guiding principles:

Never lie. 

Sincerity and authenticity are key to productive, tough conversations—and lasting relationships. If you minimize concerns or exaggerate your admiration for your prospect, you’ll have to carry that forward as long as the relationship lasts—and the truth always comes out eventually. 

Don’t be rude or mean-spirited—be honest, measured, and respectful.

Try to leave them in a better spot.

Breaking up is never fun. Feeling like you’re second best is not something you celebrate. 

But those that win are great at playing the long game. Showing a prospect that you still care even after you know you’re not moving forward shows you are committed to a longer relationship with them.

Don’t give your products away for free, but offer them simple things with outsized impact at little cost to you.

Offer them your perspective on blind spots they have that you uncovered during discovery. Recommend frameworks or books that would help their work. Alert them to headwinds ahead.

Whatever it is, give them these pieces of value that put them in a better place without undercutting the value of your offerings.

Ask if you can keep the lines of communication open.

Saying “no” for now does not mean “no” forever, but getting to “yes” in the future is not a given either.

As appropriate, use your breakup emails and follow-up conversations to find proper ways to continue building your relationship with the prospect and helping them succeed. 

Most people remember those who are kind to them, care about their future, and help them win. If you can leverage your breakup emails into an opportunity to build an enduring relationship with your prospect, you will undoubtedly be top of mind for opportunities as their needs evolve.

And who knows, you might even gain an incredible professional friend along the way.

The post Make Parting Such Sweet Sorrow: Best Sales Breakup Emails appeared first on RevGenius.

While raw data may not always be perfect or comprehensive, segmenting and examining the metrics can uncover patterns, trends, and correlations that will give you valuable insights into your team’s activities and behaviors and a more holistic view of your team’s performance. Suppose you are a sales leader who relies solely on dashboards and attainment data to process it. In that case, you are only getting a limited view of the overall picture and may be missing out on critical insights that would allow you to drive effective enablement strategies. 

The DIKW Pyramid — Framework for Data-Driven Management

What does the dikw pyramid represent? It provides the perfect roadmap for making sense of data and gaining valuable insights. It’s a structured framework that allows you to process data and make informed decisions in a clear and organized way. Starting with raw data, you move up the pyramid, transforming it into information, knowledge, and wisdom (DIKW).

In the context of the SDRs , The first step is to visualize performance data into dashboards (information)  so you can define the key metrics you need to track, such as the number of calls, number of emails sent, email open rate, etc. 

Then, to get a more granular understanding of how your SDRs operate (knowledge), you need to piece the story behind the numbers by combining data with qualitative anecdotes to define the specific behaviors of your team. There’s no real benefit in knowing how many calls your team makes on average each day if you don’t understand  how they interact with prospects on the phone, the type of questions they ask, how they personalize sequences, etc. Only when you combine quantitative data with behaviors will you be able to derive valuable insights (wisdom) that will allow you to make informed decisions.

But how do you turn SDR data into actionable insights? What are the most valuable insights for sales leaders? How do you determine the most relevant metrics to track? 

Let’s delve into these questions, beginning with the metrics.

Input & Output Metrics

When measuring performance, you must first distinguish between input and output metrics.

At a top level, output metrics indicate the desired outcomes or goals, while input metrics are the specific actions or behaviors that can influence those outcomes and  ultimately contribute to success or failure. Input metrics track all SDRs’ activities that generate opportunities and output metrics measure their results and attainment. 

Each SDR may have different strengths and abilities, and their collective behaviors influence performance. To drive sustained improvements, you need to first identify the performance gaps and the specific needles you need to move by baselining their behaviors and then determine the associated input metrics that will allow you to track progress over time.  

For example: increasing the number of emails sent by an SDR may positively impact the number of qualified leads, but there are other behaviors, such as asking probing questions during cold calls or engaging prospects through social media, that also contribute to overall success. To gain a better understanding and determine the change you need to drive to improve performance, it’s critical to assess the entire behavioral funnel. Assessing SDRs’ behaviors,  actions, and their interconnectedness allows you to get a holistic view. By tracking and analyzing various input metrics, sales leaders can identify which behaviors are most effective in driving the desired outcomes and make informed decisions to improve performance.  

The SDR Behavioral Funnel 

The behavioral funnel  segments the activities of SDRs at the input level into three categories.

Initial touch points, encompassing outbound calls, emails, and social media activities initiated by SDRs, are the largest volume of data and are often scattered across various channels and tools.

It’s important to acknowledge that tracking this data can be challenging, particularly when SDRs use their personal LinkedIn or Instagram profiles, or messaging platforms like WhatsApp or WeChat, to connect with prospects. This decentralized approach may make some data points untrackable or challenging to capture in an automated fashion. 

Even so, analyzing these data points — however imperfect — can provide you with an indicative overview of the types and volumes of activities your SDRs engage in. This analysis allows you to assess how your SDRs allocate their time among these activities, helping you understand their focus and productivity.

Some key metrics: 

• Number of calls/emails/messages
• Number of unique sequences sent 
• Number of completed tasks 
• Number of tasks in queue 

Meaningful contact involves activities where SDRs engage in two-way communication and interactions with prospects that capture their attention and generate interest in the offering. This can include conversations, emails, and interactions through social media. 

As a sales leader, capturing as many meaningful activities as possible is valuable, even if some occur through social media platforms that may be more challenging to track. By comparing these metrics to the corresponding initial touchpoint metrics, you can assess which activities have the highest success rate in generating meaningful contacts with prospects. This comparison helps establish baselines and understand the effectiveness of different outreach strategies.

Call analysis tools, like Gong, can be valuable for analyzing SDRs’ calls within the critical 3 to 9-minute duration, where meaningful discovery often occurs. By comparing the number of successful calls in this timeframe to the total volume of calls, you can calculate the call success rate and set achievable goals for your SDRs. Additionally, comparing the number of monthly calls in this range with your SDRs quota gives you an insight into the quality of their discovery. 

Ideally, you should see a ratio of 1:1.5, meaning that they are having 50% more meaningful conversations than their quota. This indicates that your SDRs are consistently engaging in valuable discovery conversations. Consider taking into account the conversion rate from demo booked to sales qualified opportunity to establish an appropriate ratio for your organization. For example, if your demo to SQO conversion rate is 80%, you would want your SDRs to have at least 20% more meaningful conversations than their quota.

Calculate the median call length and the median number of questions asked during meaningful calls to assess SDR performance further.  This information can be tracked using specialized tools or trackers to help establish baselines for these metrics. Armed with these insights, you can provide targeted training and guidance to improve and optimize your SDRs’ performance in these areas.

By leveraging data and metrics related to meaningful contacts, you can gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of your SDRs’ interactions with prospects. This empowers you to take actionable steps to enhance your sales processes and ultimately drive better outcomes for your team.

Some key metrics:

• Number of calls between 3 and 9 minutes
• Average call length 
• Number of questions asked during cold calls 
• Email/message open and response rate

Meetings booked encompass the metrics that relate to the opportunities created by SDRs. This includes both quantitative and qualitative aspects, focusing on how SDRs manage the handoff to account executives and follow up on opportunities to ensure prospects attend and derive value from the demo. 

From a quantitative perspective, tracking the amount of information SDRs provide to the account executives in the CRM is valuable. This can be done using checklists or similar mechanisms that enable efficient tracking at scale. By segmenting this information, sales leaders can gain insights into the volume and quality of data being transferred to AEs.

On a qualitative level, it’s important to delve deeper into how SDRs enrich their handover process. This includes capturing additional details about the prospect gathered during the call, specific pain points they identified, and any other relevant information that can help the account executive tailor the demo to meet the prospect’s specific needs. Focusing on these details empowers account executives (AEs) to have more successful and personalized conversations with prospects.

By analyzing both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the handover process,  which can be measured using trackers or by simply counting  the number of words used in the handover message, you can effectively evaluate how well SDRs are qualifying opportunities so you can pinpoint areas for improvement and provide targeted training to enhance the quality and value of the handoff to AEs.

Understanding how metrics higher up in the behavioral funnel impact opportunity-level metrics is essential, as that’s where you often find the root cause.  For instance, instead of immediately focusing on having SDRs write longer handover notes in the CRM, you may ensure that they are actually spending enough time on the phone, asking the right questions, and conducting effective discovery conversations. By addressing behaviors earlier in the funnel, you can make significant corrections that typically have a more substantial impact on overall performance.

Some key metrics: 

• Opportunity completion rate 
• Length of handoff notes (by word) 
• Number of follow-up emails or calls 
• No-show re-engagement activities

Segmenting SDRs’ behaviors and identifying corresponding input metrics is key to understanding the interconnectedness and consequences of  their different actions. This segmentation enables sales leaders like you to identify areas where corrections and improvements will significantly impact performance. 

Your Enablement Strategy

Working backward from the specific problem behaviors and understanding the cause-and-effect relationship between behaviors can help you define your goals and design a more effective enablement program that addresses the specific areas that need improvement. It’s important to carefully analyze the behavioral funnel and identify the key metrics that accurately reflect the desired outcomes. This way, you can track and assess the progress towards success. Just make sure you pick the right metrics in the first place!

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Understanding Sales Commission Structures

Sales commission structures refer to the framework of compensation that businesses use to reward their salespeople for successfully closing deals. The structure may take various forms, such as base salary plus commission, straight commission, or residual commission. Most companies built these structures around revenue targets, rewarding salespeople based on the sheer dollar value of the deals they close.

However, this traditional model, while effective in certain contexts, can often create a myopic focus on deal size, potentially leading to a neglect of other vital factors such as profitability, customer value, and long-term business sustainability.

Shifting the Focus: Margin over Revenue

A different, and often better, option is to build sales commission structures around deal margins. The ‘margin’ of a deal refers to its profitability—the revenue it brings in, minus the costs associated with the sale. Focusing on deal margins rather than revenues encourages salespeople to sell more profitably, aligning their efforts with the broader financial goals of the company.

Consider a scenario where a salesperson secures a substantial deal, but at a low margin, due to extensive discounts or expensive value-added services. While the deal adds to total revenue, it might contribute little to the company’s net profit; in fact, it might actually result in a financial loss. On the other hand, a smaller deal with a higher margin contributes favorably to the bottom line.

By prioritizing deal margins in commission structures, companies can motivate their salespeople to pursue the most profitable deals—not just the largest ones. This approach requires a nuanced understanding of product value, cost structure, and pricing strategy, fostering (and requiring) a more financially savvy sales force.

The Importance of Variability in Sales Commission Structures

Alongside a shift from revenue to margin, commission structures must also incorporate a degree of variability to adapt to unforeseen market shifts.

External factors, such as market conditions, competition, and customer preferences, constantly shift. A rigid, static commission structure can quickly become outdated, leaving sales people either demotivated by unreachable targets or overly comfortable (and complacent) with easily achievable ones.

Incorporating variability into commission structures can mitigate these issues. For example, a company might adjust commission rates based on market trends or strategic business priorities. Alternatively, it could introduce performance tiers, where higher deal margins result in higher commission percentages. This approach fosters a more agile and responsive sales force, ready to seize new opportunities as they arise.

Collaborative Development of Compensation Plans

An often-overlooked aspect of designing effective sales commission structures is the importance of developing these plans collaboratively with the sales team itself. Involving the sales team in this process helps ensure that the resulting plans are realistic, achievable, and motivating.

When salespeople are included in the process of setting their targets and commission structures, they gain a better understanding of the rationale behind these decisions. They are likely to perceive the targets as fair and achievable, which can increase their buy-in and motivation to achieve them.

Collaboration can take various forms. For example, managers might solicit feedback from salespeople about past compensation plans, seeking input on what worked and what didn’t. Leaders should also involve salespeople in discussions about the company’s strategic priorities and how these could be reflected in the commission structure. Alternatively, they could hold brainstorming sessions where salespeople propose and discuss potential compensation models.

Collaborative development of commission structures can foster a sense of ownership among salespeople over their targets. When they feel that they’ve had a hand in setting these targets, they’re likely to be more committed to achieving them. This often leads to improved sales performance and greater satisfaction among the sales team.

Recalibrating Targets: Keeping Sales Reps on Their Toes

A vital component of effective sales commission structures is the continuous evaluation and recalibration of sales targets. This practice keeps salespeople engaged, motivated, and focused on their goals.

Recalibrating targets doesn’t mean constantly moving the goalposts just to make life harder for sales reps. Rather, it’s about realigning objectives based on performance trends, market conditions, and business needs. If a salesperson consistently exceeds their targets, it might be a sign that their goals are too easy. If they constantly fall short, the targets might be too ambitious, or there could be other barriers to their performance.

Periodic review and recalibration of targets can thus help ensure that salespeople remain in the “sweet spot” of motivation—where their objectives are challenging but achievable, pushing them to perform at their best.

Balancing Individual and Team Performance

When optimizing sales commission structures, it’s crucial to strike a balance between individual and team performance. Traditional commission structures often focus solely on individual sales, which can inadvertently foster a competitive, rather than collaborative, sales environment. While healthy competition can drive performance, an overly competitive environment can lead to internal conflicts and hinder overall team performance.

A balanced commission structure should reward both individual achievements and team success. This can be accomplished by incorporating team-based bonuses or profit-sharing into the commission structure. For example, a portion of the commission could be tied to the team’s overall performance or the achievement of specific team goals. This approach encourages salespeople to work together, share knowledge, and support each other in achieving common objectives.

Team-based commission structures can also help align the sales team with the broader organizational goals. When the team’s success directly impacts individual earnings, salespeople are more likely to focus on the company’s strategic objectives in their sales efforts. This typically leads to a more cohesive sales strategy, improved customer relationships, and ultimately, increased profitability.

Incentivizing Long-Term Customer Relationships

In the pursuit of profitable deals, it’s essential not to overlook the value of long-term customer relationships. A sales commission structure that rewards not just the initial sale, but also the ongoing relationship with the customer, can be a powerful tool for building customer loyalty and ensuring repeat business.

One way to achieve this is by incorporating residual or recurring commissions into the commission structure. In this model, salespeople receive a commission not just for the initial sale, but also for subsequent purchases made by that same customer. This incentivizes salespeople to maintain relationships with their customers, provide excellent customer service, and actively seek opportunities for upselling and cross-selling.

Another approach is to offer bonuses or higher commission rates for renewals or long-term contracts. This encourages salespeople to focus on securing long-term commitments from customers, which can provide a steady stream of revenue for the company. CFO’s love this model because it helps improve the predictability of future revenue streams.

By incentivizing long-term customer relationships, companies can not only increase their profitability but also enhance their reputation, customer satisfaction, and market share.

Conclusion

Sales commission structures are powerful tools for driving performance and profitability. However, to leverage their full potential, businesses need to rethink traditional paradigms. By shifting the focus from deal revenue to deal margin, incorporating a degree of variability, collaboratively developing plans, periodically recalibrating targets, looking at both team and individual components, and focusing on long-term customer relationships, companies can create a more agile, responsive, and effective sales force.

For more useful articles on sales, read more to dive into how AI may transform Sales in 2023.

Here’s a quick summary of the points to focus on:

• By placing an emphasis on deal margin, we incentivize sales teams to pursue not just the biggest deals, but the most profitable ones.
• The incorporation of variability into commission structures allows for the necessary flexibility in an ever-changing market landscape.
• A collaborative approach when setting plans is one of the best ways to ensure buy-in.
• Recalibration of targets keeps salespeople engaged and motivated.
• Emphasizing team and individual elements provides balance and an all-for-one, one-for-all environment.
• Building in a recurring commission income stream emphasizes long-term commitment for both the customer and the rep.

The art of sales commission structuring is a fluid discipline. As with all areas of business, a one-size-fits-all approach is rarely the best solution. By tailoring your commission structures to prioritize these points you can ensure your sales team remains motivated, adaptable, and highly effective, driving sustained growth for your business. The future of sales commission is not just about revenue; it’s about margin, adaptability, sustainability, and strategic alignment.

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It is natural to expect that framework between sales and marketing is improving over time. However, I believe that the opposite is true, as recent trends pose increasing challenges. 

• A growing number of buyers prefer to navigate a significant part of the buyer’s journey without direct sales involvement, leading to potential silos in planning the front stages of the journey.
• The rise of product-led growth often prioritizes marketing over sales, further straining the alignment.
• The role of the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) now includes overseeing marketing functions, but many CROs lack the necessary experience to effectively manage this aspect.
• Economic uncertainty pushes organizations to maximize efficiency, resulting in reduced marketing budgets and heightened focus on sales.

As we delve into a framework for success, I will concentrate on the initial stage of the buyer journey, which is centered around demand generation process. 

The alignment encompasses six primary activities that foster open communication, align goals and metrics, and promote a culture of collaboration:

1. Leadership Alignment: Setting a unified tone and demonstrating visible synergy among leaders.
2. Integrated GTM Strategy: Creating a unified strategy and coordinating efforts for a cohesive and effective attack.
3. Performance Connection: Establishing joint metrics that span the entire buyer journey.
4. Integrated Goals: Collaborating on joint planning and budgeting processes.
5. Team Building: Defining clear expectations and fostering regular communication within the teams.
6. Joint Storytelling: Coordinating go-to-market presentations and packaging to convey a cohesive message.

By implementing these activities, organizations can navigate the challenges, bridge the gap between sales and marketing, and achieve a more harmonious and successful go-to-market strategy.

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Leadership Alignment

Leadership Alignment plays a crucial role in establishing a strong foundation for the entire go-to-market (GTM) organization. To achieve it, the following practices can be implemented:

• CMO-CRO Collaboration: Close collaboration and alignment between the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) are essential. Any disagreements should be resolved privately, and regular in-person meetings should be conducted to foster a strong working relationship. It is critical for the broader GTM leadership team to witness a united front, which helps build trust and confidence.
• Servant Leadership Mentality: Leaders should recognize their responsibility to serve one another. This approach establishes a two-way street of support, where success is seen as a collective effort. 
• Joint Events and Activities: Bring the entire GTM organization together. Instead of separate Sales Kickoff (SKO) and Marketing Kickoff (MKO) events, consider hosting a combined Revenue Kickoff (RKO). Offsite planning sessions should always include cross-functional representation.
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Integrated GTM Strategy

It’s crucial to shift the focus from individual, siloed planning. It is an ongoing process that requires continuous communication, collaboration, and shared ownership of the overall GTM objectives. Here are key steps:

• Landscape Agreement: Engage in discussions to define and align on target markets, segments, and the ideal customer profile. 
• Develop Joint Buyer Journey Maps: Collaboratively build out buyer journey maps based on different segments. Agree on the stages, identify primary revenue leaks, and establish joint GTM priorities for the combined team. 
• Collaborative Storytelling and Positioning: Marketing should take the lead in crafting the story and positioning.  However, Sales plays a critical role in providing relevant input and insights based on their market interactions and customer feedback. This collaboration ensures that the story resonates with the target audience.

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Performance Connection 

By aligning metrics and measurement practices, organizations eliminate discrepancies and create a shared performance language. Here are key considerations to establish a strong performance connection:

• Integrated Revenue Operations (RevOps): Ideally, organizations should have an integrated RevOps function that supports the unification of sales and marketing operations. This avoids having separate Sales Ops and Marketing Ops teams using different methodologies, metrics, or calculations. A unified approach streamlines processes and ensures alignment in performance measurement.
• Metric Alignment and Attribution: Rather than engaging in prolonged debates about attribution models, it’s beneficial to not over-work or over-think. Whether the decision is a simple approach like first touch or last touch, or a more complex model, the key is to agree on the performance goals based on the agreed upon definition. This alignment enables consistent and fair performance evaluation across sales and marketing.
• Accountability and Understanding: Marketing should be held accountable for their efforts, and it’s important to strike a proper balance between “marketing influenced” and “marketing sourced” metrics. Sales teams need to understand that certain brand activities may not have direct attribution, and there may be gaps in tracking social interactions. Building mutual understanding and empathy allows for a more comprehensive assessment of marketing impact.

Integrated Goals 

By aligning goals, targets, and compensation, organizations establish a shared purpose that drives sales and marketing collaboration. Here are essential considerations:

• Pipeline Goals and Allocation: Start by setting pipeline goals for the business, taking into account the agreed-upon metrics and measurements discussed earlier. Once the goals are defined, allocate the pipeline split between sales and marketing accordingly. This ensures that both teams have a clear understanding of their responsibilities and targets.
• Collaboration with CFO: To maintain alignment between goals and budgets, it is crucial to work together, not separately, with the Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Through a coordinated process with the CFO, sales and marketing can ensure that their joint plans are financially feasible and aligned with the overall budgetary considerations of the organization.
• Avoid Battles: It’s important to avoid falling into the trap of budget battles or competing for resources. Instead, foster a culture of collaboration where the CEO and CFO support the joint planning of sales and marketing goals. 

Team Building 

Team Building is a fundamental aspect of fostering a successful and collaborative relationship between sales and marketing. To establish a strong foundation, it is essential to set clear expectations and work towards joint success. Consider the following strategies:

• Marketing’s Credibility: Marketing can enhance its credibility by diving into the business and gaining a deep, first-hand view of the landscape. This can be achieved by acquiring similar enablement and certifications as the sales team to demonstrate a commitment as a trusted partner.
• Sales Realism: Sales can contribute to team building by being realistic with their expectations of marketing performance. Recognize that demand generation and lead generation initiatives involve testing and learning, and not every strategy or campaign will yield immediate success. 
• Establish Process & Structure: Foster collaboration by establishing cross-functional teams with representatives from both sales and marketing. These SWAT teams can be formed for specific initiatives or projects and should have clear decision-making processes in place, such as utilizing the DACI (Driver, Approver, Contributor, Informed) model. Implement mutual scorecards and conduct regular surveys to provide visibility into the relationship status and highlight areas of progress and improvement.

Joint Storytelling 

Presenting a unified narrative about the go-to-market motion and performance will strengthen the alignment and collaboration between the two teams. By avoiding separate narratives, you can mitigate disconnect and tension. Consider the following strategies for effective joint storytelling:

• Standardized GTM Template: Develop a standardized go-to-market (GTM) template for board of directors (BOD) presentations. This template should be used to present GTM performance as a cohesive story rather than separate sections for sales and marketing. By presenting together, you demonstrate a united front and emphasize the collective efforts of both teams.
• Unified Presentations: Collaborate on presenting at company meetings and town halls to showcase the combined performance of sales and marketing. This approach helps to align perspectives and avoid any perception of one team overshadowing the other.
• Recognize Team Contributions: Always acknowledge that success is a result of the collective contributions of the entire go-to-market team. While sales plays a crucial role in closing deals, it’s important to highlight and appreciate the efforts of individuals from both sales and marketing who contribute to the overall success. By recognizing the contributions of all team members, you foster a culture of inclusivity and collaboration.

Sales and marketing, as two integral components of an organization, often find themselves either as the best of friends or the worst of enemies. The age-old criticisms between these two groups are all too familiar in the business world. However, to transcend these stereotypical perspectives, I am reminded of a profound quote from Patrick Lencioni’s renowned book, “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable”: “When there is trust, conflict becomes nothing but the pursuit of truth, an attempt to find the best possible answer.” In many ways, the six-activity framework and fostering harmony between sales and marketing is all about trust. By building trust and establishing open lines of communication, both teams can move beyond their preconceived notions and work together towards a shared goal of success.

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