Champify

Spoke to a director of sales dev who led 61 SDRs and promoted 48 of them One thing those 48 reps did really well? Proper account plans and a great relationship between SDRs and their AEs Neil Flanagan and I will be diving into what makes that relationship hum + how to craft a stellar account plan this Wednesday (free) If you sign up you will receive a recording, come hang out: https://lnkd.in/gV__XiTc

I led sales at Heap from $400K to $10M ARR in ~3 years. 9 out of 10 startups that hit $1M never make it to $10M. Here are my 5 biggest mistakes and how I’m increasing the odds of doing it again at Champify—faster: 1. I was always focused on the next chunky deal Instead, focus on building a pipeline MACHINE. Sam Blond phrases it perfectly, “Usually a company misdiagnoses a sales problem for a demand gen issue.” Religiously track how many new meetings and opps you are creating and constantly find ways to grow this number. This will have a bigger impact than a small increase in win rate. 2. I spent a lot of time searching for unicorn reps with the exact “right” profile Instead, invest time building the systems and frameworks to make any above average rep successful. That way, your success rate will be higher and when you do hire the truly great reps, they can be an order of magnitude more productive than their peers. 3. I over-indexed on the importance of product knowledge I come from a sales engineer background. The reality is that while product knowledge does matter, understanding of the PROBLEMS your persona and target account face is 10x more important than knowing the product inside and out. During training and enablement, think about ways to enable reps on the problems vs the nuance of your product offering. 4. I spent far too much time with reps in a 1-1 capacity and ended up wasting 100s of hours teaching and training on the same topics (without others benefitting) Implement mandatory enablement every 2-3 weeks. Before you have an enablement team, IT IS THE JOB of the sales leaders to own this. Lean on experienced reps and other roles within your org to deliver these training sessions. It’s critical to constantly level up your sales team AND do so in group settings to create space to share learnings, challenge each other, naturally compete, and scale. 5. I did my best to hire smart SDRs and get out of their way Outbound is significantly harder today. Remove as much of the decisions that an SDR needs to make. Determine the accounts and personas they should target, enable them on the problems each person in your buying committee faces, and search for areas you can improve by using data and constantly getting feedback. The outbound world is too hard today for junior reps to figure it out on their own. Takeaway: Scaling from $1M to $10M ARR isn’t about chasing the next deal or finding unicorn hires—it’s about building scalable systems, understanding your buyer’s problems, and constantly enabling your team to succeed at every level. Don’t make these dumb mistakes I did :)

Hustling for that promotion? This Thursday we are sitting down with Datadog's Neil Flanagan and Champify's Will Falkenborg 🌭 to learn what it takes to prepare SDRs to make the jump to AE. Set your self up for a strong Q4 finish and grab your spot here https://lnkd.in/ekB_2ZvC Can't make it? Register and we'll be sure to send you over the resources after the conversation

This mission statement gave me CHILLS. Imagine being at Datadog and in walks Dan Fougere, the new CRO who delivers this message to the team on his first day before going on one of the most EPIC RUNS in SaaS history: “We will have a legendary sales team, making life-changing money, being best in class, and having fun. You will learn more and become better at your job during your time working at my team than you would have at any other team during that same amount of time. And you will never have to look for a job again because they halo of our success will be over your head for the rest of your career” What a bold way to start a journey as a new leader. And then even more impressive to go OVER DELIVER. In his recent appearance on Harry Stebbings' podcast, Dan goes deep into what it means to build a world class sales org. He covers: **What top performers want **Hiring and attracting top talent **Common mistakes sales leaders make **Building a ruthless qualification framework **What it means to deliver VALUE to customers **Closing the first $1m+ deal and where it came from **Getting in the boat with your team with concrete examples But most importantly – how to develop talent at scale. I am excited to have the opportunity for Champify to interview Neil Flanagan a 5+ year sales development veteran at Datadog, who has been lucky to learn under this caliber of leadership. Next week, Neil will go deep on talent development – specifically how to turn SDRs into great AEs and all the lessons he’s learned “growing up” in the Datadog sales machine. DM me or Will Falkenborg 🌭 if you want to join :) 

When I was 4 months into my first SDR role I got into a rut made one adjustment, and booked 5 meetings that day here's exactly what happened Started calling into a new vertical and I wasn't getting past certain objections and I just felt off Decided to ask my AE for advice He spent hours analyzing my calls and we sat down and gave me feedback that changed how I thought about cold calling We then went back to the people who gave me those objections that week and booked 5 meetings across EMEA / NAMER target accounts. Most SDRs don't ask for the right feedback Neil Flanagan and I are hosting a webinar on December 5th at 12:30 ET all about SDR -> AE Development and sharing practical advice around account planning, 1:1s, etc Here's the link to sign up! (free): https://lnkd.in/gtfin9Xa

Being a top SDR doesn't always translate to being the top AE. Datadog's Neil Flanagan joins Will Falkenborg 🌭 to share how he prepares his team of 30+ reps and 5 managers for the next step. 👇 Grab your spot to hear more about: 1. the frameworks he uses for coaching 2. how he structures enablement 3. the key skills every SDR needs to become a top tier rep

Anastasia Chihai as more than doubled her team's contribution to pipeline in a year. How? Building a cold calling culture. In case you missed it she shared her advice here: https://lnkd.in/e6QNzrPg TLDR; 1. Get buy in from culture leaders and your A players 2. Focus on skill improvement - tailor your coaching based on data 3. Keep it fun and engaging Big thank you to Will Falkenborg 🌭 for hosting a great conversation with Anastasia!

“Nurture is the new outbound” – an SVP of Sales who previously led GTM teams at multiple unicorns including a 10 figure exit, recently said this to me on a call. Steal this 4 step nurture process we use to revive 2 opps / rep a month: BACKGROUND From our Q3 analysis, a Champify customer has on average 1.8 closed lost opps before they sign on as a customer. In SaaS today, IT’S IMPERATIVE to enable your team to nurture accounts well. A strategy that used to be viewed as a marketing function has shifted toward one that sales must now master. The problem is twofold: 1) Your prospects are inundated with too much email to open your drip emails 2) The bar has gone up dramatically to get prospects to re-engage  THE SETUP This is exactly what we’ve built to help us revive 2 opps / mo / rep. 1) Have real lost reasons Catch all loss codes kill reps’ ability to prioritize lost opps. When creating the loss reasons, you should have a clear answer of exactly WHY someone didn’t move forward. For 9/10 of us “budget” OR “timing” isn’t the real reason. 2) Build in a flow when a rep marks an opp as closed that has two key fields: When should you re-engage? (Date field)  What needs to change in this account for them to move forward? (open text) THE PLAYBOOK 1) Set up an intent provider to know when the account is on your site (or the person) AND notifications if they view and previous collateral 2) Ensure you are monitoring key exec changes and previous user movement into the account 3) One owner from marketing to consistently feeds reps “reasons to re-engage” 4) A flow that resurfaces the account to the rep based on the previous re-engagement date Now you are arming your reps with intelligence of when a certain account is re-engaging with your marketing site or collateral. You have insight into previous champions moving into the account to get intel and craft a more unique POV to get to the real DMs You have insights into key exec movement which typically is a sign of strategic changes coming. Marketing is arming sales with value-based touches to re-engage that includes relevant webinars, new content, product updates, etc — these align to the loss codes reps previously filled out. And, an automated flow to make sure your reps are engaging the account with the right frequency and depth. TAKEAWAY If you, like this SVP and I, believe that nurture is the new outbound, this is a skill your GTM team must master. A consistent flow of revived opps with higher likelihood to close are on the other side.

Nothing better than getting unsolicited feedback from a prospect about one of your AEs (shoutout Nate Segal)! Later today: I'm sharing my learnings from the combination of my 11 Q4s in seat + watching what great sellers like Nate do to close deals on time in Q4. Come join me, Chris Orlob, and others today to poke holes in your Q4 close plans. Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/e4rh9krG

Last week, I talked to 5 different sales leaders who were all focused on creating urgency in their teams' Q4 deals. Here is the BIGGEST MYTH they all believed and a 3 step strategy to land Q4 deals on time: MYTH A strong ROI case drives urgency. After 11 Q4s in my career, THIS IS FALSE. A strong ROI case IS extremely useful to: Help a Champion structure their thoughts for a business case Help secure budget for an investment Help compare one potential investment to another But, it almost never helps drive urgency. Instead, get your reps focused on this 3 step strategy to land Q4 deals ON TIME: (1) Mutually agree with your prospect/customer on an ideal go live date Most seller mess up here by ending the mutual action plan or evaluation plan at the signature. Show the customer how long implementation will take, show examples from the last N customers you brought on, be transparent about potential hiccups, and explain at what point you expect to have adoption and value realization. This can not be a one way street. This must be a mutual agreement of the go live date - not the rep randomly picking when they think it makes sense. (2) Develop a business case that is heavily focused on the cost of INACTION If you and the customer mutually agree that your solution will help ramp their new reps 30% faster, increase their conversion rate on an e-commerce site by 1%, or save 10% engineering hours, you need to spell out the cost of waiting every single week/month. Now they begin to see missed opportunity and there is a cost associated with every time this deal slips. (3) "Compelling events always exist, the best reps will sniff them out" I'll never forget when my old manager said this in a deal review. The best reps know there is always a series of potential compelling events to tie to. Without a compelling event to tie to, it's hard to avoid getting deals pushed. Approach this by being curious and seeking out mini compelling events when the obvious ones don't exist. TAKEAWAY Sales teams have over indexed on the importance of ROI cases. While important, they rarely help drive urgency. If you want to go deeper on these topics, I will be talking with Chris Orlob and other sales leaders in the pclub.io community Thursday. For more info, look down.