Jessie Shipman

Everyone in your revenue org has a different view of what's going on. Learn how to leverage it: VPs: “We’re tracking behind on our Q3 revenue target. We need to increase our ACV by doubling down on Enterprise opportunities.” Sales Managers: “We’re tracking behind our Q3 revenue target. We don’t have enough opportunities to double down on. We need to increase our outbound activity to drive pipeline.” Account Executives: “I’m behind on my Q3 target. Building more pipeline isn’t going to help me this quarter. I need to close at least 50% of my open opportunities to get back on track (even though my average is 25%).” Same Problem. 3 Completely Different Approaches. If you work in revenue enablement, you have the unique opportunity to be a bridge between team members at every level. Here’s what that sounds like… To VP’s: “If we want to increase our team’s ACV by moving up market, we’ll need to audit how we qualify opportunities and make sure we’re getting the right stakeholders involved in discovery. Do you have time to collaborate on a new rubric for our SDR’s and AE’s to qualify champions? I’d expect this to take about 3 months before we start seeing consistent results. Is there any opportunity to focus on mid-market win rate in the meantime?” [Once approved, go to your sales managers] To Sales Managers: “I understand we need more activity, but until our reps are identifying the right people to get on a call, it’s going to be wasted effort. Leadership is working on a new qualification framework for next quarter, but in the meantime, you can still hit your target by focusing on moving more of your existing pipeline in S2 & S3 into later stages in the sales cycle. What are some high-value deals that you feel are stuck right now?” [Then, go to your reps] To Sellers: “Your managers have identified some deals that are stuck in the early stages of the sales cycle. In the past, I’ve noticed you tend to use discounts as a lever to push deals through faster. How would you go about advancing these deals if you weren’t able to discount them at all?” By taking the time to listen to different perspectives from across the org, Enablement becomes a force multiplier that get’s everyone moving towards the same goal.

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Ashi from Gong is fast (😮‍💨10k) But not as fast as Gong Engage users when they use Lavender. Access to your Gong calls in our personalization assistant ✅ Access to our coach & "Ashi fast" personalization in Gong ✅ Better 🤝 Faster 3.0 (and so much more) coming soon

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Good SDR leaders help their SDRs understand how many calls they need to hit quota. Great SDR leaders enable their SDRs to hit quota with the least amount of calls possible.

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Your Sales to CS handoff process needs work. Call Comcast and you'll get a full lesson in how not to treat customers. Ask them to go through a bunch of prompts and repeat the issue 20x before speaking to an agent. You are probably thinking: well our process isn't THAT bad. Are you sure? I bet your process looks something like this: 1. Someone submits a lead or responds to an outbound message (information sharing 1) 2. A BDR follows up to qualify them and set a meeting (person 1, information sharing 2) 3. An AE sets up a Discovery meeting (person 2, information sharing 3) 4. 60-90 day sales cycle (information sharing 4-5) 5. Closed won, handed to implementation for 30 days (person 3, information sharing 6) 6. Moved over to CS (person 4, information sharing 7) Imagine the frustration customers have when they have to share the same info (company information, business problems, etc.) 7 times to 4 different people. It sucks! I had a great time talking about the broken handoff processes in SaaS with Cory Pitt on the Wiser AI podcast.

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Attention SDRs and Sales Reps🎙️ If you are not getting enough coaching, use Chat GPT to supplement the lack of support - P.S sorry you aren’t getting support 😥 Paste a transcript of your recorded call or role-play you did with a co-worker into ChatGPT (check with legal if you can do this) Ask ChatGPT to: • Analyze your call based on your call framework or script • Identify areas for improvement by asking Chat GPT (or whatever tool you may use) questions • Suggest alternative phrases to communicate value better Prompts you could use: "What did I do well on this call?” - Start off feeling good "What did I not do well?” "How could I have dug into the pain more? Please provide questions I could have asked?” “Can you give me 3 ways I could have handled the objections?” "Suggest alternative ways I could have gone for the close?” “Did I miss anything in the call that could have helped me go for the close?” A.I. will not replace you; the Reps who learn how to use it to help them improve will. If you are a sales or enablement leader and want to learn more about how you could leverage A.I. to help improve your team. Come to the Allego Sales Success Summit, where Sam Richter CSP, CPAE, will discuss how to use AI to help improve your sales team. https://lnkd.in/eKg3w7w2

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ZoomInfo Copilot is working 24/7 — surfacing important updates you should know about your top accounts.  With breaking alerts delivered via Slack, you'll never miss when a buying group shifts or a key account spikes on intent. 🔔 Have a question about one of your accounts? Ask Copilot's interactive, AI-powered chat and get answers in seconds.  Ready to give Copilot a try? Request a demo: bit.ly/3Kj4myP #ZoomInfoCopilot

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There’s something special about not just getting our Sales Dev team together but the whole GTM org in person once a quarter at Lattice. A pipeline opportunity created or a closed won hits different when you actually get to smash the gong (pun intended 😉) So why am I even more stoked on the future at Lattice after this week? ✨Sarah Franklin shared her vision for our product and how to bring it to market. When I see features that I KNOW will make my life easier as a people leader, I can only imagine how amp’d our buyers will be! ✨PMM laid out some stunning new positioning and I am giddy about writing new talk tracks for our calls (thank you Ross Gordon and others for the fuel!!) ✨We got a preview of our quarterly product release that’s dropping next week. 20+ new features!! It’s so much fun to sell for a company that is innovating. Thank you Kerry Wheeler and Amaury Sablon for kicking off the fun. ✨Gabrielle “GB” Blackwell ran her first BDR training for our team. The best advice I’ve gotten is hire leaders that are better than you #ironsharpensiron. Her outbound sales skills are out of this 🌎 and I can’t wait to see where she will take the entire sales team with her insights #gtmstrategy #salesdevelopment #hrtech

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Best way to achieve target is to focus on clients with a genuine problem you can solve. Filtering out people who will not buy is crucial to build a realistic and achievable pipeline!

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Every AE ever - "I cannot find the information I need, and I need it now!" Sales Leaders, is it a common complaint from your teams that they cannot find the answers? They cannot find competitor information, that latest deck, or that marketing snippet. Do they lose time searching Salesforce, Sharepoint or name your company's resource of choice to find the information? We have the Answer! #Qlik Answers is a stand-alone GenAI (RAG) solution sitting over your unstructured data, every PowerPoint, PDF, email, and text field in your CRM, and so on. Allowing your team to ask a question and get the answer immediately. Demand your teams get the one tool they need!

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Great post (...and I need that knife) on the topic of quota attainment and the impact it has on sales. While in this post it's about sales interviewees asking about it, it is important to realize that this is #SalesOps / #Revops as well as sales leaders' role to make them fair and achievable. But why do you rarely hear about any companies that really do this right? More often than not, the miss is that the incentive compensation plan is great, an awesome plan, opportunity to make great money, but....the quota makes hitting it unachievable. #SalesPlanning is the connective tissue between your #ICM solution and finance, and too often it is still managed in EXCEL! Quick Fact: If sales turnover averages 35%, many orgs have reps leaving and joining every day so when doing the annual sales planning, it can't even be completed before it needs to change and this process goes on daily throughout the year, a big reason why it is so often a miss. Oh and did I mention no data to inform the decisions the front line sales managers have to make? #TakeFinanceFurther #CFO #CRO

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Want to know the most critical meeting in your customer journey? It's the kickoff call. So many SaaS founders underestimate the power of a strong kickoff call. It's not just another meeting - it's the foundation of your entire customer relationship. Get it wrong, and you're setting yourself up for churn before you even start. Nail it, and you'll unlock a flywheel of retention and referrals that can supercharge your growth. I've developed a 3-phase strategy that transforms kickoff calls from a potential liability into a powerful asset. Want the full playbook? I've broken it down step-by-step in my latest video, including the exact SOP we use at SaaS Academy. Check it out now ↓

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The decision to use ZoomInfo has never been easier. 🚀 But just in case you're still on the fence, hear it straight from the source! Check out the customer testimonials at the link below.

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Sales reps that are spending time on the wrong accounts and personas, are the ones that are losing 🤕 ICP and personas have never been as important as they are now. If I was an AE right now, I'd be focusing on the following plan for EVERY account: 1) Are they the right fit based on our ICP? (if no, strict qualifying out is needed) 2) Who am I speaking with? (Influencer, Decision Maker, Champion) map the account fully to understand who we need to speak with 3) If I'm not speaking to a Decision Maker, how do I get access to this person quickly? 4) Do I have a good understanding of the pain and impact of their problem (individual/business)? If no, how do I get it. If yes, how do I continue to tie back to them. 5) Why Reachdesk, why now? Is there a compelling event - if no, timing is key Anything I'm missing? #sales

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If you're an AE, here are 5 easy ways to generate more ARR without “being salesy:” 1. Interview your company’s top customer. Narrow in on the account pushing your product team to create the newest and best features. 2. Understand exactly what makes them a big spender and innovator in their field. The goal is to understand who at that organization is behind a big initiative that leverages your product and services to maximum capacity. Example: At my old company (a conversational AI provider), our top customer believed in getting the whole company rallied behind delivering the best customer service. The head of contact centers led that initiative. 3. Create a “transformation blueprint” around them. Understanding the who, the what, and the why will make it easier for you to design a blueprint for how a company’s key executive can transform its operations (consultative) vs trying to convince them why they should use your product and services (salesy). Example: Because I knew from our top customer that the head of contact centers was typically neglected in strategic initiatives, I had a blueprint to get them further up the queue with their C-Suite. That’s a compelling proposition for that type of executive. 4. Recruit your top customer and other experts to position the credibility of this transformation. Use your time, energy, and attention to orchestrate meaningful conversations between your top-performing customers, your best internal experts, and your prospects. Example: Positioning small, intimate roundtable discussions was where I spent a lot of my time as a strategic seller. Then, we delivered amazing “white glove” experiences in these sessions where our customers did the selling, our experts answered the questions, and I simply coordinated a good experience between all 3. 5. Repeat for your top accounts. Once you have a repeatable blueprint, your position and status change. You become more of a “keyholder” to an exclusive VIP club where executives can level up their career (power position) vs asking them to try their luck on a small pilot of an unknown product (weak position). The big picture takeaway: Learn to think like a strategic business operator rather than a salesperson and watch your commission checks expand significantly. 🐝

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CSM, here are 28 reasons to be thankful for in 2024: 1- AI tools are reducing administrative grunt work 🤖 2- CEOs understanding the importance of retention 💡 3- Predictive analytics are getting much more robust 🔮 4- Remote work expanding global CS opportunities 🌐 5- Retention metrics at board-level conversations 📉 6- The flywheel is overtaking the funnel as a GTM engine 🤲 7- Measuring Customer Outcomes is a top priority for CS 📊 8- Automation is handling repetitive customer interactions 🤖 9- Salary ranges for CSMs are becoming more competitive 💰 10- Customer health scoring is more sophisticated than ever ❤️ 11- There are so many learning programs for CS professionals 🎓 12- More companies budget for professional CS development 🏆 13- Customer feedback loops are faster and more transparent 🔄 14- More start-ups are tackling CS challenges and opportunities 🚀 15- Diversity and inclusion are improving in CS leadership roles 🌈 16- Tech stacks are becoming more integrated and user-friendly 💻 17- Executive leadership values emotional intelligence more now 🤝 18- CSM burnout prevention is getting more leadership attention 🧘‍♀️ 19- Technology is making personalization easier and more effective 🎯 20- The first CRM that supports the CSM work launched (HubSpot) 🧡 21- The skills learned in CS are highly transferable across industries 🌍 22- We're finally unifying the data to tailor the customer experience 🏅 23- The job market for CS professionals is showing genuine recovery 📈 24- The CS community is more supportive and collaborative than ever 🤙 25- Customer success is recognized as a revenue-generating function 💸 26- Networking opportunities have expanded through digital platforms 💻 27- Learning resources for CS professionals are abundant and accessible 📚 28- The stigma around customer success as a "nice to have" is disappearing 🔥 Customer Success is growing and it's becoming better. Despite the hurdles, there’s nowhere else I'd rather be. Who's ready for another revolution around the sun, making a real impact? Let’s go! - 📧 Join thousands of others learning to ace their CS roles by subscribing to my newsletter. (link below) #CustomerSuccess #SaaS #CustomerExperience #CSM #revops

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The job of your sales enablement tech isn't to drive product usage, give you more data, help you pass quizzes or beat bots. The job is to make you more money, by making your reps better. If you improve what your team says and how they say it, you'll generate more leads, close more deals, and boost retention rates. That's why 90% of GTM orgs invest in sales enablement tech. The upside of solving the real issue is huge. YET 90% of the things you teach reps never get used in front of clients. Your tech stack is failing you, and they're probably putting the blame on you rather than looking at themselves. Regardless of what tools you use, your reps don't practice, don't receive enough feedback and you likely have no idea if A) taught skills get used with actual clients and B) if it impacts your actual business. This is why we have struggled with how to describe what we're doing. Because AI Roleplay, Conversational Intelligence, Feedback Automation and even Learning Management Systems just don't cut it when it comes to doing those things. Our entire point of view is that you need 3 things. Practice, Feedback and Measurement. Think of it like an Enablement Trinity. If you solve for that, you unlock the full potential of every client interaction. Everybody wins. The job-to-be-done is not to use a product. The job-to-be-done is to actually adopt the things you're taught. We are creating the world's first Training Adoption Platform.

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Sales folks especially SDRs and AEs I will tell you a hack about how to achieve more in less time ↓ "Start blocking your calendar thoughtfully and strategically every single day" Working out of whims & fancies and adhocism will not get you the desired result you aspire to achieve. You need to have a plan for your day even before starting the day. Every time you block your calendar make sure you block it for a single activity and you define what output you want to achieve out of this activity. Have a time block for at least Prospecting, Identifying new accounts, and Follow-ups on a daily basis, the rest you can block based on your roles and KRAs. Remember: "You cannot control time but you can surely control how you want to spend the time"

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SDRs and AEs are sending way too many emails these days. All you need is 4. 𝟭. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗘𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹 Jill, looks like your team’s growing quickly. How’re you planning SKO for all your new AEs? We help sales leaders pick everything from destination, flights, meals and events. Simply put in your team size and budget and we’ll give you all your options in seconds. Curious to learn how? 𝟮. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗹𝘆 𝗘𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹 Here's a quick video showing how you can plan SKO (flights, meals and events) in less than a minute: [insert video] ♻️ And then repeat that (a week later) with a new pain point That's it. 𝗠𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆: Don't send break up emails. Those get marked as SPAM. What cold email tips do you have? - Mike G 👉 Join 7,000+ sellers getting my (free) sales newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/gwQVvVBK

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I used to see this sequence play out way too often in early sales cycles... • Work tirelessly to research a top account • Collect company and stakeholder intel • Craft intelligent POV and internal prep • Deliver tailored pitch that seems to hit • Move to a choreographed product demo • Receive perfect feedback from buyers • Agree to "reconnect around next steps" • Follow up immediately and relentlessly • Realize you're being ghosted and move on Today, I have a better system to maintain mutual alignment through our evaluation together. We work closely, vendor and customer, during each stage and collectively unlock gates once certain information is gathered. Expectations and steps are laid out early, typically at the end of our first POV read out. Both parties can choose to stop or pause the evaluation at any point, for any reason. Until then, we partner hand-in-hand to drive the evaluation forward and include new team members from each side as we move through. This unlocks a level of mutual respect and accountability. It's typically been received well and appreciated by customers. We all have limited time, and this is a way to maintain focus so neither side is wasting hours. Give it a shot, and see how your mid-stage meeting numbers (and impact) grow. --- PS: I've been posting about sales motivation, mindset, and anything else relevant from my 15+ years selling SaaS. Follow for more. Pic from a morning garden view as I gathered thoughts for a sunny day ahead. 🌺🌞

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