Robert Koehler

Hey sales people, be careful with ‘Gong’ advice. Because you don’t work for Gong. Gong had 6 funding rounds. Each time millions of people heard about Gong. Branding Familiarity Your company probably doesn’t have that level of awareness. When Gong sales people engage most decision makers already know what they’re calling about. People with in the prospect have probably already had a discussion about Gong. Gong is a great company with great people. But the branding makes it a lot easier to sell so take the advice with a grain of salt. Have a great Friday! #sales #ifurnotgong

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Want to future proof your sales career? Stop "selling." Become a problem solver. How? One way is to create your own partner network. Here's how: 1) Revisit the details of your Ideal Customer Profile and the main persona you sell to 2) Identify the top 5-10 vendors/services your persona works with (ideally the ones that are complimentary to your solution) 3) Call into each vendor and ask to talk to one of their top reps (or find them on Linkedin) 4) Tell the rep that you focus on the same ICP/Persona and you want to develop a relationship with them because you come across opportunities for their services when you're talking to your clients and prospects. See if they would be open to meeting weekly or monthly to talk about what you're both seeing out there and share leads/opportunities 5) When you meet with clients, don't just focus on asking loaded questions to find the pain that your solution can solve. Try to dig into their challenges and find the root cause of the issue they are having. Sometimes that root cause it not something your solution can solve but one of your partners can. Instead of pushing for the sale, make the intro. By taking this approach you not only become the "trusted advisor" that everyone talks about, you bring value to the client and a partner that will almost certainly come back around in your favor eventually. I got into the details of this approach with Alexander J. Buckles from Forecastable on this week's episode of the Make it Happen Monday podcast.

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I believe Sales Enablement is a balance between providing what your teams need and what they ask for. It's the same as an AE or CSM advising a client on the best solution for their company based on discovery and past experience. Clients (managers/learners) sometimes ask for specific training that could, in theory, fix the result. However, when you dig...it's really a case of identifying the cause and training that. 💬 "We need training on Active Listening.", Manager says. "Give me some examples of when not using active listening prevented a next step." More digging... ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Result is the team needs training on effective Discovery Meetings, not Active Listening. So managers, the next time you're thinking about training you want vs what Sales Enablement recommends; remember these Rolling Stones' lyrics... "You can't always get what you want... But sometimes, you get what you need." 👨‍🎤 #salesenablement #coaching #learninganddevelopment #remotework

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CROs: Do you manage reps on data or gut feel? Gut Feel:  - Ask where they need help  - Jump on calls, see how they do  - Ask them how their deals are going  - Share generalized advice on selling  - Push them to log a lot more activities  - Tell them to work harder to reach quota Downsides:  - Reps reveal different things  - Some hide their problems from you  - Some don't know what their problems are  - You see a snippet of their deals joining calls  - Can't go deep asking about pipeline verbally  - You're only scratching the surface with this way Data-Driven Coaching:  - Look at quota  - Look at metrics  - Their Close Rate  - Their pipeline generation  - Their Average Sales Price  - Their Average Sales Cycle  - Their overall Pipeline Velocity  - Their activities and conversion rates You ask THEM, how they want to hit quota  - Do they want to make more calls?  - How many would it take to hit quota?  - Or maybe they improve their Close Rate?   - What's average on the team? Where are they?  - How much of the gap is bridged by improving here? Then THEY build their own plan  - With their own data  - Benchmarked against the team How much more bought in do you think they'll be? Vs. being told to "make more calls?" 🤔 In tomorrow’s 📰 𝙍𝙚𝙫𝙊𝙥𝙨 𝙒𝙚𝙚𝙠𝙡𝙮 📰 I’m going to break down how to build a data-driven culture and how to use the data to provide Data-Driven Sales Coaching to help reps build their own plans, ones they’re fully bought into, with real data and achievable goals. Subscribe to get it here: https://bit.ly/49RCm0h ✌️

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🤯 “Ramping up SDRs, AEs and CS people  takes us no less than 6 months.” 💣 🙈 This is what I heard on a recent demo from  a CRO of a rapidly scaling tech business. 📈 Time to efficiency is a struggle Heads of Sales Enablement and Customer Success are going through across their commercially-driven teams… 📖 At the moment, they expect internal  sales and CS decks, call recordings,  business pitches, etc. should do the job. 🙄 But it doesn’t! 🗓️ They're wasting too much time for people to start performing, closing deals, effectively onboarding customers, reducing churn & upselling… ❌ Sometimes, they still don’t perform... And then guess what? Off leaders go through to recruiting mode again starting from ground 0. 🎯 Hence the need for action-based learning.  Not just passively reading through PDFs  and listening to call recordings. 👨‍💻 Below are some use cases we see our customers here at UJJI AI ✨ leveraging our tech for: 🔸 Business-specific lead gen and outbound 🔸 Pitching quick and easy over the phone 🔸 Delivering demos and answering queries 🔸 Effectively onboarding new customers 🔸 Efficiently implementing product features 🔸 Practising great customer support 🔸 Guiding customers to upselling 🚀 Ultimately, growing tech businesses comes down to predictable new business development, high customer retention and low churn. 💬 So, DM me if you want to see examples  of AI-powered. easy to build and consume knowledge equipping experiences. 👇 Anything to add to this, Sales and CS leaders? Gautam Rishi Rohan Dickinson George Heron Russell Mitchell Callum Hartley Jon Teale James Dixon Seán Colfer Caroline L. Guy Rubin Jake Carter David Muscat Arun Raveendran Steve Eveleigh Ayo Kukoyi,

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Want to drive more expansion? Here's the playbook I learned at Salesforce - Find gaps with customers - Create offers to address gaps - Market this to your expansion list - Introduce offer in sales and CS mtgs - Lay the groundwork and spark interest - Start sales conversations with stakeholders - Close Expansion Opportunities and grow Accts! Whitespace is a key way to find those gaps. 𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗗𝗨𝗖𝗧 𝗪𝗛𝗜𝗧𝗘𝗦𝗣𝗔𝗖𝗘 - What products does each customer have? - What products does each customer NOT have? - Which products have you yet to present to them? *This is pretty basic but so often not executed well! 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗞𝗘𝗛𝗢𝗟𝗗𝗘𝗥 𝗪𝗛𝗜𝗧𝗘𝗦𝗣𝗔𝗖𝗘 - Which key stakeholders do you know? - Which key stakeholders do you NOT know? - Where can you open up new key relationships? 𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗟𝗔𝗣 - Where do these overlap? - You can sell a new product to an old contact - You can sell more current product to a new contact - But man is it easier to sell new products to new contacts Let me share some examples from my days at Salesforce: - VPs of Sales bought Salesforce (Sales Cloud) - VPs of Service/COOs bought Service Cloud - CMOs bought Pardot or Marketing Cloud - CFOs bought more licenses at discounts We had a different play for each product and each stakeholder. It wasn't this cut and dry though. Sometimes VPs of Sales bought Service Cloud or Marketing Cloud. CFOs often wanted the best contract terms and were my bread and butter for expansion, but it wasn't always them driving this. Most often, though, our relationship started with the VP of Sales who bought Sales Cloud and didn't really care about anything else we had to sell. This playbook is how Salesforce "landed and expanded" accounts and doubled spend for the average customer within 12 months of the initial purchase when I was there. More details in the 📰 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗢𝗽𝘀 𝗪𝗲𝗲𝗸𝗹𝘆 📰 https://lnkd.in/ezX9iMjr ✌️

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A simple chart can tell an important story and provide actionable insights. When we launch new sales messaging, we use Gong's slide trackers and smart trackers to monitor adoption and usage of the new messaging by our sales team. Looking at the first few weeks on this chart, we see healthy adoption pick up and peak at 40%. That's actually pretty good for most sales initiatives. It tells us sales managers are encouraging their teams to use the new deck and that salespeople are finding it helpful. But then something happened: in early June, adoption declined. We had no way of knowing this if we weren't tracking it using Gong Knowing that adoption was declining immediately triggered the following actions: * We reviewed who used the deck in May and stopped using it in June, so we could ask for their feedback: was something not working for them? Wasn't it landing well with buyers? * We could schedule a refresh training session for new reps who missed the first enablement session and use that opportunity to showcase some of the reps already using the new deck well. How are you managing adoption and usage of your sales materials?

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The Sales Leaders Playbook: This podcast conversation is a MUST for Sales & Enablement leaders. I talk with Lucy Lee & Danielle Dacunha-Howarth from Purple Patch about: - Successfully onboarding new sales hires & setting them up success (and the most common gotcha to avoid) - What's working in prospecting right now, how to reach out to a C-Level vs a Manager (there's a difference!). - A good vs a bad sales culture, why you need to know what your sales culture is. - Tech Stack: what tools do you need in your tech stack and their favourites! - AI in Sales: what part does AI have in the tech stack In this snippet we're talking about the COVID factor is STILL having an impact on sellers particularly those who started their career virtual selling. SOOOO much ground covered in this conversation! Check it out & listen here: https://lnkd.in/gfSBBemD #Podcast #Sales #AIinSales

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How salespeople leverage LinkedIn is an endless list of tactics, techniques, and frameworks. One of the best use cases for sellers on the front lines is education about your prospect and their company. 👨‍🍳 Elric Legloire and Stephanie White 🩵 have a few flows they run to learn about people they're about to approach with a value proposition. They're both LIVE with me November 19th to share their secrets with the Sell Better audience. Be there. Learn. Change. Win. 👉 https://hubs.la/Q02WQjJT0 #saywhatsales #sellbetter #dailyshow #idealclientprofile #ICP

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Ways your RevOps team should be leveraging AI: ✅ 1) Finding similar clients This is a big challenge in many larger orgs. You're looking for a few companies to name-drop in cold outreach or to weave into your sales deck. You end up messaging half a dozen people to find companies of a similar size, industry, etc. RevOps can use AI to automatically populate 3 similar companies in a Salesforce account field. - Similar employee count - Similar department size (if applicable) - Similar industry - Similar product / use case etc. ✅ 2) Customer success stories We all want reps to use more stories in their outreach and during the sales process. But this is really hard if you weren't the rep who closed the deal. So enablement/ops ends up creating a spreadsheet for everyone to use. It gets messy. RevOps should use AI to automatically populate customer success stories to a Salesforce account field. - The problem - The approach - The result - Name + role + testimonial ✅ 3) Measuring adherence and behavior change Conversational intelligence tools are doing a decent amount of this with multi-threading in deals, etc. But the problem is that most sales leaders spend little time on those platforms. They spend more time on Salesforce reports. RevOps can use AI or a conversational intelligence tool to append adherence metrics to in-flight deals like: - # of active stakeholders (buyer and seller side) - Adherence to specific techniques or language - Follow up time of emails after calls - Use of customer stories etc The possibilities are endless with this one. Then run a report on everything you want to see. Kyle Norton talked about this quite a bit in his recent podcast episode with Mark Kosoglow. ✅ 4) Contact & Account data Reps spend hours hunting for emails, phone numbers, LinkedIn profiles, etc. Reps may need to see Crunchbase profiles, investor pages, etc as well. RevOps can use AI to automatically append most of this data to contacts and accounts in Salesforce. ~~~ This list is just the tip of the iceberg. Where do you see RevOps using AI to improve rep efficiency? Drop a comment below and let me know.

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SDRs can be taught to be AEs SDRs can be taught to be CSMs [shoutout to Eric Partaker for the post inspo] Also... SDRs can be taught to be Managers SDRs can be taught to be Marketeers SDRs can be taught to do almost any role Fact: It's better to hire someone who is 60% ready with the right behaviours. Than 100% ready with the wrong ones. SDRs deserve a chance. Do you agree? PS. Share ♻️ with others in your network. And follow Chris Ritson for more sales content like this.

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Good reps ask questions in Discovery. GREAT reps also ask FOLLOW UP questions in discovery. Here are some easy follow up questions to ask to your prospect to share more pain: "Can you give me a specific example of {{problem}} affected your team?" "Can you elaborate on that?" "Tell me more" The deeper you go, the more pain you'll uncover. Agree? *********** I share everything I've learned hitting and exceeding my quota 13 years in a row in a short and free training every Monday. I do my best to make every single one immediately actionable and useful. Join over 70,000 here: https://lnkd.in/gZ9Sjcpb

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How can you be more strategic in RevOps? - Move from report jockey to strategic advisor? Here’s a tangible example: - Suppose we’re running a Pipeline Council meeting... - We start showing CQ pipeline and forecast are on target Then, we show the pipe gen for the next quarter is not on track. Here’s how we could tackle the conversation: 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘇𝗶𝗻𝗴? - This slide shows our pipeline for next quarter. - Current progress is $1M against a target of $3M - We’re behind pace to hit that $3M target on time. 𝗪𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝗞𝗣𝗜 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼? - This will impact one of our major KPIs… - New business bookings for next quarter.” 𝗔𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗲 𝗮𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗼𝗿 𝗯𝗲𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗱? - We have about 40 more days here - To increase our pipeline generation - In order to close the gap we have today 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁? - If we stay at the same pace - We’ll likely only reach $2.2M in pipeline. - We would likely miss next quarter’s revenue targets. 𝗖𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺: - We can see the issue is in the enterprise segment. - We’re creating about 1/3rd the opportunities we need 𝗦𝘂𝗴𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: - We’d suggest having a 2nd meeting - Looping in marketing and field sales - To brainstorm a one-off campaign here - And how we can close this gap together 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝗶𝘁 𝘂𝗽 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗽: - Other ideas to beef up pipe gen in the next 40 days? This is the fundamental difference in being strategic - We’re identifying a root issue and a potential solution - We’re making it easy for leadership to respond to this data - Not asking them to analyze data and make conclusions alone But what do you think? What would you add here? 🤔 More on this in in yesterday’s 📰 𝙍𝙚𝙫𝙊𝙥𝙨 𝙒𝙚𝙚𝙠𝙡𝙮 📰 Get it here: https://bit.ly/4cDUcVO ✌️

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🔍 How to master Enterprise Sales One of the most common use cases we have trained tech companies on this year is upskilling them on going "upmarket". Reps that had previously done mid-market struggle. What sales leads usually report are low conversion rates and super challenging forecasting as deals keep being pushed. ⚡ It really is a different sales motion that's far more complex. Many more stakeholders. Buying center and paper processes. Higher budgets and stakes. Longer cycles. ... . 💡 3 key success factors that really stand out: 1️⃣ Qualify effectively and RIGOROUSLY: Since cycles are long and often involve lots of internal and external resources, disqualifying early (!) becomes super important to focus on the right opps. Once an opp is qualified, it takes more holistic and in depth frameworks like MEDDICC / MEDDPICC to identify holes and take measures to cover them relentlessly. 2️⃣ Understand all stakeholders and their priorities: Often there are >10 stakeholders involved, each with their own agenda (also the ones you do NOT see). It's key to thoroughly understand what matters most to each of them and adapt messaging to align with their priorities. Stakeholder maps definitely help 3️⃣ Consistent communication and maintaining momentum: Enterprise sales involve long, complex processes. To keep communication consistent and clear, it's important to share regular updates to maintain alignment and momentum. Helpful tools are Mutual Action Plans and Give/Get Scorecards to ensure alignment and gauge engagement. Having started my career in enterprise sales at Siemens and having sold to CXO after that as founder, it’s when I ignored those points that I lost big deals. At times I was winging it and had „happy ears“ hearing things that just weren’t there 😅 Exactly why we have created an Enterprise sales guide together with one of our expert trainers Niklas Harzheim (thanks again!) from Google. Lot's of value in there for all those new to the enterprise game. Ping me or comment 👇 to get the link. What are you learnings having switched to Enterprise? #sales #enterprise #salestraining

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The same page… AEs, SDRs, CSMs & renewal managers How are you tracking to your goal achievements 🎯? Some mid-year reminders for the team. - Re-align to find out what has changed in your shared account(s) - Stay connected on a regular cadence - Build report and trust - you want to rely on each other - Meet in person if possible - see previous bullet - Enable tough feedback sessions - so important - Share current customer status and revisit top priorities - Strive for a unified front & strategy - Known when to engage leadership - target this as a step - Share your success metrics, KPIs, and percent to goal Success is a #team sport Have a great day!

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It might be time to find a new VP of Sales if… They don’t believe AEs should self-source a portion of their own pipeline through outbound. Sounds crazy, I know. But I see this a quarter of the time when a team is struggling. Reluctant AEs starts with senior leadership. And the root cause of this problem is usually a VP of Sales who isn’t truly bought in. 1) They’re afraid reps will push back (and many will), so they avoid it 2) They blame marketing for not filling the pipeline 3) They think it's the SDR org's job to make sure AEs don't have to outbound 4) They believe outbound is a WASTE of a seller's time 5) They believe everything will get better if they could just focus budget on finding "hot inbound leads" ~~~ I'm telling you—this situation doesn't end well. When more reps start to miss quota because pipeline is thin—the pressure's on. You'll have no choice but to ask AEs to self-source pipeline. So what happens? You have a team full of AEs who don't know how to do it. A team full of managers who don't know how to coach. And a culture that never believed in it. And that's a recipe for attrition and missed sales targets.

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"Our BDRs have Outreach licenses, but our AEs don't. And we expect our AEs to self-source 30-50% of their pipeline." ☝️ This is more common than you'd imagine. Are you evaluating new sales tech & renewals for H2 2024 and 2025? Don't make these mistakes. ⛔️ 1) Not investing in sales engagement tools for AEs If you want your AEs to self-source more pipeline, don't make it harder than it needs to be. If your BDRs have Outreach seats, every AE should have them. If outbound is hard and manual—don't expect your AEs to do it. ⛔️ 2) Unnecessary consolidation The big 5 (ZoomInfo, Clari, Outreach, Gong, Salesloft) are now playing in sales engagement, revenue intelligence, conversational intelligence, deal management, etc. You'll be tempted to consolidate into a single vendor. This MIGHT be a good decision, but don't do it to save money. Example: The sales engagement platforms across these vendors are not created equal. Some are better than others, depending on your team's unique needs. Don't sacrifice productivity by consolidating into an inferior tool to save money. ⛔️ 3) Neglecting basic sales needs For an outbound-focused org, these are the basics: - CRM - Sales Engagement Platform (Sequencing, etc.) - Data (phone numbers, emails, etc.) Everything beyond this is a luxury. Don't make the mistake of investing in the latest and greatest AI deal management solution—and cutting your data spend. Your reps can't outbound without emails and phone numbers. ⛔️ 4) Using tech to fix a people or process problem Your org might be better off investing in more Rev/Sales ops support vs. more tech. You likely have enough tools but lack proper workflows and rep enablement to utilize them. Example: Do your reps have a good workflow for reaching out to past customers who are now working at companies that are not customers yet? I've encountered one sales org with a great workflow that didn't require reps to hop between 5 different tools to pull this play off. Tech is only as good as the workflows and the people executing them. Invest in your ops or enablement teams to help with this. ~~ What would you add to this list? #sales

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Tired of losing hard-earned deals? Solve for Revenue Leak. In Clari’s 2024 Revenue Leak Report, RevOps leaders said leak happens at every stage of the funnel. - Creating: Poor and slow upsell pipeline tracking - Converting: Unsure where pipeline is dropping off - Closing: Slipped deals Don’t let Revenue Leak drag down another quarter – or another year. Download the Revenue Leak Report for more: https://lnkd.in/g9gnGrdz  

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5 keys to executing a successful C-Suite meeting. Sales Reps often struggle to gain access to their customers' C-suites. Even when they secure a meeting, they have minimal odds of scheduling a follow-up. This is because conversations with C-level and senior executives differ significantly from mid and lower-level conversations. This reality was highlighted for me years ago during a panel discussion when a Fortune 100 CIO was asked what he expected from people meeting with him. Without pause, he declared, “Be brief, be brilliant, and be gone.” The keys to executing a successful C-Suite meeting include: 1.    TIME: Only request 15 minutes. Their calendar is often built around 15-minute meetings. C-Suite executives accomplish more during a 15-minute discussion than others do in an hour-long meeting. Based on the time they award you, a performance/expectation measurement occurs. If you overperform during the 15 minutes, you will likely receive more time, and future meetings could be longer. 2.    RELEVANCE:  Have enough substance for two meetings before you attempt to schedule the first meeting. Be crystal clear on your objective for the meeting. Discuss topics impacting their business and relevant at their senior level. Don’t bring them a problem unless you also have a solution.  Focus on capabilities, not enablers (i.e., technology). Senior executives care about the capabilities that drive measurable business results. 3.    INTENTION: Show up with a genuine desire to help. (i.e., solve a business problem.). Respect their view of the world and understand what they are seeing. Don’t waste time on topics considered unimportant or “matter-closed” in their mind. 4.    LANGUAGE: Use their business language, not the language of your sales training and marketing department. Read the “pace” of the executive you meet and match it. Get to the point and close out with tangible next steps. 5.    PRESENCE:  Executive presence is everything. Act like you have been here before, even if you haven’t. Listen carefully to their words and the intent behind the words. Bring your empathy.  They will want to know you care before they will trust what you say. Ending up on the wrong side of their performance/expectation measurement will ensure you will never meet with them again.  Time is valuable for both of you.  The difference is that they know their time is valuable, so they accomplish a great deal in 15-minute meetings. Please share your proven approach for securing C-Suite meetings in the comments. Remember, selling to Fortune 500 companies is not complicated; it's just hard. Consistent and productive conversations with C-level and Senior Executives will make it easier. ♻️ If you found this helpful, repost it so others can learn from it too. Follow me (David Ooley) for tips learned from my 18+ years of successfully building, teaching, and leading high-performing Key Account sales organizations for Oracle and Google. 

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