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The Demand Waterfall / Predictable Revenue MQL hamster wheel is cracking like cheap glass. In fact, it has been for more than 5 years. The data was clear in 2018 that this strategy of getting tons of cheap MQLs so our SDRs can cold call them results in: -Untenable customer acquisition cost (CAC) -Extreme sales/marketing alignment issues  -Low Sales productivity  -Poor Marketing ROI  -Totally breaks with scale But we were in the boom times from 2018-2022. Money was cheap and companies were operating for “growth at all costs”. Investors pushed companies to deploy massive amounts of capital to grow, regardless of the unit economics. Most companies didn’t care (or didn’t even look at the data to see) that their “MQLs” converted to customers at 0.1% (1 out of 1,000 “leads” actually become a customer). This extreme inefficiency forced companies to overhire SDRs and Sales Reps to sort through all this garbage trying to find a needle in a haystack. Marketing programs, SDR headcount, and Sales headcount costs bloated across the entire GTM. Now, it’s 2024 and there’s been a total 180-degree turn in B2B. Every company is forced to operate for “profitable, efficient growth”. -Revenue growth rates are down > 50% -NRR has consistently declined for the past 6+ quarters -CAC payback periods have more than doubled to 36 to 48+ months -Budgets are tightening -GTM teams are shrinking -More layoffs are coming -And unit economics and EBITDA margin are now the top priorities Companies are stuck making incremental optimizations to these outdated models like trying to improve the MQL:SQL conversion rate by 2% or improve outbound connect rates by 1% or lowering the cost per lead by $12. But Incremental improvements aren’t going to get the job done. This new era of profitable, efficient growth (PEG) requires a fundamentally new approach to B2B Go-To-Market. The financial metrics *require* it and we've just about reached the breaking point. #b2b #gtm #marketing #sales #gotomarket p.s. Changing from an MQL to an MQA feels like a good solution but doesn’t solve the root cause problem. It’s the exact same motion just with a different trigger to activate outbound Sales. Lots of companies and executives I talk to are scratching their heads wondering why ABM and account intent data isn’t living up to its promise.

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Here is the real impact that value selling is having for revenue teams: Tom Pisello David Yockelson 🔑48% improvement in winrate 🔑35% increase in deal size 🔑25% reduction in sales cycle time BUT...... ⛔️ only 19% of reps and 19% of pipeline is using value selling today. BIGGGG opportunity here...!

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Want to win more of your pipeline? 💰 Multi-thread It’s one of the most important things you can do to help drive urgency in your sales cycle Most mid-market deals include an average of 6-10 DMs Enterprise deals can include upwards of 20+ DMs The trap that a lot of sellers can fall into is over-relying on your champion Champions are great - don’t get me wrong It pays dividends to have a champion but it’s 10x when you have 3-4 champions advocating on your behalf Unfortunately most buyers don’t know how to buy so our job as sellers is to educate our buyers on how to effectively buy a solution to solve their problems & it’s actually pretty simple to do Take a look at your closed-won deals - especially your high value deals Who all was involved? Who is currently involved? What was the buying process like? What unexpected obstacles did you have to overcome? Use this as a roadmap to educate your prospects on how to buy I love multi-threading at the end of discovery in driving next steps (and farther along the sales process as well) Here’s a quick talk track you can easily apply when driving next steps with prospects: “Next steps typically involve looping in ABC partners (this could be higher level DMs in their function or other cross-functional leaders who are involved in the buying process for your service/offering) to discuss XYZ priorities (this should be the key initiatives your prospect is looking to solve/improve/attain in implementing your solution). We want to make sure that we’re all in alignment and moving in the right direction together. We usually see that looping in cross-functional partners early helps us to uncover potential roadblocks that we’d need to account for and improves our collaborative efficiency. What does your buying process look like and who is usually involved? Would it make sense for us to go ahead and loop then in on our next call?” Why it works? 1️⃣ You’re educating the buyer on who’s typically involved with the buying/implementation process at other similar organizations 2️⃣ You’re collaboratively driving next steps and confirming the prospects buying process 3️⃣ You’re using multi-threading as a way to add value (helping reduce unforeseen roadblocks and improve efficiency) 4️⃣ You’re reducing the internal selling effort required for your champion (again - adding value) Expand your reach by broadening your decision-making unit through multi-tasking and watch your sales cycle shrink What other tips do you have for multi-threading within your pipeline? Happy selling, friends!

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SDR Dashboards - what do you want to see? Gimme your top 3 stats/charts/reports you like to see on YOUR dashboard for pipeline gen. There's the obvious activity levels and SQL/SAL volumes but what else do you like to see.....

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SDRs are so critical to success, depending on company size, yet like many GTM functions, they too are under reduction pressure. Data from Jason S. of Live Data Technologies (article in comments) showing that SDR function may be normalizing some, not wholesale decreases like the headlines suggest. SDRs are the glue between the Marketing and Selling function. 3 years ago on one of my LI posts, we all said that SDRs would be future CEOs. Now the headline is cut them. It's an incredibly challenging job for a junior person. And may be better suited for inbound and/or transactional type selling with narrower buying committees. What are you experiencing with your SDR function? ___________ 👏 Follow B2B Fusion on Go To Market best practice strategies. 👍 Like and subscribe to B2B Fusion YT videos, 200+ GTM best practices! 🤙🏽 Struggling with faster, more efficient growth? Let's talk.

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AE: "Can you demo to this super warm prospect?" SE: "Sure, what top outcomes are they looking for?" AE: "Umm, here's the e-mail thread. Figure it out." SE: "We might need more information than this..." AE: "But we NEED the demo to sell it to them." SE: "Okay, when's the call scheduled for?" AE: "At 3pm. Today." SE: 😭😭😭 Can anyone relate? Let's change the narrative. #presalesevolution #solutions #sales

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When RevOps is really just SalesOps (And the CRO is really just the VP of Sales) 𝗦𝗔𝗟𝗘𝗦 𝗘𝗡𝗚𝗜𝗡𝗘 - Closing deals should work - Clear pipeline management process - Forecasting is as accurate as possible - But everything before & after is an issue 𝗠𝗔𝗥𝗞𝗘𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚 - Has different goals - Maybe the target is MQLs - Has their definition of MQLs - And their definition of SALs, SQOs - Has systems with different metrics - Their reports don't match sales' reports - Leads routed from one system to the next - With lots of things falling through the cracks - Classic case of marketing/sales misalignment 𝗢𝗨𝗧𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗 - Do SDRs report to marketing? - If so, we're misaligned there too - The goal may be meetings booked - So AEs have lots of leads and meetings - But maybe not the ones they really need - The ones that convert to pipeline/revenue - We have more misalignment & finger pointing - Do SDRs report to sales? - What content do they have? - What events and assets do they share? - What visibility do they have into engagement? - How does marketing align with their outreach? 𝗢𝗡𝗕𝗢𝗔𝗥𝗗𝗜𝗡𝗚 - Sales is paid to close deals - How do they hand off customers? - What is the onboarding process? - Who builds/maintains that process? - What is done if sales drops the ball? - What is done if sales overpromises? - How are incentives and comp aligned? 𝗥𝗘𝗧𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 & 𝗘𝗫𝗣𝗔𝗡𝗦𝗜𝗢𝗡 - Which customers are easiest to retain? - Which customers are most likely to churn? - Which customers are the easiest to expand? - How is this data used to improve sales targeting? - How do we maximize NRR if sales is in their own silo? For me RevOps drives value by getting into the weeds and finding ways to generate more revenue with the resources available. That includes SalesOps and optimizing the sales process to close more deals. However, if we stop there we end up with an expensive and inefficient revenue engine with high CAC, high Churn and low LTV. We end up with different departments chasing different goals in different systems with different reports and different definitions of success. What would you add to this? Anything I missed? ✌️

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If you want to hit $100M ARR (and position your company for true scale), you must master enterprise sales. Here are the 11 critical skills your team needs to consistently close 6, 7 and 8 figure deals: 1. Understanding fundamental differences between transactional selling and enterprise sales 2. Developing the right pricing strategies to align with your customer 3. True multi-stakeholder and multi-threaded sales processes 4. High impact account-based marketing strategies including dedicated virtual programming 5. Field sales support and in-person program development 6. Territory design and comp planning 7. Building the team including pre-sale architects, reps, and customer success 8. Aligning the organization and staffing new functions 9. Building out services to ensure your customers solve their problems 10. Mutual action planning built around client outcomes 11. Deal management at the Board level These are all fundamental skills Pavilion taught previously but the scope and intensity are different when it comes to true Enterprise sales. That’s why Enterprise GTM School is so important and it’s become a foundation of our educational curriculum. We’ll teach you the entire enterprise playbook, give you the workbooks, tools, and processes, and prepare you to hit true scale. The course is included FREE with Executive Membership. It's an absolute can’t miss! And it starts TOMORROW Apply here: https://lnkd.in/ezspvCZe P.S. Not a member yet? DM me to get 10% off Enterprise GTM School

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SDR Manager: "Do 100 activities per day using this very specific set of instructions. We created these scripts for a reason, they work, don't deviate from them." Commercial AE Manager: "You need to close 50 deals per year to make your number. Qualify hard and run our playbook." Enterprise AE Manager: "Do detailed research on an exceptionally complicated organization then develop a unique perspective on this organization's business that would get the attention of a person who has >10,000 people that they are responsible for and makes more than anyone that works at our company." If we don't encourage critical thinking on the way up the AE career path, why would we expect people to be great at it when they get to the top?

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Top 5 key metrics I recommend CROs use for inside sales professionals: 1. Speed of response 2. Efficiency of progression through the process 3. Number of calls per day 4. Number of positive outcomes 5. Demo sets As a CRO leader, these are five metrics that I live by. 

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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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Do you use Salesforce? How about LinkedIn Sales Navigator? Keep reading. Question: How many tabs do you have open with Prospects that you're going to call....at...some....point? Today that changes...well hopefully not the prospecting part. LinkedIn Sales Solutions is making your lives even easier. ❌ No more switching between platforms ❌ No more multiple tabs ❌ No more [right click, open in new tab] Instead ✅ Insights that you can use, right insight your CRM ↳Account IQ: Get clued up on your accounts so you know how to position your solutions ↳Find your decision making unit ↳Relationship map - no more lists - visualise relationships to find decision makers faster. All of this is available today! (click refresh on your CRM tabs). Find out more here: https://lnkd.in/EESalesInsiders #LinkedIn #SalesNavigator #DeepSales #Sales #CRM #Productivity #GoToMarketStrategy

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69% of reps are missing quota right now, yet G2 discovered that software buyers are increasing their spend. You know me. I don't script. I just say what's on my mind. Understanding your buyer is a non-negotiable. Every single problem you have in your business can be solved by improving the interactions you have with the people who are responsible for making decisions about your solutions. That's why I brand myself and Revenue Funnel around the B2B Buyer Journey. So who better else to collaborate with about B2B Buyer behaviours than G2 and their incredible research team. Thank you again Chris Voce for recognising my voice and passion for learning and socialising the importance of the B2B buyer. Want to know more? Check the comments for the link to the full report and notes from other experts. #b2bbuyer #buyersworld #2024buyerbehavior #buyerenablement

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Half the outbound prospecting tips I see on LI are RevOps tips in disguise. Things salespeople had to do to hit quota that RevOps should have, but didn't, do for them. Here are just two examples. 𝗧𝗲𝗿𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 There's no bigger waste of time than calling suboptimal prospects outside of your ICP and Personas. The first step here is a data science exercise. You take your ICP and Personas definition and run it against all available internal and external data. Then you map out the capacity of each rep to determine how many accounts they can handle. How long does it take to complete each step in the sales process? How many accounts can they do that with before they run out of time and skip steps? Then you take that number of accounts and use your data to identify the absolute best accounts for each rep. Does any of this sound like a "sales activity?" Is this really what you hired expensive salespeople to do? To fumble through something RevOps could do 10X better and 10X faster? 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 What salespeople should be doing is research on that carefully curated list of accounts and contacts. RevOps can give them a BIG headstart by aggregating data into a single place so that they can quickly see things like: - Contact Info - Website URL - LinkedIn URL - Firmographic Metrics - Technographic Metrics - Marketing Engagement - External Intent Signals As an AE, I spent 30% - 70% of my time on all this stuff. As AE #1 in a small startup this took up most of my time, as I had to start from zero. But even at Salesforce, working inside their well-oiled machine, I still had to do a lot of this on my own. Most companies will give reps thousands of accounts when they can only handle a couple hundred or so and expect them to do the data science instead of spending their time actually selling. Don't waste money on AEs. Set them up to use their time more effectively. If you want to read more, we wrote up an article on this a while back in 📰 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙍𝙚𝙫𝙊𝙥𝙨 𝙒𝙚𝙚𝙠𝙡𝙮 📰 https://bit.ly/43lFOxQ ✌️

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Everyone is asking whether CS should own renewals and upsell.  Here is what happens if it doesn't. 👇 It’s not good.  I spoke to an Enterprise CSM yesterday about some changes happening in her company. → Renewals and upsells are moving out of CS and back into Sales. → Account Managers will now handle the commercial part of CS’ role. This move is interesting, as it runs counter to what most CRO’s are doing. → Renewals and upsells are increasingly owned by CS, which in some cases means they own a quota for the first time. → Sales continues to own new business and cross-sell to new business units in existing customers. ________________ My friend wanted to know what I thought of this.. First, I don’t have nearly enough information to comment on whether this is a good move or not. I assume they have capable leaders and they have their reasons. There is no right answer. That said, I told her what I would tell my son or daughter if they found themselves in this situation. Get out. I’ve been a part of two companies that did this and this is what I saw… → CS becomes the dumping ground for everything AMs don’t want to do. → CS becomes the scapegoat for every customer that down-sells or leaves. → CS becomes a cost center that will do nothing but shrink. But perhaps the most interesting question behind this move is…why? Because in my experience, if you ask why enough times to understand the rationale behind the move, you eventually end up at… → Leadership does not trust CS. → Leadership does not understand CS. → Leadership does not respect CS. And if those things are true, things are about to get a lot worse before they get better. CS stepping up with more commercial responsibility is not a trend or a nice-to-have. It’s the only way to survive. 📩 Want more? Try my free newsletter. Click the link in my profile. 🔔 Follow me, Bob Mathers, for more. 🎙 Listen to the Growth Mixtape Podcast with Bob Mathers.

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This will be the biggest blocker for the success of signal-based selling. (and it’s 100% preventable) Bad data. When signal plays run on bad data: → automations will fail → emails will bounce → personalization will be irrelevant And ultimately, your reps become distrustful of your signal-based plays because they don’t help them hit their targets. CASE STUDY We ran a head-to-head data test with a competitor to surface job change signals from a list of 200 Sales leaders. They found: - 36 correct job changes - 20 incorrect (wrong profile, false alarm, or inaccurate email) - missed = 25 We found: - 57 correct job changes - 1 incorrect - missed = 4 Put yourself in the shoes of your reps. How would you feel if you put in wasted effort on 20 bad leads? What if you knew that your team’s programs were missing out on 25 warm prospects? (Remember: for reps, this disparity could mean the difference between hitting quota or going on PIP.) Personally, I would start losing confidence in the efficacy of signal-based plays 🤷 That’s why I believe accurate data should be the foundation of your signal programs — because signal-based selling cannot work without it.

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SDRs and AEs spend way too much time trying to figure out how to make incrementally better cold emails and calls and way too little time trying to figure out how to make cold connections warm. Here's a super simple (but requires effort) way to warm up cold connections: 1. Build relationships with your company's CSMs/Account managers. They know all your happy customers. Your happy customers are the key to making cold connections warm. Do whatever you can to get these people to want to help you. 2. Go through your company's reference customers / success stories. 3. Search the key people on LinkedIn that are involved in them 4. Look through their connections and see who they are connected to at your target accounuts. 5. Send a note to your CSM that says "Hey - I noticed Pam at ACMECO is connected to Bob at CHARLIECO. Do you think she would be willing to introduce us? If not, would it be ok if I reference her in my outreach to them?" 6. Rather than send Bob one of the 1000 cold email templates that you downloaded, send Bob and email that says "Hey Bob - I noticed that you know Pam from ACMECO. They were struggling to PROBLEM STATEMENT and now they VALUE STATEMENT. Open to learning more?" Most people won't go through the effort of steps 1-5, so they can't do the easy part (6). Go the extra mile, no one is hanging out there.

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4 tips for running better discovery calls +1 bonus tip +1 one give-away [last line] Discovery isn’t just a stage in the sales process. We've all heard this. Yet, too many reps walk away without truly understanding the pain or the cost of doing nothing. Here’s how to fix that: 1. Start with curiosity. Don’t dive in with generic questions. Instead, open with something thoughtful: → “What made you take this call?” → “When did this challenge first show up for you?” Simple, yet effective. 2. Go deeper. Surface problems aren’t enough. Your job is to dig into the why. → “What’s causing this issue?” → “Who else is impacted?” → “What happens if it doesn’t get fixed?” Get them talking about the ripple effects. 3. Tie pain to metrics. No impacted metrics = no urgency. Find out what matters most to their business: → “Is this impacting win rates, pipeline coverage, or forecast accuracy?” → “What’s the cost of missing those targets?” You’re not just finding pain. You’re quantifying it. 4. Call out the cost of inaction. Paint the picture of staying as is. → “If this isn’t fixed in 6 months, what does that mean for your team?” → “How does this impact hitting revenue goals for the year?” They need to feel the pain now. Bonus tip... 5. Know when to walk away. Not every problem is urgent. If the impact isn’t big enough, qualify out. Save your time. And theirs. Great discovery isn’t about pitching. It’s about listening, digging, and connecting the dots. Get it right, and you’ll build urgency without ever needing to offer a discount. Which number could you be doing more of? ------------------------------------------------------- 🔔 Follow me for more on sales James Bissell ♻️ Repost and I'll send you a Discovery Call talk track.

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Revenue blindness is a condition that a 2/3 people in sales suffer from. When undiagnosed it can lead to... - Constant Peaks and Valleys - Scaling Suck - a 'Just do more' mindset - Hives - Dispair and Misery What is revenue blindess? When all that is looked at in terms of success is the revenue number. If you hit = Things must be good. If you miss = The team/individual/leader suck It's actually far more dangerous on the 'hit' side, and I see it all the time. A rep is hitting their number, but tearing down the culture, but it's allowed because of... Revenue blindess A team of 10 hits the number, but off the back of the manager or or 1 top rep, so the decision is made to scale to 30 even tho they have nothing proven in place... Revenue blindess It works the other way too. A team is hitting their marks, hitting the activity, working the deals, using strong messaging, and yet miss the number, because the number was unhittable. The number doesn't get changed, the people do. Revenue blindess. A rep IS crushing their number, but because of that they don't get the recognition, attention and support they want/need because well.. they are hitting the number Revenue blindess I talk about this with my leaders all the time, we can't fall into revenue blindness. We have to stay below the number to drive results. Behaviors. Issue Diagnosis/Inspection. Process. Skills. You - This is where BIPSY comes in. We have seen some amazing results over the last 6 months. We're talking some 2-3x type results. BUT We stay obsessed over what's causing them, not just the end result. This is the key. Revenue blindness is curable. If you know someone that suffers from revenue blindness ... Send them to the Sales Leadership Accelerator - it will take time.. but we can save them. https://lnkd.in/ejPDhZw4

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