Paul Boland’s Post

What is Enterprise sales? How does it differ from SMB sales? How is it different from Mid-Market sales? What skills are needed? What approaches are required? What kind of leaders are required? As Enterprise sales is likely the most overused job title on LinkedIn, and many sales leaders have no background in enterprise sales, a refresher from HubSpot is welcome to educate and to remove any confusion that might still exist. This level of sale is only for those salespeople and sales leaders who have direct enterprise sales experience.

Why Top Salesforce Partners Need a Fractional Sales Consultant: Reason 347 🚀 Smaller Partners Get Access to Expert Talent to Help Them Grow Transformationally 🔍 The Reality Many partners in the Salesforce ecosystem generate less than $10 million in annual revenue and aspire to double their size for greater success. 💰 The Financial Constraints Smaller, self-funded partners must carefully manage their finances, unlike larger counterparts (e.g., global systems integrators and 'Summit' partners). Every dollar matters, making high salaries hard to justify. 🔒 The Problem Experienced sales leaders demand high salaries (often $200K-$300K annually). Without venture capital, this is a tough investment for many partners. ⚙️ The Attempts to Address Partners either have CEOs leading sales (often technologists, not salespeople) or hire less experienced sales leaders. This often results in suboptimal outcomes, as new leaders struggle with leadership and the unique demands of the Salesforce ecosystem. 💡 The Solution Hiring a fractional sales consultant with Salesforce experience transforms businesses from average to exceptional performers. These experts deliver high-impact results on a part-time basis, at a fraction of the cost of full-time sales leaders. I've been in the Salesforce ecosystem for 14+ years, leading sales teams and Salesforce to sell over $300M of services and licenses combined. ✨ Let's talk and drive transformational growth together!

This shows a huge public co that missed their number and blamed it on not being ready or knowing how to manage or forecast enterprise deals. “Enterprise sales is where I want to get to.  I’ll close huge deals and make a ton of $$!” Not so fast. Many organizations have a named ‘enterprise’ sales team, but they’re really not doing enterprise sales. That’s ok, nothing wrong with that, it’s really just nomenclature. Couple things about enterprise sales: **Many stakeholders will be involved on the buyer’s side - the seller will need to manage them all **There’s typically a very heavy implementation consideration or lift for the buyer’s organization **The account may need to be worked for several years including meetings, calls, etc, before even getting into a buying cycle **When you think you’re close, procurement will get involved (you need to be way ahead of that) **If there’s any type of security certification, compliance need, the selling org will need to have passed it or have it **Multiple groups within the selling organization will need to be involved to support the deal (not just an AE + SE/SC) So yeah, you can earn a ton of money doing enterprise sales, but… Your company may not even be close to being able to support those sales motions. Here’s a summary of enterprise sales salaries, maybe this gets you excited.  But just go in with eyes wide open and make sure your organization is really set up to support you. https://lnkd.in/euDY4THq 💼

It has been my experience that many sellers view "enterprise sales" as the top of the sales profession. Having done both, when I discuss next steps in a sellers career my coaching centers on "What are your internal drivers?" What fuels you - making a sale once a week, once a month, once a quarter, once a year. Do you prefer big commission checks or consistent commission checks? Do you like to have greater control of your sales process or do you want to conduct an orchestra of resources. Then I offer my favorite analogy...Do you want to be a Tuna Boat Captain (big boat, big cost, fighting a huge fish for a long time that sometimes breaks the line right at the boat) or do you want to be a bass fisherman (more places to fish, less expensive gear, more action) Both the Tuna Boat Captain and the Bassmaster can make good money. Choose the one that fuels your personal fire.

What’s the fastest way to close deals in a new role or company? When I started at Salesforce in 2013 as an Enterprise AE, I had no SaaS experience. Yet I was able to overachieve and finish "Rookie of the Year." How was this possible? By following this one simple strategy: Bring in my Sales Manager to all my deals! Although I was very good at setting meetings, I lacked experience in running and closing large, complex deals. So I brought in my Manager and directly learned from him. From there, I was able to watch him in action and learn firsthand what good looks like. He helped me craft the story, polish the Executive deck, and brought in other resources to assist including our Head of Product, Platform Team, Business Value team, and a key Executive Sponsor. The Result: We closed the largest Employee Communities deal that year at a 14 unit hospital, resulting in a 7 figure contract! You see, you don't have to know how to do EVERYTHING as an Enterprise seller to succeed. But you DO have to be great at finding deals, bringing in the right resources, and leveraging your extended team to execute. My boss showed me how to do this and led by example. Bringing in your manager also removes pressure to perform which comes from Sales Managers having poor visibility into your deals. Anytime you are new to a role or company, there's a steep learning curve. The fastest path to success is to find people who are smarter or more experienced than you and bring them in to lead the way. That starts with bringing in your Sales Manager!

Hard closing doesn’t work in Enterprise sales. Here’s why: The person you’re working with, your “champion,” usually isn’t the final decision-maker. Big deals often need approval from the CEO, CFO, or a group of people. There are many steps and reviews, even after your champion says yes. If you push too hard to close the deal, you might damage your relationship with your champion and lose the deal. In Enterprise sales, your job isn’t to pressure them. It’s to guide and help them through their own buying process. You need to understand their timeline, approval steps, and key decisions so you can work together. Help your champion by giving them the tools they need, like business plans, future strategies, and summaries, to sell the idea internally. If you do all of this, closing the deal will be the easiest part. Btw, my partner Steph and I have spent over 300 hours creating a 5-step guide with free templates to help founders and sales professionals improve their sales by attracting ideal clients. If you’d like the free guide, feel free to DM us!

💼 What sales jobs pay the most? Enterprise sales roles and SaaS sales positions top the list. We provide the skills and strategies to help you land these high-paying opportunities. #salestips #sales101 #salesadvice #salestraining

💼 What sales jobs pay the most? Enterprise sales roles and SaaS sales positions top the list. We provide the skills and strategies to help you land these high-paying opportunities. #salestips #sales101 #salesadvice #salestraining

🔔 Founders/CEOs 🔔 Transitioning from founder-led sales is difficult, often due to misguided advice like “just hire a VP Sales” or “hire Account Executives and SDRs.” These shortcuts typically fail without the right leadership. 1. Define Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) Your ICP is a narrow group of customers who will love your product now. Start small and focused, then expand over time. Stop chasing inbound leads that don’t align with your ICP. A tightly defined ICP builds a strong foundation for scaling. 2. Run Sales Experiments on ICP Test different sales approaches (LinkedIn, cold calls, emails) to validate what resonates with your ICP. Use early customer data to refine hypotheses and identify effective messaging. 3. Hire a Sales Pioneer A Sales Pioneer is a top-tier AE with a mix of grit, entrepreneurial spirit, and sales skills. They run everything from lead generation to closing deals and are instrumental in building the SDR playbook. Avoid hiring SDRs first, as they lack the experience to build and test an outbound strategy. 4. Build the SDR Playbook The Sales Pioneer helps establish an outbound sales motion, testing and iterating the process to ensure pipeline growth. Once the strategy shows signs of working, hire SDRs to scale the process. 5. Scale with Data Track key metrics like conversion rates, sales cycle length, and contract value. Use this data to create a predictable sales funnel and determine the balance of SDRs and AEs needed to hit quotas. 6. Decide on Leadership Once the sales process is repeatable and predictable, consider promoting the Sales Pioneer or hiring a VP Sales or Head of Sales. Choose based on the level of scalability and experience required. ☝ Key Takeaway Sequencing these steps correctly is critical. Don’t rush into hiring senior sales leaders too early. Ensure the foundational sales engine is built before putting both feet on the gas to scale. Anything to add? Comment away!

Enterprise sales is a marathon 🏃🏃🏽♀️🏃♂️ Enterprise deals are highly complex and have long sales cycles involving multiple stakeholders, but almost always, enterprise deals have high annual contract values 💰💵 To close enterprise deals you need to have a dedicated team working solely on enterprise clients. It is important to remain focused on the deal for long periods of time while there’re no quick wins coming in as they do for SMB and sometimes mid market 💪 In the end, closing just one (or two) enterprise deals can make up for the entire year for some sales reps. Hadi Ahmad Ali is leading enterprise sales at Blink Co Technologies and is built for running that marathon 🚀 #saas #sales #enterprise