SaaStr

APRIL 12, 2021

The biggest mistake folks make when they go to hire a VP of Sales is hiring a top AE that's never really built a team. But it does not remotely prepare you to be a VP of Sales on its own. So for 90% of you, a Stretch VP is better than someone that is or seems more seasoned, but hasn’t really done it.

Inside sales 129

Inside sales Start-ups Strategize Growth 129

Sales Hacker

MAY 29, 2023

Key takeaway: Account executive Varenya Penna uses wins and learnings from her BDR-to-AE journey to create the 90-day SDR-to-AE guide she wishes she’d had. I think it’s something like customer success — but I guess before they become customers? Starting your journey from SDR to AE? my mom asked me. Related: Need to Find Leads?

Territory 86

Territory Objectives and Key Results CRM Pitch 86

STAR Results

JUNE 3, 2020

Unleash the 10X Factor to Close the Sales Gap. Do you want to close the sales gap? Now is the time to get sales on track. Even though we are still social distancing and face to face selling may not resume until 2021, you are still responsible for sales results. Sales managers are the key to driving sales performance.

Closing 247

Closing Objectives and Key Results Sales Follow-up 247

Force Management

AUGUST 28, 2020

First-line managers, more often than not, are the linchpin to whether a sales enablement initiative sticks or falls by the wayside. If your managers see how invested you are in the change initiative’s success, they’ll see the importance of driving long-term reinforcement and adoption.

Launch 112

Launch Sales 112

Veloxy

AUGUST 25, 2022

There are many factors that cause sales stress. Sales is commonly ranked as one of the most stressful professions in the country. In addition to the intense and competitive work environment, sales reps and managers also have to juggle their work life balance and other commitments. Pressure to hit quota.

Sales 182

Sales Quota Contact Clients 182

The 5% Institute

AUGUST 14, 2023

Are you ready to take your sales career to the next level? A well-structured and effective 30 60 90 day sales plan can be your ticket to achieving remarkable results and standing out in a competitive market. Introduction Embarking on a new role in sales requires careful planning and a strategic approach.

Objectives and Key Results 52

Objectives and Key Results Strategic partnership Objection handling Territory 52

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 8, 2024

Add on to this the terrifying data on sales performance–a few numbers from EBSTA, in the second half of 2023, 73% of reps missed quota, 23% of reps contribute 83% of revenue (our good friend, Pareto, again), 39% of deals slipping, and win rates plummeting another 47%. One thinks, what about the other 90%, what opportunity exists there?

Quota 117

Quota Trust Pitch Up-sell 117

Martech

DECEMBER 26, 2023

Traditional support methods include training, data-sharing, co-marketing campaigns, rebates, MDF (market development funds), and sales enablement, like content, events and sales playbooks. Amazon Web Services has done just that, under the management of John-Marc Clark, global distribution leader.

B2B 108

B2B Cross-sell Hospitality GTM 108

SaaStr

AUGUST 8, 2023

So there’s a sort of org chart you’ll probably end up with at least twice as you start scaling in SaaS: The “Headless” Sales Org. It’s a bunch of sales reps without anyone to manage them other than … you. But if you end up not hiring a VP of Sales at that perfect moment in time (and most don’t), you’ll end up headless.

Sales 80

Sales Growth Start-ups Up-sell 80

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 21, 2020

We’ve written a lot on SaaStr on how to increase the odds your first management team is a success. How to hire a great VP of Sales (tons on that here ). What a great VP of sales really does. How to manage customer success. About letting you move from micromanager to manager.

Engineering 141

Engineering Pipeline Inside sales Growth 141

STAR Results

JUNE 20, 2021

Sales leaders need to remember that they, too, must regularly upgrade their leadership skills. The most effective ways are networking with a peer group of like-minded sales leaders who face similar challenges and utilizing a sales leadership coach. Realistically most senior sales leaders don’t engage in networking regularly.

Networking 160

Networking Sales Meeting Promote 160

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 11, 2022

We’re about a month away from our first digital mega event of the year: SaaStr Build. People, Process and Product: A Product Leader’s First 90 Days with Notion’s CPO Madhu Muthukumar. Building Your Sales Organization for Scale. According to the SBA, 50% of all startups fail within their first five years.

Territory 88

Territory Growth Launch Sales 88

SaaStr

JULY 13, 2023

A strong sales leader is vital to any company hoping to scale. With this in mind, hiring for the Head of Sales role is one of the most important things a business can do. Unfortunately, too many companies focus on the wrong things when hiring their sales leaders, which can lead to hires that aren’t the best fit for the business.

Objectives and Key Results 74

Objectives and Key Results Negotiate Sales Growth 74

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 27, 2021

Is your CS team growing as fast as your sales team? If this is your first SaaS company, you may not have ever hired or built a Customer Success team. This one isn’t nearly as risky as a VP of Sales , or a VP of Marketing hire. Customer Success is actually your secret sauce to success.

Customers 98

Customers Clients Promote Growth 98

Gong.io

NOVEMBER 24, 2021

Sales leaders kinda feel that way with cohorts of new hires for sales onboarding. You want them to eat, sleep, and breathe everything about your product, organization, sales process, and necessary skills. You get them there with sales onboarding that’s more than a couple-weeks-crash-course. Your 30-day plan.

Negotiate 62

Negotiate Pipeline Sales Closing 62

Martech

JANUARY 17, 2024

For a successful implementation, key leaders have to be on board with the new technology. What happens after the sale? This way, team members will know what to expect in 90 days, or six months, after the kickoff. Some technologies, especially data storage and management, extend across many departments in an organization.

Appointment 99

Appointment Contract Technology Technology 99

SaaStr

JANUARY 2, 2021

But there is a proven formula to get from $1m to $10m the most efficiently: First, double down on what is working. Your sales headcount. Go all-in on customer success. More here: In The Early Days, You Won’t Have Enough Customers. Hire a real management team. Hire a VP of Sales that knows what they are doing.

Price 120

Price Start-ups Growth Follow-up 120

ClickFunnels

JANUARY 31, 2022

The post Kyvio Review For 2021 – Pros & Cons, Features And Pricing appeared first on ClickFunnels. Kyvio is an all-in-one marketing platform but it is a funnel building app first and foremost. You can also build and manage membership sites. You can also build and manage membership sites. Integrations. Smart Funnels.

Price 219

Price Commission Referrals A/B testing 219

SalesBlog!

DECEMBER 6, 2021

You just went through the painful process of interviewing for a new sales manager position and have finally scored a great position. Here is what I found that kept me out of hot water and successful for the first 90 days as a new sales manager. Outside the sales team. The sales team.

Sales 52

Sales Drivers/motivators Start-ups Presentation 52

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 12, 2023

Believe It Or Not, It’s Time for Your First User Conference One thing that always works in marketing is bringing your customers and prospects together IRL. You Have to Train Sales Reps 3–10. You have to start formal sales training by rep #3. Your Customer Success Team. And you can start very small. Or they fail.

Price 91

Price Contract Territory Growth 91

SaaStr

JANUARY 22, 2023

Check out this week’s top blog posts, podcasts, and videos: Top Blog Posts This Week: 5 Interesting Learnings from Docebo at $145,000,000 in ARR Fractional CROs and CMOs: The Only Times I’ve Ever Seen Them Work 90%-95% of Salespeople Won’t Make It At Your Startup. appeared first on SaaStr.

Customers 75

Customers Growth Prospecting Product 75

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 13, 2023

VP of Product at Drata Brian Elmi and Director of Product Management Dana Mauger share five not-so-secret secrets of product velocity at SaaStr Annual this year. At Drata, they have a principle to ship 60% of use cases really quickly because the opportunity costs of getting from 60% to 90% are enormous. 1: Ship Fast. 1: Ship Fast.

Product 89

Product Construction Trust Start-ups 89

SaaStr

JANUARY 4, 2023

It may seem counterintuitive to seek out a sales leadership hire during this time of slowed hiring, but it’s the number one topic that many founders talk about and many SDRs, AEs, and sales managers ask about. . Founders may ask, “how do I find the right sales leadership hire?” Define What Success and Failure Look Like.

Networking 77

Networking Promote Growth Start-ups 77

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 14, 2023

If you are a SaaStr reader, you’ll know how passionate I am about Customer Success, since Day 1. What it all means is that if you do it right, you’ll make 6x or more the revenue from your customers after the sale itself. For not just your customer success team, but yourself as well. Word-of-Mouth. No problem.

Customers 114

Customers Meeting Closing Trust 114

SaaStr

JANUARY 16, 2023

Not that they are just "great at sales" — Jason Be Kind Lemkin  (@jasonlk) January 12, 2023. So a while back we did a deep dive on why 95% of the VPs of Sales candidates just won’t thrive at your start-up. I think it’s important to repeat that analysis, but for your first few sales reps.

Up-sell 104

Up-sell Sales Support Price Start-ups 104

Partners in Excellence

JULY 21, 2023

I, and so many others, write constantly about how buying is changing and how sellers (sales and marketing) must change to respond to these changes. The most current research shows over 80% and it would not be unexpected to see this go into the 90’s. If they can get it done working with sales people, they will do it.

Prospecting 81

Prospecting Customers Cold Call Commission 81

Veloxy

APRIL 25, 2022

Thanks in part to the popularity of inside sales and remote work, and the improvement in sales engagement and sales analytics software, cold email metrics have been skyrocketing like never before. Most B2B emails that reach your inbox every day are cold emails. Cold emailing has never been more effective.

A/B testing 214

A/B testing Inside sales Contact Consult 214

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 27, 2021

Is your CS team growing as fast as your sales team? If this is your first SaaS company, you may not have ever hired or built a Customer Success team. This one isn’t nearly as risky as a VP of Sales , or a VP of Marketing hire. Customer Success is actually your secret sauce to success.

Customers 76

Customers Clients Promote Growth 76

STAR Results

MARCH 25, 2021

Sales Executive Leadership Forum. Every sales leader needs to consider their market value. Sales leaders should regularly evaluate and determine areas for growth for their staff and themselves. As a former sales executive , I was always in a tough spot. Why Would Sales Executives Need Networking Groups?

Networking 169

Networking Finance Promote Meeting 169

SaaStr

JULY 9, 2021

Q: What are the common mistakes in the sales process that may lead to customer loss? In SaaS, the prospect is expecting the sales rep to be their guide, their expert on the product. In SaaS, the prospect is expecting the sales rep to be their guide, their expert on the product. But it’s 10x easier once you provide value first.

Price 100

Price Quota Sales Pitch 100

Search Engine Land

AUGUST 22, 2023

Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, Boxing Day, and all the other holiday shopping days are not too far away. Black Friday is just over 90 days away as of this writing. If you’re a business that creates new pages annually for your Black Friday or Christmas sales (I’m looking at you /christmas-2022/), please stop.

Campaign 92

Campaign Legal Retail Start-ups 92

Closing Bigger

AUGUST 31, 2023

This sales podcast episode is on the fundamentals of sales leadership with focus on behavioural change and coaching. I have taken the transcript from the sales podcast episode and am providing it below with minimal formatting or grammatical changes. Sales leadership, first and foremost, is all about driving results.

Objectives and Key Results 69

Objectives and Key Results Sales Appointment Meeting 69

criteria for success

JUNE 8, 2022

As a sales manager, one way you can help your busy sales team be more productive and improve sales performance is to give them a set of best practices on how to set sales goals. When setting goals in our CFS Sales Playbook , I use this approach: Make goals hierarchical in the PlayBook.

CRM 98

CRM Sales Sell Clients 98

SalesLoft

MAY 18, 2020

As a new hire in product marketing at SalesLoft, I was thrilled I was scheduled to spend my first few days on the job at our annual conference in San Francisco. From new employees to those responsible for onboarding, training, and managing them, life is a lot different than it was pre-COVID-19. Hiring managers.

Relationship building 122

Relationship building Entertainment Technology Technology 122

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 19, 2020

The other day I was meeting with a great CEO who had raised a modest seed round. He’d found several good First VP candidates, in particular, a strong first head of marketing and a strong first head of product. He asked which to hire first. And your first VP of Marketing just increases qualified leads by 25%.

Quota 145

Quota Engineering Growth Start-ups 145

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 2, 2023

So we’ve spent a ton of time over the years on SaaS talking about hiring a great VP of Sales. Not only because it really matters, but because hiring the wrong VP of Sales can set you back a year — or longer. Way too many folks give managers a pass here that never understand the product. Sales is hard.

Process 92

Process Sales Up-sell Quota 92

Hubspot

JULY 19, 2018

It’s called a 30-60-90 day plan. Think of your 30-60-90 day plan as your North Star, keeping your sights set in the right direction and guiding you toward success as a new hire. What is a 30-60-90 Day Plan? There are two situations where you’d write a 30-60-90 day plan.

Follow-up 101

Follow-up Meeting Start-ups Strategize 101