Women Sales Pros

AUGUST 10, 2018

Sales is the most difficult hire. Sales candidates are likely better at question-asking than the interviewer. Bust out of boring sales ads and really describe the ideal person you are seeking. Use of a predictive, objective assessment, like the Objective Management Group battery of tools designed specifically for sales roles.

Objectives and Key Results 90

Objectives and Key Results Sports Sales Follow-up 90

Anthony Cole Training

JANUARY 23, 2017

In the previous post, I identified 8 clues that would indicate that your sales organization has a sales growth problem ( CLICK HERE to read the article and review the 5 clues). In that article, I identified (in some detail) 2 of the 5 constraints to sales growth:

Growth 120

Growth Sales 120

Anthony Cole Training

JANUARY 19, 2017

I’ve written on this subject, talked about it at workshops/keynotes and presented it to our clients in our Sales Managed Environment ® Certification program for over 20 years. But, here I go again and for good reason – it’s still a problem. It’s still in the news.

Growth 120

Growth Networking Presentation Sales 120

Selling Power

JUNE 25, 2018

Here are a few ways to create the often-elusive connection with audiences that is so essential for every successful sales presentation.

Presentation 60

Presentation Sales Sell 60

Anthony Cole Training

JANUARY 26, 2017

In my series ( see previous posts ) regarding the constraints to growing sales, the two remaining topics are:

Growth 122

Growth Sales Drivers/motivators Product 122

Selling Power

JUNE 25, 2018

Here are a few ways to create the often-elusive connection with audiences that is so essential for every successful sales presentation.

Presentation 48

Presentation Sales Sell 48

Tibor Shanto

JUNE 17, 2021

I am proposing that you make it safe to miss a sales target. I have some research that makes this a great debate to have in your sales team right now. Setting sales goals where even a 70% level of achievement would be great. The challenge of setting hard goals is making the targets motivational. Hear me out.

Objectives and Key Results 293

Objectives and Key Results Quota Sales Drivers/motivators 293

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 2, 2024

And it demands hard work and time–always. I wonder why they would do something so hard. Second, I wanted to share their stories with sellers who may be struggling with their career decision or the hard work. I’ve had executive roles that have gone beyond sales. Selling is one of the toughest things to do well.

Sell 126

Sell Clients Sales 126

Martech

APRIL 29, 2024

They’ll tell you that in fields like marketing and sales, where the payoff isn’t always immediate, you’ve got to put in the work first. They’re running in circles, wasting time, effort and money and burning out their people because they never make the hard choices. It’s not pretty.

Strategize 106

Strategize Negotiate Follow-up Growth 106

SaaStr

JANUARY 3, 2024

Dear SaaStr: Should I Go Into SaaS Sales? If you aren’t sure you want to go into sales — don’t do it. Maybe in 2021, when many SaaS leaders were growing at simply unprecedented rates, could succeed in sales if you weren’t sure you wanted to sell. There’s usually a clear promotion path in a growing sales team.

Sales 98

Sales Promote Up-sell Start-ups 98

SaaStr

MAY 20, 2024

Will marketers really buy your product if sales execs do? Not Addressing Deteriorating Sales Performance Things just change in sales. Sometimes, it’s bringing in a new VP of Sales or CRO that can’t deliver. Sometimes, it’s just hiring too many reps, too quickly. ” Let’s make a list: #1.

Engineering 113

Engineering Product Customers Sales 113

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 12, 2024

And we know it’s getting worse—buying/sales cycles are lengthening, quotas are going up, commissions are going down, more buyers don’t want anything to do with sellers, so our outreach to find a buyer continues to sky rocket. And even with all this hard work, fewer and fewer are making their goals and achieving their OTE.

Sell 131

Sell Commission Up-sell Quota 131

Martech

FEBRUARY 6, 2024

While an aggressive sales strategy is critical in the early stages, long-term profitability requires balancing customer acquisition and lifetime value. We explore strategies to evolve from a sales-driven startup to a mature, profitable company. The path from startup to successful business is a marathon, not a sprint.

B2B 109

B2B Profit margin Sales Growth 109

SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2024

Customer Count Still Growing Impressively, Up +19% At scale, it can be hard to increase new customer count at ~20%. What they have done as you can see is cut spend across the board, but especially in sales & marketing. But it can be hard to predict these days. Some of it may be that the move from onprem to Cloud has evolved.

Growth 95

Growth Up-sell Presentation Customers 95

Martech

FEBRUARY 28, 2024

But the truth is that marketing is not a hard science. Especially in organizations with a sales-led motion, things have to be viewable on a dashboard within a quarter to satisfy leadership. It also allows for a very clean attrition path to revenue and keeps sales teams happy (initially, at least).

B2B 140

B2B Lead generation Education Follow-up 140

Force Management

OCTOBER 12, 2023

This month, the Revenue Builders Podcast featured some great deep dives into tactical sales strategies. Each episode covered a different element of a great sales motion, breaking it down step-by-step in conversation with seasoned leaders and experts with years in the industry.

Gaming 141

Gaming Conversion Sales 141

SaaStr

MAY 5, 2024

Dear SaaStr: How Do I Motivate a Sales Team Working Commission Only? Otherwise, they sort of drift off when they don’t get a big commission check the first week or two … The reality is, almost anyone working “commission only” basically tries a few times, and if it’s too hard, gives up and moves on.

Commission 83

Commission Drivers/motivators Sales 83

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 6, 2024

It’s hard enough to build a second product, with all the constraints on product and engineering. It likely will in fact create conflict if you add a separate sales team to sell adding fries to the order. You really need a separate sales team almost on Day 1 here. They get a few sales, but nothing like what they expected.

Product 88

Product Sell Quota Launch 88

SaaStr

MAY 8, 2024

Sales is much harder than in 2021. Exactly as hard as it always used to be,” Jason shares. Therefore, sales and marketing practices made no sense in 2020. For folks on social who complain about how hard the market is, most of them aren’t hireable. It’s supposed to be hard. How Does That Impact Sales and Marketing?

Quota 85

Quota GTM Price Finance 85

SaaStr

MARCH 21, 2023

Discretionary categories are hard hit. But a lot of startups that sell nice-to-have products, especially in sales, are deeply struggling right now. If you have to stretch each dollar twice or even 3x as far, it’s hard to pay employees top of market, especially if attainment or performance is low. Gross margins matter again.

Up-sell 119

Up-sell Product Sell Sales 119

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 17, 2022

I’m fascinated by studying lazy sales people! Let me qualify that a little, I’m fascinated by studying lazy sales people that consistently achieve their goals. There seems to be a “macho” mentality in too many sales people/leaders. And this is why I like to meet “lazy sales people.”

Sales 148

Sales Conversion Sell Meeting 148

Search Engine Land

JANUARY 23, 2024

Google is concerned there may be confusion around the roles of its sales and support departments. The employees making those calls are members of the sales team, not support, according to a Google spokesperson. The employees making those calls are members of the sales team, not support, according to a Google spokesperson.

Commission 123

Commission Construction Represent Contact 123

RAIN Group

SEPTEMBER 20, 2023

Assume you’re a sales manager for a mid-sized enterprise. Sales have been consistent, but there are so many variables at play and it’s hard to predict what the future holds. Sales have been consistent, but there are so many variables at play and it’s hard to predict what the future holds.

Pipeline 123

Pipeline Sales Start-ups 123

SaaStr

JUNE 9, 2023

Especially if you haven’t done a lot of sales yourself. Boy sales is hard. But then you raise the quotas, and sales is still hard. And second, value the best sales execs. It’s just too hard for folks that can’t take 99 NOs. Yes — at least at first. It’s being told No a lot. All those NOs?

Prospecting 102

Prospecting Customers Quota Pitch 102

SalesProInsider

FEBRUARY 22, 2024

Your belief is a major factor in the energy, effort, and activity that you put forth in the lead generation activity to fill your funnel and the sales conversations that convert those prospects. Beliefs’ Impact on Your Sales Your level of belief constantly changes. This baseline moves all day long. Belief shrinkage! Nope, it is larger.

Clients 126

Clients Referrals Pitch Lead generation 126

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 12, 2024

But, as she described the role, I became quite curious to see what “sales” was all about. If you look closely you will see that sales provides someone with the opportunity to run their own business – without all the risks and costs associated with running a business. I had never had any exposure to the business world. About families.

Sell 124

Sell Engineering Growth Trust 124

SaaStr

DECEMBER 13, 2023

Instead of avoiding the hard numbers, have a conversation about what is and isn’t working and set goals to work on them. A CMO might come in saying they generated 1200 MQLs last quarter, yet sales feel like they’re starving. For example, if you ask your VP sales for their commit and they say “$4.3M 4: Rat-holding. 5: Semantics.

X-functional 119

X-functional Trust Presentation Drivers/motivators 119

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 18, 2023

Have sales do a hard sale. Almost every SaaS founder I know and who has spoken at SaaStr has said just now hard it is to sell into a new stakeholder as a customer. It took HubSpot years to penetrate CRM/sales even after building deep relationships with marketers. First, make sure your NPS is high.

Product 99

Product Sell Customers CRM 99

SaaStr

OCTOBER 16, 2023

And in all fairness, it’s hard to get things 100% right. It’s hard, but not impossible, to work under someone else’s house rules. Even if you are left alone, and have some economic incentive to stay, it can be hard to be told you have to totally change the way you do some things. They don’t even need to be “the boss”.

Consult 96

Consult Sell Product Sales 96

Search Engine Land

MARCH 18, 2024

Google Search Ads 360 launched a closed beta for offsite retail media campaigns to help retailers and brands achieve common goals with shoppers, boost product visibility, and increase sales, the search ad company told us. This is an early beta, so it is hard to know when or if this will fully roll out.

Retail 102

Retail Launch Campaign Contact 102

SaaStr

DECEMBER 9, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What’s the #1 Mistake New Sales Leaders Make? Let me just summarize my #1 observation here: the top mistake first-time sales managers make is recruiting. It is incredibly hard to figure out how to replicate the magic of the first 1 or 2 sales reps that work closely with the CEO.

Quota 101

Quota Sales Closing Growth 101

SaaStr

MAY 25, 2024

Cloudinary VP of Developer Experience Sanjay Sarathy shares his journey to more than $100M and the lessons he learned along the way for building a PLG motion and an Enterprise sales motion. They didn’t initially envision being a large Enterprise sales organization. Building a $100M+ ARR business is no easy feat.

Growth 61

Growth GTM Product Consult 61

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 25, 2023

A great VP of Sales to keep the engine scaling A great VP of Marketing to keep the leads coming in A great VP of Customer Success to make all those hard won customers happy After $5m-$6m in ARR or so, it’s really hard to scale without a strong VP heading most core functions. Upgrade the management team.

Engineering 105

Engineering Up-sell Start-ups Sell 105

Martech

MARCH 19, 2024

Google Search Ads 360 launched a closed beta for offsite retail media campaigns to help retailers and brands achieve common goals with shoppers, boost product visibility and increase sales, the search ad company told us. This is an early beta, so it is hard to know when or if this will fully roll out.

Retail 102

Retail Launch Campaign Contact 102

SaaStr

JANUARY 9, 2024

The other day I interviewed yet another other great AE who had recently become a Director of Sales. He took a pause and said, “I just don’t want to work that hard.” And I also see so many VPs and Directors and Managers flame out when they take a start-up role … and don’t really want to do all the hard work themselves.

Campaign 98

Campaign Up-sell Start-ups Sell 98

Martech

DECEMBER 11, 2023

Sales executives and marketers are caught in a Catch-22 that says we need more marketing activity because we have more sales resources — we have more sales resources, so we need more marketing. As a result, sales organizations have added enormous headcounts of SDRs and BDRs. How did we get here?

Quota 119

Quota Sales Pipeline B2B 119

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

They sell sales & marketing tools. They sell sales & marketing tools. And when Zoominfo has harder times, many in sales & marketing likely are, too. Zoominfo has been hit hard by customers cutting back on marketing and sales spend. So Zoominfo is one of our favorite SaaS / Cloud leaders at SaaStr.

Growth 84

Growth Up-sell Closing Customers 84