Part I Nail a Niche
- To ‘Nail a Niche’, solve a specific, popular pain… with a unique, need-to-have solution… that delivers tangible results… for an ideal target customer… in a believable, repeatable way, … with predictable methods to a) find and b) interest them.
- Ignore any expectations of quick success. Just keep taking baby steps to keep moving.
- If people hired you for just one thing, what is it or would it be?
- For [target customers] Who are dissatisfied with [the current offerings in the market], My idea/product is a [new idea or product category] That provides [key problem/solution features]. Unlike [the competing product], My idea/product is [describe key feature(s)]. – Geoffrey Moore (author of Crossing the Chasm)
Part II Create Predictable Pipeline
- Lead generation is your gasoline for growth.
- There are three, complementary types of leads:
- “Seeds” are many-to-many leads, created from word-of-mouth, networks, and relationships. The best way to methodically grow your seeds is with a repeatable program or with systems that ensure your customers are successful.
- “Nets” are one-to-many marketing campaigns, including the now-popular approaches of content and inbound marketing.
- “Spears” are targeted outbound prospecting or business development campaigns.
- Target Churn Metrics in SaaS
- Customer churn (or “logo churn”) of 15% or less per year
- Revenue churn of 0% or less per year
- One Customer Success Manager per $2 million in revenue
- Customer Success needs to own some financial results: usually at least on retention rates and perhaps even on upsell
- 3 stages for marketing campaigns (“nets”)
- Early: ex. How to become a better marketer
- Middle: ex. “Definitive Guide to Marketing Automation”
- Late: ex. Customer reference
- Pipeline Creation Rate (PCR) = growth in qualified leads and pipeline, measured month-over-month.
- Mainstream buyers won’t buy on faith; they buy concrete “things.” They need to sell projects internally, to their VP or the CEO or CFO. To do that, Mainstream Buyers need everything spelled out: what they get, expected results, the timeframe, cost, risks, and steps.
Part III Make Sales Scalable
- Don’t hire AEs because they worked at a well-known or hot company. Hire them because they can and have closed at least vaguely similar products at somewhat similar price points.
- Prospectors need to prospect. They shouldn’t close; respond to inbound leads, or act as part-time telemarketers when marketing’s trying to fill events.
- Unless you have a very simple sales process, create four specialized roles
- Inbound lead qualification
- Outbound prospecting
- Closing new business
- Post-sales roles, such as account management, professional services, and Customer Success
- Treat $1 of revenue as $1 of quota credit no matter what channel it comes through in an AE’s territory
- Hire one to two sales reps at a minimum (ideally two) before you hire a VP Sales.
- When hiring a VP Sales, ask:
- How big a team do you think we need right now, given what you know? (If he/she can’t answer, right or wrong, then pass.)
- What deal sizes have you sold to, on average and range? (If it’s not a similar fit to you, pass. If he/she can’t answer fluently, pass.)
- Tell me about the teams you’ve directly managed, and how you built them. (If he/she can’t describe how they built a team, then pass.)
- What sales tools have you used and what works for you? What hasn’t worked well? (If they don’t understand sales tools, they aren’t a real VP Sales.)
- Who do you know right now that would join you on our sales team? (All good candidates should have a few in mind.) Then: Tell me about them, by background if not name.
- How should sales and client success/management work together? (This will tell you how well he/she understands the true customer lifecycle.)
- Tell me about deals you’ve lost to competitors. What’s going to be key in our space about winning versus competitors? How do you deal with FUD in the marketplace? (This will ferret out the ones who know how to compete—or not.)
- Do you work with sales engineers and sales support? If so, what role do they need to play at this stage, when capital is finite? (This will show you if he/she can play at an early-stage SaaS startup successfully—and if he knows how to scale once you’re ready.)
- What will my revenues look like 120 days after I hire you? (Have him/her explain to you what will happen. There’s no correct answer, but there are many wrong answers.)
- How should sales and marketing work together at our phase? Beyond “blah blah” generalities, and into specifics. This will tell you if he/she understands lead generation and how to work a lead funnel.
- Develop Reps Who Are “Business People Who Can Sell,” Not “Salespeople” When a salesperson is an expert who knows how your product can help customers—and when it’s not a fit—they will build trust and relationships quickly with the right prospects.
- AE hiring criteria: 1. Coachability 2. Prior success 3. Work ethic 4. Curiosity 5. Intelligence
- HubSpot’s salespeople spend their first month in a classroom-style setting. After a month, new hires pass a 150-question exam and six different certification tests on the HubSpot product, sales methodology, and the concept of inbound marketing.
- Interview candidates at least twice—first by phone, then by video or a meeting.
- Paul Fifield of UniDAYS tends generally to advise companies doing big, new things (new products, teams, markets) to avoid commission-based comp plans as long as they can. You can’t put together smart commission plans until you’re smart about your sales machine, and that can take a lot longer than you want.
- Marketing should be measured by the number of leads that get accepted by sales.
- Each closing rep manager should have 8–10 direct reports. We promote from within, when possible, and if it’s the best option, but we don’t force it. People still have to earn the promotion.
- Big companies usually make group decisions, are risk-averse, and it can get complicated. So, in selling to them, one of your jobs is not to “sell,” but to help them buy. This often means you need to help the primary person at the company—the one who wants your stuff—sell it internally to their peers and boss(es).
- Five Key Sales Metrics (Rather than judging these metrics as high/low or good/bad, use them to drill into your sales systems and get smart about what affects them the most.)
- Number of open opportunities in total and per rep: A common number for a SaaS rep doing low-five-figure deals to juggle is 25–30 opportunities.
- Number of closed opportunities in total and per rep:
- Deal size: Measure the average value of your closed-won deals.
- Win rate: Measure the number of closed opportunities, in a specific closing period, that you won (Closed Won Opportunities)/(Total Opportunities: both Closed-Won and Closed-Lost)
- Sales cycle: Measure the average duration or time (typically in days) it takes your team to win a deal and, ideally, how long opportunities spend in each sales stage.
- As the sale gets into the five figures, consider adding 15–20% for services. You’ll probably get it.
Part IV Double Your Deal-size
- When you’re attempting to grow by major leaps, work on doubling your average sale size as much as you work on finding and closing twice as many deals.
- It’s easier to start with higher pricing and then lower it, than to start low and raise it later
Part VI Embrace Employee Ownership
- Delegation isn’t true ownership. Employees need Functional Ownership, to own something, to learn how to act like owners.
- People support what they help create—the size of what they own doesn’t matter as much as the reality of their ownership.
- Simple outline of a process that aligns both buyer and seller:
- Initial “Are We A Fit” call:
- Demo or discovery
- Proposal
- Executive buy-off
- Finalize terms
- Sign contracts (or paperwork)
- Kickoff/implement/begin:
- Track success
- Five Aspects of Employee Ownership
- Single, public ownership
- Forcing Functions = Public, specific deadlines
- Decision-making authority
- On the hook for tangible results
- Learning loops = a system to help them gauge results, receive feedback, avoid blind spots, and get pushed out of comfort zones.
Part VII Define Your Destiny
- Take charge of and define your destiny now—regardless of your circumstances.
- ABC:
- Ask questions:
- Be Honest
- Customer Success
- ABT, “Always Be Testing”
- ABL: “Always Be Learning”
- Multi-step sales process by Steli Efti (CEO of Close.io)
- Figure out the roadmap of steps it’s going to take to close the deal.
- Discover major red flags and issues that will slow it or sabotage it, while ensuring it’s a good fit.
- Educate your prospect through all the steps he or she will have to take to make the deal happen.
- Help your prospect imagine and visualize a future where he or she has become a customer of your idea, product, or project.
- Uncover whether there is no real “buying intent” (are they honestly serious?). How? Simply ask this question: “Dear [executive/investor/potential customer]: Now that you know what I’m doing and I’ve answered all your questions, it seems we’re a good fit. Would you agree? And if so, what are all the steps we have to take to help make this happen?” Then shut up and listen. If the prospect says something to the effect of, “Well, I’m not sure …” or, “Well, we can’t buy for three years because we’re locked in the current contract …” then, you’re in trouble.
- A great brand (personal or business) repels as much as it attracts. Because it stands for something. And when you stand for something, no matter what it is, many others are bound to disagree.
- You can find downloadable worksheets and other free resources at FromImpossible.com/unique