Stacey Epstein, CMO of Freshworks
- Every marketer should ask, “What does sales need to win deals?” That could be brand, demand generation, enablement materials, or messaging/content.
- Your core value proposition must be what you mean to your buyer.
- KPIs (overall then broken down by product & by country)
- Revenue
- Pipeline
- Churn
- As slowing growth drives the need for efficiency, companies are cutting branding spend especially because it is nearly impossible to measure ROI on brand.
Michelle Benfer, SVP of Sales at Hubspot
- Hubspot has “no internal meeting Fridays”
- Key metrics
- enough deals in the pipeline
- pipeline created per day
- Demos completed per day
- Mutual action plan in place
- # of decision makers in the deal
- Hubspot is building a next best action (guided selling) engine for their reps
- Hubspot does not have (significant) over-assignment of quota. [JD: Seems to be <10%]
- Create-Progress-Close Model for understanding skills & skill gaps
- Create: creating deals; understanding good fit prospects; managing your capacity; written messaging on email & LinkedIn;
- Progress: discovery; storytelling; meeting prep, management, & follow up; mutual action plans; multi-threading
- Close: strong close plan; procurement/buying process
- Don’t move to demo unless you have a more senior person on the call
- Get your champion’s cell phone number
- Hubspot reps are AE/AMs responsible for prospecting & closing new business as well as expanding within existing customers; they do not handle renewals
- Traits
- Reps need strong business acumen = the ability to understand how clients and prospects run their businesses; for instance, the go-to-market motion for Hubspot customers
- Coachability – you cannot be coached if your not humble
- Resilience/Grit
- When Hubspot shifted to PLG, tenured reps balked at first. They did not want to engage free users.
- In 2023, cost management is an aspect of nearly every deal
- For customer health, we onboard customers on 5 key features. We then check in on usage of those 5 over time.
Abe Smith, Head of International at Zoom
- US companies tend to see organic international interest when they pass $10M in ARR
- Beware of getting into aggressively localized markets too soon such as Brazil, Japan, China, or Germany. Get the English market right first in the UK and Australia.
- Expect that it will take 3 years to make money in Japan
- We have a tiger team that handles market readiness, market entry, and market expansion. This covers both the customer experience and the employee experience.
- Market entry requires critical mass of 8 to 12 people: AEs, SEs, CSMs, technical support, RevOps, and Marketing. In many places, you also need a data center.
- Try to emulate your US structure & processes; localize where required
- There are 5-6 priority 1 countries: UK, Japan, Germany/DACH, Singapore
- For non-US companies who want to enter the US, you need a ‘messiah’ local leader.
- Book Recommendation: Global Class
- Small companies can rarely if ever expect global systems integrators to help them expand internationally
- Treat international like a core part of your business, not a ‘start-up’
Patrick Moran, CMO of Calendly
- When evaluating companies to join, first ensure their product is clearly built to delight end users
- The CMO needs to own all pipeline, not just that which is marketing attributable
- Have inbound SDR report to marketing and outbound SDRs report to sales [Bill Binch]
- Segment by deal complexity: self service; sales assisted; complex sales led
- Don’t manipulate NRR by bringing in a customer at an artificially low ARR ($100) and quickly upgrading them to standard ARR ($100K)
- When adding PLG to an SLG company, ensure the product provides value to the end user in the first few moments. Define the magic moment, measure it, and optimize for it.