Enterprise Sales Lessons
Critical sales lessons learnt from building and scaling technology companies
Issue #13
A key area that a software company that has just found ‘product-market fit’ (PMF) typically struggles with is how to sustainably increase sales and build the right kind of people, process and tooling infrastructure around that. I’m referring to organizations that rely on top down enterprise sales rather than bottom up product led sales growth (although a significant number of those also need to ultimately pivot to a top down sales motion to get scale).
What do I really mean by PMF? You need to get to a place where customers are actively seeking you out and where you (as a founding team) are actually struggling to convert demand into actual sales due to capacity constraints. This is somewhat similar in both B2C, B2B2C or B2B models - even in B2C, a company with great PMF can be overwhelmed with high paying user volumes such that customer service and after sales support can become an issue. Once you actually feel as if you are drowning, then it’s time to start thinking about building a proper sales organization.
Based on my experience, here are the main areas that need to actively considered as a comapany makes that leap from initial traction to a more sustainable and scalable sales model. In future posts, I will drill down further into each of them.
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Making your first enterprise sales leader hire
Finding the right type of personality and experience that can successfully pick up the baton from the Founding Team and start building an effective sales organization is one of the hardest things to do. These are the basic traits that I look for:
Truly knowing what sales discipline means - the need to be scientific and rigourous about every aspect of the sales process, all the way from top of the funnel (i.e. qualifying leads) through to converting the prospect.
Aiming for large outcomes - in enterprise sales, the total value of a deal matters. It’s roughly the same effort to structure and sign a $25,000 deal compared to a $250,000 deal. Depending on the type of the client, the hurdles around getting management approval, procurement etc. are roughly the same.
Having really great listening and analytical skills; being able to go really deep into the prospect’s actual problems, quickly identify the most relevant ones and structure the solution around those specific issues.
For more details, see my specific article on how to make your first strategic sales hire.
Using and implementing a sales CRM properly
The reason that a company is likely to be in this situation is that generating quality leads is not a problem at that point in time. What matters is how sales leads are being nurtured through the pipeline and being converted. In order to measure the health of the sales pipeline, a sales CRM needs to be implemented effectively. Some of the key areas to look for are:
Clear definition of stage of lead and qualification criteria to move a lead from one stage to the next (leading to a higher probability of closure and/or disqualifying leads that close BUT are hard to service)
Consistent methodology for mapping individual roles and relationships at prospects and clients
Tracking of call and meeting notes
Increasingly, automations that make outbound sales engagements easier by automatically prompting sales staff of prior engagments with the prospect, or pointers for a sales script
Mastering value based selling
As you start getting traction, it’s important to scale in a way that doesn’t just involve signing deals at any price. The best way to get value from an enterprise sales deal is to link the pricing back to the actual value of the solution to the prospect. This requires a deep understanding of the way that their business operates, and breaking down their problems into specific aspects that you can put a $ target against, either in terms of cost savings or revenue incrementality your solution can point to.
Building commercial operations
Commercial operations basically refers to the act of building all the supporting infrastructure that needs to support a growing and consistent top down enterprise sales motion. This includes items such as:
Creation of sales playbooks
Sales training materials, including sales role plays
Knowledge centres for related items such as macroeconomic and industry research
CRM management and administration
Sales metrics and KPIs, including coverage, loading etc.
Building this is an absolutely critical aspect of achieving a scalable sales organization. Creating this type of sub-organization within the overall sales organization should be started when you have a Head of Sales, a few sales people and are adding more at a regular or rapid pace.
Thought leadership
Apart from having a great solution / service to sell, it is very important to build a strong presence in the industy so that organizations struggling with the types of problems you are trying to solve for remember you. Thought leadership is a great way of doing that. Writing clear case studies, organizing relevant industry events and starting organic media outreach through items like podcasts are just some examples of items that should be considered.
Conclusion
Taking a measured approach and considering ALL of these factors is a recipe for success and sustainable revenue generation.
If you are interested in collaborating directly with me to help your company grow REVENUES, please comment by clicking on the button
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