Scott Barker

Enterprise Salespeople - just a friendly push (from someone who isn't impacted by your results but wants you to kick ass) May & June - time to fine-tune  😎 If, on average, you have a 6 + month sales cycle - hopefully you rested up this long weekend.... It's GO time! Any Discovery Calls booked inside what's left of May & the month of June have a shot to close by Calendar Year End. Factor in some down time in July & August & December. This is when you want to: 🚀 review and own the heck out of next steps with ops inside your CRM 🚀work with marketing to provide timely and intelligent collateral for each stage gate of your ops 🚀ensure that decision makers are identified and introduced 🚀hammer away with your sales leader/founder the key accounts and get support 🚀build plans with your champions to get these deals to their natural close 🚀understand how market forces/head winds/corporate budgets etc might create a sense of urgency for prospects Good Luck & Go CRUSH Your Quotas - like only you can!!! AND make sure you have some personal activities for growth inside your daily calendar!!! That part is always non-negotiable!! If I can help - happy too! startupsalesgrowth.ca #sales #saas #saassales #founders #startups #startupsales #proptech #realestate #enterprisesales #ae #bdr #salesteams #salesculture #salesprocess #salescycle #salesstrategies #salestips #quotas #salesquotas #revenue #salesleadership #salespeople #worklifebalance #marketing #salesandmarketing #mentalhealth #salesprospecting #crm #nextsteps #coaching #b2b

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By simplifying their Quotes, we saved over $300K for our first client at RevSolutions. If you’re a VP, you know that: Accurate quotes close deals. But getting them right is a major challenge. Sales teams often struggle with: → Inconsistent pricing, → Manual errors, and → Lengthy approval processes. These issues erode trust and can cost you business. That’s where the Q of the CPQ system comes in handy; Especially if you’ve complex pricing structures. CPQ tools make the quoting process efficient, ensuring consistency and accuracy across the board. → Automate complex pricing calculations → Standardize discounting practices → Speed up quote approval times With accurate quotes, you build trust with your clients. They know they can rely on your pricing, which makes them more likely to do business with you. Moreover, your sales team can respond faster, turning leads into customers with minimal friction. Accuracy in quoting means credibility and efficiency. How reliable are your quotes? #cpq #quote #pricing

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OUTBOUND IS DEAD - They shouted and fired the OB team. Then the reality check - How was your OB process setup? You used a tool to round-robin call 1000's of prospects, if they pick up the phone - SDR is on the call. Seems quite efficient - you manage to get the person on a call! No personalisation, no focus, no context. You may as well be selling mortgages or insurance slips or Dead Sea products the same way. Now you got you title (what's the actual role??) on the call. What do you say? They will automatically start with "not interested" and if you can't pinpoint the exact value and pain in the first breath of the call - it's all done and lost. So who killed outbound? You just did, by spamming your buyer on their personal phone without any context. Context is still king:) #isdead #sdr #abm #outbound #marketing #gtm

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Sellers, you should be running closed/lost reports at least twice a year to see who you can re-engage. Here’s 3 easy way’s to create re-engage messages with the mindset of “what’s changed since we last spoke?” 1) what’s changed since we last spoke - prospects business “When we last spoke in January, your team was working on XYZ initiative. Below is a summary of what you shared with me then (provide summary of calls/discovery you had). Curious, were you able to execute on (positive business outcome they had mentioned)? If not I’d welcome a call to hear about progress and I can share what others org are doing right now in this situation” 2) what’s changed since we last spoke - industry insights “When we last spoke in January, your team was working on XYZ initiative. Below is a summary of what you shared with me then (provide summary of calls/discovery you had). There have been some interesting things taking place in (reference customer industry/segment. Drop in anything you’re seeing with similar companies, news articles, regulations, initiatives, themes etc) Happy to jump on a call to chat through what we’re seeing across our prospect and customer base with how they’re addressing this.” 3) what’s changed since we last spoke - your company's product Note: this is my least favorite since it’s about your product and not them, the best way to do it is if the update relates to something important to them “When we last spoke in January, your team was working on XYZ initiative. Below is a summary of what you shared with me then (provide summary of calls/discovery you had). At the time, you had asked for the ability to accomplish (name feature/function). We now have that and I wanted to set time with you walk through how you could use it?” #karpediem

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When onboarding a new AE I focus their first 4 weeks entirely on understanding our clients and client success teams. This means shadowing our CS reps, watching onboarding calls, watching activation calls, sitting in on strategy sessions and planning calls, and handling CS calls in week 4. All of this before we ever begin to start talking about sales enablement or taking sales calls. Why? Because too many sales organizations are 100% seller centric. I am passionate, some may say maniacal about ensuring our sales force is the most customer centric team in the industry. This means our AE's need to understand our customers, their status quo, be able to deliver thought provoking insights, the problems we solve, why they work with us, and the results we get them deeply before they can sell that way. Sending someone into the deep end to "learn by experience" is a go to for many. But I will never be swayed that this is the best way. The best way to create "at bats" and build confidence without burning potential opportunities is to ensure your AE's are learning as much about your customers as possible. This coupled with strong sales enablement, process, and clear expectations will set them up for long term success. Sure they may not be making dials and having meetings 2 weeks in. But I can assure you they will be more successful a year from now then the rep in that situation the majority of the time. True sales leadership is about long-term results. I know this is an unpopular opinion but I believe it is one of the biggest advantages you can give your new hires to increase their chances of long-term success. At the end of the day, my responsibilities as a sales leader are to be fanatical about our customers ensuring our clients and potential clients receive a world class experience. Set our sellers up for success to deliver that, and create an environment where people grow, win, and are challenged on the regular. By doing this, revenue targets take care of themselves. If you're onboarding new AE's in Q3, I would challenge you to try this if you're not. Happy EOQ!

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hey RevOps - if you're a high-velocity SMB shop selling a large number of small deals, how should you grant quota credit to AEs? 🤔 Signature date? Payment date? Contract effective date? Like most things in RevOps, simple questions like this do not have simple answers. This question was posted in the RevOps Co-op Slack group recently and the community provided some 🔥 feedback like: 📍 Signature date seems to be the most popular choice, but always with a big caveat 📍 That caveat relates to the amount of churn or turnover when it comes to signed deals that don't pay - if the AEs are closing crumby customers that don't pay, then you want to use payment date instead 📍 If you have deals that get signed far in advance of the contract effective date / subscription start date, this adds additional risk to revenue - so may want to consider using the contract effective date instead 📍 Some folks do a mix; for example, 50% at signature, and 50% at payment (or some other metric, like 6 months after deal signature) 📍 In all cases, you want to make sure the structure is set up to drive the behavior you want to encourage without a huge delay between the work done and incentive provided Anything else you'd add to this list? #revops #revenueoperations #salesops #salesoperations #compensation #incentivemanagement

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How can RevOps be more strategic? How can we drive more revenue with less resources? Right now, coming off "Growth at All Costs" we're all strained for budget and resources. Meanwhile, it's harder than ever to land and expand customers. What can we do as revenue and operations leaders to better utilize what we have, to build more efficient Revenue Engines? My team and I have spent years thinking about this. Here's a preview. 𝟭. 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 ����𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗼𝗮𝗹 𝗶𝗻 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗱 2. 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗢𝗽𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝟯. 𝗜𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘆 𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗢𝗽𝘀 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗲: 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Where do we start? On 𝗠𝗮𝘆 𝟭𝘀𝘁, I'm joining Ben Murray to dive into this. In this webinar, we’ll introduce the: -> 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗲 𝗘𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 𝗣𝘆𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗱, a proprietary model designed to measure your company’s operational maturity and identify the most critical bottlenecks hindering growth. We’ll also show you how to: -> Prioritize projects and align your teams towards large strategic goals using a 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗢𝗽𝘀 𝗥𝗼𝗮𝗱𝗺𝗮𝗽. And we'll dive even deeper into a tangible example: -> How to conduct 𝗣𝗶𝗽𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀, a process used to spot issues in the sales process and reinforce optimal pipeline management. Register here: https://lnkd.in/e3qqMEaf ✌️

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“Let me talk internally and get back to you” is when most AEs lose control of their deals. Next steps usually end up being “check-ins” until the AE finally marks the opportunity lost. Instead of saying, “Sounds great - when should we reconnect to discuss internal feedback?” maintain control by: 1) Conducting additional discovery to uncover new stakeholders and what they care about 2) Revise your business case to appeal to new evaluators 3) Schedule a “pre-internal sync meeting” with your champion to coach them on how to deliver the revised business base Great AEs master this moment at the end of the deal cycle. Feel like you can improve this skill? Take three minutes and read a more in-depth “how-to” guide here: https://lnkd.in/geNWfD8y

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An AE's job is to sell (positive) change. To disrupt status quo for the buyer. And one of the biggest challenges they would face is the status quo bias in a buyer - a preference for maintaining one's current situation and opposing actions that may change the state of affairs. Here are three ways this bias often manifests: 1/ Contentment with the Current State: Customers express a genuine preference for how they currently operate, whether it's satisfaction with an existing provider or an in-house solution. 2/ Doubts About Alternatives: Some customers find the proposed solution lacks a compelling difference from their current setup or see the switch as not worth the effort. 3/ Change Aversion: Even when the new option is clearly better, fears about the transition process, including staffing and resource concerns, can anchor customers to their current state. As Jen Allen-Knuth puts it, the fear of f**king up comes into play here. Loving these lessons from "The Jolt Effect" book (by Matt Dixon and Ted McKenna 🙏 ) that talks about customer indecision. #AccountExecutive #SaaS #Sales #JoltBook

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Converting your AEs to start sourcing a majority of their own pipeline might not be such a good idea and here’s why: Typically this transition fails for three main reasons: 1) The pipe gen goal that’s assigned is completely made up and is based on the financial model and not relevant sales data 2) You don’t have the right resources in place including an airtight ICP, deep understanding of your persona, the right messaging or tech stack  3) Typically exec or senior level leaders are disconnected from the realities of how difficult cold outreach really is and don’t give the campaign enough time to be successful Here’s what you can do to give yourself a better chance at success: 1) Pick a few key data points to track (such as number of accounts worked, positive contacts, opportunities created, pipeline generated, closed won $$$s) and benchmark these over a period of time that makes sense for your sales cycle. Use this data set to understand what is or isn’t working and make adjustments from there. 2) Start with a small campaign to select accounts within your ICP using targeted messaging and an intriguing offer 3) Cold outreach is a team sport, get your execs and senior leaders involved by having them look through your target account list and see if there are any doors they can open from their network 4) Have some fun while doing it, celebrate the wins along the way! What do you think?

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🗣️Pipeline Development is one of the biggest revenue growth challenges for most companies today 🙂‍↕️ Though only a minority include pipeline generation as part of the sales incentive compensation plan. Every AE can relate … when you’re sitting in the bench because you have little pipe, it’s absolutely miserable … Usually when you’re working on a ton of deals at once, it’s so hard to make and stick to the time to prospect… As a AE, I would have loved pipe gen to be part of my comp plan… Hear me out … keeping your reps motivated is EVERYTHING … so why not motivate them even more by rewarding quality pipeline build…. It’s not rocket science 🧬 You then have reps that are not only motivated to close deals… But also super motivated to build their own pipeline too … How would that work at your business?

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If you're considering firing your prospecting team and making your closing salespeople absorb all of their duties...consider this first... Many companies take accounts away from new-logo account executives (AEs) the minute the first contract is signed. Many of these newly-signed customers have massive upside potential. The company gives the account to a customer success manager (CSM)...many of whom can't sell their way out of a wet paper bag. Some do a great job of upselling...most don't. But even those who sell aren't nearly as good at maximizing wallet share as the best AEs. So...instead of giving the highly-paid and highly-skilled-at-selling AE the most basic job in sales (cold calling to book a meeting)...have them own land+expand on those big accounts that can drive massive revenue AND referral opportunities. Or...if you want to have a person making $160-350k spend half their days making cold calls while Chris in CS processes flat renewals at companies that could 2-5x how much business they do with you...do that. Whatever. It's your company.

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The new episode of The Science of Scaling Podcast dropped today. In this episode, I speak with Ang McManamon the VP of Sales at Crunchbase. We dissect managing sales through a pivot, specifically how she managed the team as the market transitioned from one of the most bullish markets in tech in 2021 to one of the biggest down markets in tech in 2022. Example discussion points include: How to manage a board that is demanding an unrealistic revenue target? (1) Educate them on the current bottoms-up GTM model by showing them where the team has been performing on the key drivers of revenue outcomes over the past 2 quarters (i.e. the average productivity per rep (PPR), MQLs generated per month, average sales cycle and close rate on sales opportunities, etc.). We implement this framework with our portfolio companies Stage 2 Capital before issues like this even surface in order to establish the narrative from the beginning. (2) Illustrate where these metrics need to be to achieve the revenue outcomes they are demanding. Often this analysis yields the conclusion that the team would need to 2x PPR, MQL generating, and and close rates essentially overnight. Hopefully, they start to see how unrealistic the plan is and that the plan is going to lead to unnecessary burn and departures of top performers (3) Using the bottoms-up model, devise an aggressive but realistic plan that assumes say a 10%-20% Q/Q improvement in each of the performance drivers and the revenue outcomes that this performance would yield. (4) The board may ignore this line of thinking but at least we have educated them on the revenue mechanics and can use that framework to report back results at the next meeting. How to quantitatively assess whether a revenue miss is due to a macro condition, like the economy, or sales execution, like hiring and training the salespeople? An area few boards and leadership teams look at to conduct this diagnosis is the quarter-over-quarter performance of individual AEs, especially the consistent top performers on the team. If the company misses the target and you look under the hood and find that the historic consistent performers are still performing as usual and the miss was driven from AEs hired in the last year, we have a sales leadership execution issue. However, if we look under the hood and see that even the top performers' PPR decreased, perhaps at about the same time and about the same amount, then we have likely have a diagnosis outside of sales execution (i.e. economy, competition, product, etc.) Anyway, Ang is awesome and was completely open about this journey that so many leaders experienced over the past two years. Check out the episode here! https://lnkd.in/e2QiuPEH

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2 of our SDRs made it to Turks & Caicos last week Here's a few key character traits & similarities they share: 1️⃣ Two of the most selfless & giving ppl at Talkdesk - Both are instrumental in our onboarding process for all new hires 2️⃣ Infectious energy, attitude, & outlook - They bring LIGHT to every conversation & interaction 3️⃣ Two of our best at partnering with their AEs AND Marketing - These ladies are highly intentional, strategic, and fun to work with 4️⃣ They've built raving fans across nearly every department of the company 5️⃣ Hands down, our best onsite SDRs at marketing events - They've mastered how to engage, connect, and convert 6️⃣ Consistent, over performers MoM & QoQ (both over 175% last yr) Madison Monett & Inês Alcoforado - get to know the names 🔥 P.S. We're sending at least 4 SDRs next year + an SDR Mgr to Cabo San Lucas. Let's see who earns it.

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Multi-threading... A skill that's fast becoming the most critical in a sales reps arsenal. Why? 🤔 The market is tough at the moment. 🤔 Buyers are more budget conscious. 🤔 CFOs are asking teams to reduce spend and cut back on investment. 🤔 Prospects that once had buying power and sign off capability now have to get approval from C-Suite. It sounds like an uphill battle 🏃‍♂️‍➡️⛰️ but the truth is, multi-threading is not as daunting as you might think. ⭐️ Here's some tips that have worked well for me in the last 6 months ⭐️ 🗺 Map out your accounts. Org charts are critical for multi-threading. You need to understand who your prospects are, who they report to, and who holds decision making power. Tip - LinkedIn SalesNav let's you build drag and drop org charts! 🗣️ Check with your your champion. Confirm your org chart is correct. Ask them what the process is for bringing on a new vendor. If they don't know, 🆘 they are not a true champion. 📧 Share content early. Begin introducing yourself to key stakeholders quickly. Tip - Connect on LinkedIn with a short and sweet connection request, something like "Wanted to put a face to a name following some great conversations I've been having with (champion name) re (challenge). I'll send over some content via email shortly. I look forward to hearing your thoughts." 🎺 Make sure your content is personalised, engaging, and stands out. TOP TIP - Using a tool like trumpet 🎺 (digital sales room) is a sure fire way to encourage stakeholder engagement. Upload clear and concise value props, how you can solve their businesses challenges, client case studies and more. Ask these contacts to bookmark the page as you will regular update it with content as the deal progresses. And, track their engagement, so you can meet them in the moment. So far, my prospects have been LOVING it! 📞 Pick up the phone. Once you've connected on LinkedIn and sent content, call prospects to ensure that they have seen it. Ask what questions they have and tell them about next steps. By doing the above, when it comes to negotiation these stakeholders will be informed and aware of the entire process to date, and you and your product will be top of mind 🧠 Tenured AE's in my network (I know there are a lot of you), what do you do to successfully multi-thread? P.S. You can guess what I'll be doing in the office today :😉 #multithreading #sales #digitalsalesrooms #dsr #aestrategies

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Leaders who want to make informed decisions for their teams to outperform the competition and avoid unwanted internal issues need current and actionable data. That's why having access to resources like the 2024 Sales Engineering Compensation and Workload Report is so valuable to your team's success. This report gathers and analyzes over 1,000 responses from individual contributors (ICs) and leaders across the presales industry. If you're looking to learn about this year's latest SE trends and insights, the 2024 SE Report has the information you need to stay at the top of your game. But before diving into the full report, here's a sneak peek to help you and your team prepare to navigate the latest in presales. 1️⃣ Compensation Is Complicated 2️⃣ Live Intro Demos Are Not Paying Off 3️⃣ Sales Engineers Across the Board Are Looking for More 4️⃣ Burnout Is the Result of More Than Just Long Hours 5️⃣ Automation Is Essential to Improving the Value of Your Team's Time

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The Rise of Social Selling Demands a New Breed of B2B Sales Professional 🌟 As social selling goes mainstream, a different type of B2B sales rep is emerging. The skills that defined sales success in the past - cold calling, canned pitches, hardball closing - need to be more relevant. Reps who thrive in the social selling era are masters of active listening, empathy, and enablement. They build personal brands around helping rather than pitching. These modern sellers are attuned to the buyer's journey and adept at creating value at every touchpoint. Part marketer, consultant, and influencer represent the future of B2B sales. This is a motivating vision for reps looking to level up their skills and mindset to stay ahead of the curve. The rise of social selling is upon us. Will you adapt and thrive - or fall behind? The choice is yours. But the sales landscape is evolving rapidly. Don't get left in the dust. #B2Bsales #socialselling #salesenablement #salesmastery #buyerjourney #thoughtleadership #personalbranding #empathy #modernmarketing #gotomarketstrategy #gotomarket → Join my community and subscribe to my GTM Edge newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/gzNvJdmP (sources: https://lnkd.in/gMkgq9AZ, https://lnkd.in/gaurRdNH)

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Conversational velocity (h/t Gerry Hill 🚀 and ConnectAndSell, Inc) is the key to scaling outbound cold calling. How many conversations are your reps having per hour, and how many of those are they converting to meeting per hour? These are my stats ever since implementing ConnectAndSell on 5/6. Eight hours of dialing over the last two business weeks (I'm one man army so I've gotta get my blitzes in to work on other strategic projects too, ok?) The numbers speak for themselves, but to caveat, I was using Sandler based scripting for the first week - and breakthrough messaging as of last Monday, 5/13. 10% conversion rate on cold outbound is pretty solid, I'll take it. Sales leaders, how granular are you able to get on your teams data in terms of what I have below, as well as data quality etc? I dunno if I'll ever be able to go back to the 'old way.' #sales #outbound #coldcalling

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Why is setting the bar so important?? Especially in Sales + CS? As a leader, making crystal clear 'what great looks like' is your first job 🫡 - Setting standards for how we engage with customers - Sharing HOW the best reps consistently win, and WHY - Driving accountability when folks are / aren't meeting the mark Killer convo with Phillip Dantas from Clio about setting winning standards, creating accountability, and driving operational rigor 🔥 My 3 key takeaways? 1. Set the standard  Aka, create clear expectations so you can remove the guesswork for your team,  improve accountability, drive focus, and build for a repeatable / standardized process to scale. 2. Perfect practice makes perfect The best teams don't just show up to game day and execute 10/10, they put in the work before and practice like it's the real thing. Training + coaching isn't optional in this environment. Up-skilling is a requirement to get your team productive. 3. Inspect what you expect   You don’t know what you don’t know. Consistently reinforce your standards of excellence by operationalizing your inspection process... - End of week forecast reviews - Pipeline hygiene meetings - Key deal deep dives - Call recording reviews Get the notepad out for this one!

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