Vidya Peters

I stood on stage at SaaStock US last week to present 'Six ways to help your sales team close more deals this year'. Here is what I shared: 1. Focus on the follow ups In my last company, the conversion ratios of prospects who were in their 2nd, 3rd ,or even 4th cycle with us, converted at a significantly higher clip each time round. Summary? Timing is everything, but you need to create awareness first. Fortunes are made in the follow ups. Get your reps to focus on 'Closed Lost' opps before they focus on new prospects. 2. Four killer question deal scorecard Do they have a problem? How big is the problem? Are they motivated to solve that big problem now? Do they understand why you are best to solve it versus the others? Simple sales deal qualification, but its staggering how much time is sank into deals where those questions simply aren't answered. Get your reps focused on the deals where they are answering 'Yes' to the above questions, and less time focused on the deals where the answer is 'No'. 3. Create 'What I heard you say' and 'I will show you today' slides for their demos. Use these before the demo or at the start of each call in the deal cycle. Show the prospect you have listened and that you understand their problems (the first slide should basically provide the answers to the 'Four Killer questions'). Then show them the 3 or 4 things you will focus on during the demo. Don't stray away from the 3 or 4 things on the 'I will show you today' slide. Prospects will love you for this. 4. Start with the money shot. Make sure your reps are starting their demos with the big head turning feature your prospect will most care about. Get them excited from minute one versus waiting ten minutes to get there. Simple. 5. Creative deal structure. Prospects crave this in today's economy more so than ever. Move away from rigid contract terms. -Incentivise early renewals by giving additional users at a discounted rate for a short period of time. -Leverage buy-outs to get commitment, where you are dealing with an incumbent vendor with time left on their contract -Create 15 month subscriptions with break clauses after three months, Meaning you can do 'paid pilots' but you're only having to sell the deal once versus twice. Get creative and make it easier for people to buy from you. 6. Double down on coaching. Your sellers are 33% more likely to hit their quota if coached. Companies with dynamic coaching programmes achieve 28% higher win rates. 82% of sellers want MORE than they are getting today. Struggling to do this effectively? Ask me how we can help.

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Update and Ask (spoiler - it’s a survey): It’s been just over a year since we jumped in full time with Meahana. Probably the biggest recurring theme I’ve seen as a first-time co-founder is to be curious and open to new things: new hats, new tools, new approaches, new perspectives. Recently John found and shared an article from Sequoia (link in comments) on 3 common archetypes for product-market fit discussing different ways your customer may relate to the problem your product solves. Reading it provided a wave of relief to a lingering sense of doubt and disquiet that I’ve felt for a while. That is, if the problem you solve isn’t blatantly obvious to the world, are you providing real value and can you build a viable business? Turns out you may be, and you can. Sequoia describes the three archetypes as: 1. The “Hair on Fire” problem: the one most people think of when it comes to product-market fit. Obvious problem, clear desire for a solution; biggest challenge will be a crowded space and a need for differentiation. 2. The “Hard Fact” problem: a pain point that is universally accepted as a hard fact of life, so people have just resigned themselves to living with it. Think Uber, reimagining the taxi experience as a rideshare marketplace. Biggest challenge - getting customers to an epiphany that “good enough” isn’t actually good enough. 3. The “Future Vision” problem: or enabling a new reality through visionary innovation. Think iPhone. Sequoia describes this path as having, “the most ways to fail and the fewest to succeed, but potentially the largest payoff.” Biggest challenge: convincing customers that your product is real and viable and it will shape the way the world works. Many founders assume they’re supposed to be on the “hair on fire” path (I did), but they each have different challenges they address, different value propositions, and different failure modes to overcome. These should inform your go to market approach - what works for a hair on fire problem isn’t the same as what’s needed for a hard fact problem. Turns out we are decisively solving a “hard fact” problem. Here’s the ask: We want to dig much deeper into the problems that matter to our core audience. If you are a consultant, or have been a consultant, particularly one focused on strategic engagements such as business transformation or technology transformation, please take 5 minutes to tell us about what matters to you when it comes to leading collaborative meetings and workshops, by responding to this survey: https://lnkd.in/g7CQCfHg We would also greatly appreciate qualitative feedback, so let me know if you’d be open to a brief call to discuss your experiences and perspective - whether or not you complete the survey. Thanks in advance for your input!

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A new SDR Game episode is out: How to use AI for prospecting in enterprise accounts with IT leaders. Featuring 🏍benyamin ‎, Enterprise SDR at Lightyear, and Founder of Lazy Sales 🛋

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Great question from Ruben Westmeijer in The Nearbound Club Slack: "You are working in partnerships, and you want to pitch Nearbound to your boss. How would you explain it, elevator pitch style?" Here's my off-the-cuff reply: Buyers are paying less attention to outbound and inbound efforts because they are overwhelmed. They are looking to their network - asking people they trust - for buying decisions. We have to reach buyers with and through those they already trust. That's called nearbound GTM, and it requires knowing who surrounds our buyer and partnering with them across marketing, sales, and success. What's your elevator pitch?

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(Really) Cool product update alert from @superlayer Over the last couple of months, we've been working hard to automate the most tedious parts of the sales job: CRM admin. As we founded Superlayer we were well aware that data quality and time wasted on admin is a pain for 90% of companies and we're super excited to leverage AI to finally fix this pain. Thanks to AI, today superlayer is able to create and leverage call transcripts to: - create and map new accounts - create and enrich new deals - always keep your CRM updated after every conversation, filling in A(I)utomatically every relevant field - provide a real database of customer knowledge based on all customer conversation, a real honeypot for mktg, product and revenue leadership - custom sales methodology trainings for every rep It's a really exciting time to be building and we've also just decided to offer a free trial to anyone that is sick of spending hours every week filling and managing their CRM. --> superlayer.co This is only day 1 and we can't wait to continue on our journey to augmenting revenue teams, removing repetitive tasks one at a time 👊 #coolproduct #crm #salejob #salesmethodology

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Many sales teams struggle with it... low closing rates. Studies have shown why this is often the case: you should NEVER sell the product... but the VALUE!!! The positive side effect of this little change? Your deal cycle shortens and your closing rates will increase. Successful sales leaders rely on "Value Selling". They use the so-called Value Framework for this and thus help their team sell more efficiently... by getting everyone in the sales team on the same page. Today we'll show you how to create and apply this Value Framework for your team. #valueselling #valueframework #sales https://hubs.li/Q02tTGSc0

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I launched a RevOps consultancy 60 days ago and after my post on the 5 things I learned after 30 days, here are 5 new learnings: 📖 If there is a blueprint to do something (like how to get followers on LinkedIn) it's already too late. (I know, after I said there is a playbook to build an agency in the first post). First movers usually built this and will be followed to the letter by thousands of people. On top of it to make sure it's working, they will reinforce the blueprint by interacting with each other in a mass of likes and comments. Good for the ego but rarely attracts your ideal customer profile. The only way out is to be original and balance quality and quantity. This is how you will dominate. 📞 Cold outreach to get your first client(s) and then focus on demand generation. When we start a company, it feels like a race against money to make sure we will not go out of business before we can say, entrepreneur. What has worked for me is to focus on cold outreach (calls or emails) paired with a signal-based selling methodology. Once you've got your first few clients, then it's time to think long-term. Demand generation is your best bet as it's a cheap but highly efficient way to generate demand for your product or service. 🖼 Build a personal brand. This one also goes for non-entrepreneurs. Call it personal brand or reputation, it will help you reach new levels you thought unreachable before. This is also the best way to differentiate yourself out there as nobody can do you better than you. 💪 You don't have to reinvent the wheel, you just need to dominate. We see this every day. A company that seems to offer a product or service like its competitor but for some reason, we only see their brand everywhere. This is how you win. Be everywhere. 📍 Nail down your offer. People will get confused if you don't. Especially if you offer a service like mine with a large scope. Niche down and become the best at it. Can't wait to share my 90 days learnings with you, so stay tuned. 🎙

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Who should RevOps report to? The CRO? CFO? COO? CEO? I recently started reporting to the CFO and I'm super excited about the possibilities! When I joined Rydoo as their new Head of RevOps one of the first questions I got was "Are we able to interview you about the collaboration between RevOps and finance?" Of course, I said yes! After seeing some of my peers make the shift from the Revenue team => Finance team, I was curious to learn more. Now I'm experiencing it firsthand and hope my experiences can help others. If you're a finance professional => Have you collaborated with RevOps? What was your experience? If you're a RevOps professional => Who have you reported to and what did you enjoy about it? let's discuss in the comments 👇 Link to article: https://lnkd.in/ehjzXepC

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"Should my company still do outbound with SDRs?" Here is the first question I would ask you: ⬇ What is your deal size? All the noise on LinkedIn about outbound being dead... It is just that outbound is not profitable the way VC backed SaaS companies do it. If your deal size is 2,5k, 5k, 10k etc. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do the maths. In what year would you make a return of investment? (considering life-time-value) (given real, current conversions) Most companies have not done the maths until recently. Why? Because it was like the wild west. Growth at all cost. We pump in as much money as we want - to grow. These times are over. Jason Lemkin (famous software investor) has said this 5-10 years ago: If you are below 20k deal value, then don't do outbound. And if you are below 20k deal value, do everything you can to get up to 20k deal value. 🤣 Mind you, considering inflation too, I would rather make sure to get to more than 20k on average. The thing is, the way how most SaaS companies approached outbound was never rational. There were no efficiency or profitability calculations behind it. It was crazy 5 years ago and it is still crazy now. By the way, this is also why the quality of outbound has been so low...

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nice gem by Chromatic in their blogpost about B2B buyers decisions

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“Deel achieved 75% faster implementation time when comparing DealHub to other CPQ vendors.” Austin Cook Kiessig, Senior Director of Revenue Operations at Deel, says in the full interview that DealHub’s guided selling flow has “transformed Deel’s sales process.” Enterprise SaaS company Deel wanted a full CPQ implementation in months, not years. Speed of execution and increased control of their Quote-to-Revenue process were key factors in their selection of DealHub as a CPQ vendor that they could scale with without limitations or delays. Watch the full CPQ success story here > https://okt.to/kGqpT9 #Deel #GTM #DealHubCPQ

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VP Sales search scorecard They MUST have led the $5m to $15m + ARR journey within domain X. But are we neglecting context in our persona prerequisites? Scenario/Candidate 1: led $5m - $20m ARR in domain X. Established Enterprise company Strong product-market fit before arrival Significant inbound lead/demand generation Higher customer acquisition cost Scenario/Candidate 2: led $3m - $12m ARR in domain X. Early-stage challenger Built the sales engine/process from scratch Built a true outbound culture & rigour Maintained fiscal discipline & creative resource allocation The goal should be to evaluate a candidate's ability to excel in the specific circumstances and challenges that your company currently faces rather than relying solely on predetermined revenue milestones from their past experiences. Who are you hiring? #GTMHIRING #VPSALES #GTM

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Ever wondered how much revenue you’re missing by not leveraging your senior leadership team’s personal brands? If you’re not doing this, you’re leaving money on the table. It’s insane and old school! Showcasing your leaders’ expertise can transform your brand, build trust, and drive growth. At ScaleUp Valley, we see the power of leadership in the spotlight every day. It’s not just about growth—it’s about building a legacy. Let’s connect and unlock your leadership team’s full potential. #LeadershipJourney #PersonalBranding #ExecutiveInsights #BusinessGrowth #ScaleUpValley #HighPerformance #InnovativeLeadership

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Our strategy at PeakSpan is simple - scaling a growth company successfully should be an iterative, incremental process. The decisions and options you have in front of you at $3M of ARR scale are vastly different than those at $10M and different still from those at $25M and beyond - scale your way into success sensibly, putting your foot on the gas more and more when the data asserts that you’re ready for it and it’s the right thing to do. This video encapsulates our approach in a nutshell - swinging as hard as you can for a statistically unlikely outcome when you’re a young, still very much evolving business, simply isn’t the value maximizing strategy. https://lnkd.in/e96AzU_N

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Diligent Market Intelligence's ESG Engagements report is here, shedding a light on how boards are reshaping corporate sustainability. Read the report now.

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Did you know 44% of prospects wait 10 business days for a demo? That's crazy! Want to know what other crazy insights we found this year in the Sales Engineering Compensation and Workload Report? There's only one way to find out. Download it now! #consensus #demandgen #demoautomation #digitalmarketing #marketing https://lnkd.in/gD63RZK7 ​

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Fun Fact: You have 10.5 weeks left to secure your 2024 revenue target.  Wait, what?!?  If you are B2B SaaS provider, with a typical 6-9 month sales cycle for Mid Market and Enterprise deals, you need to meet and qualify prospects by end of Q2 for those opportunities to land prior to year end and help you make your number.  But Q1 just wrapped up! We are still putting together board packages and prepping for the meeting. Now I need to start worrying about Q4 and FY’24 target as well? Afraid so.  Q3 is always challenging as influencers and decision makers are rotating through vacations in July and Aug so starting a conversation and/or getting buy-in to move a deal forward takes way longer. By the time September rolls around, everyone inside your prospect is looking at their personal goals and wondering how they are possibly going to earn their bonus with everything they still have to knock off before year end. Budget Owners and Champions have no time for new projects - unless you are lucky enough to be one of the milestones they need help getting over the line.   So that leaves the 13-week stretch of Q2 to be the top-of-funnel hero and save the year.  What to do?  1. Pipeline Review - be firm but fair about what’s real and what’s not to get an accurate view of your pipeline and expected close dates. Challenge the hopium and blow away the fluff.  2. Determine Current Pipeline Coverage by AE - for this you need to have an idea of your win rate (e.g. you win 25% of the deals you are in) and use that to determine your required coverage (e.g. if you win 1/4 deals - 25% - then you should aim for 4x coverage). Apply that target to your pipeline for each AE vs their quota and identify gaps in coverage.  3. Calculate the Gap - quantify the incremental $ value you need to have in the pipeline on June 30th for everyone to hit year end quota coverage. Divide by your Avg. Contract Value and you will have estimated # of Sales Qualified Opportunities you need to add to the pipeline.   4. Find the Ideal Mix - determine mix of Marketing Qualified Leads and Sales Qualified Leads you require, based on the rate and velocity that each of those convert to Sales Qualified Opportunities. Those are your new objectives for 10.5 weeks.  5. Get Scrappy - build a plan for generating the MQLs and SQLs you need. If you’ve been running an experiment that isn’t bearing fruit, consider parking it and re-deploying those resources into something that’s working. Got some really cool demand gen or ABM program slated for Q3? Consider pulling it forward to May. Have another look at the events calendar for June, timing might justify the additional spend.  Being focused and intentional now may make all the difference come Q4!  What are some other tactics to consider? Please share in comments so we can help more CEOs and CROs get on the right side of their rev plan! 

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CFOs that just create complicated analyses and reports for founder/CEOs all day are useless… Don’t get me wrong. Reports and analyses are an essential part of the CFO role. But your CFOs primary job is to provide the owners and executives with… Insights and recommendations… Insights and recommendations that founders can act on swiftly to improve financials and achieve goals. If your CFO isnt doing this for your DTC brand, then maybe they’re just a glorified bookkeeper or FP&A analyst, but they certainly aren’t a CFO.

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