Callan Harrington

Be honest with why you need experience for your SDR/BDR role? You could be saving yourself huge amounts of money for the same results by going with an entry level hire. Legit reasons for needing experience - Complex sell with a tough buyer profile (CISO, CTO, CRO etc) - You don't have an outbound process or manager who can train. Non legit reasons - You're too lazy to train - You think hiring with experience improves your retention (it's the opposite) Analyse your SDR culture, could you be going with no experience?? #sdrjobs #sdrteam #salesjobs

18

4 Comments

So you spent a ton of time and money on that fancy CRM system... and it hasn't really done what you had hoped... welp, you're not alone! Even CRM systems that are "custom made for professional services firms" (I'm looking at you Deltek, Unanet/Cosential, BQE, etc.) have completely lost track of the RELATIONSHIP part. And don't get me started on the "gold standard" CRMs like Salesforce, Dynamics, and others. Want to really stay close to your important contacts? Try a PRM system (yep, Personal Relationship Management) like Dex, Clay, or Levitate. And there are others. Even Nimble CRM has a fantastic "Keep in Touch" tool that actually helps you stay in touch with important contacts. #CRM #professionalservices #sales #relationships

8

1 Comment

Chances are, if sales had their pick, they’d pick wrong. We had 29 segments, ~125 sales headcount, 4-month pips, and 1-3 “masters” of closing deals per segment in our moneyball strategy. We saw approx. 200 opportunities a day. And yet, 100% of salespeople did not prefer the segments they were masters of, even though those were the deals they closed most often and allowed them to max comp. Do with that information as you will… #happymonday #hireforrevops #stayhumblestayspicy #gtmops

13

7 Comments

When your managing a sales team, even if you have rockstar SDRs, they still need 1 on 1s. Outside factors impact their performance. -if they are in a funk -if they are going through a breakup -if they have personal things going on It all gets brought into their sales calls. So having someone talk through that + how to continue to do storytelling and be patient with the process all helps

3

PE investors / operators: have "hire additional sales capacity" on your VCP or annual plan? HIRING new reps is only half the battle. For the ROI math to math, gotta then make 'em productive. As quickly as possible. But when it comes to making reps productive quickly, B2B companies face two big challenges: →The average tenure of a B2B sales rep is less than two years, YET... → Reps hit their peak performance two to three years in. Translation: Most reps leave before they’ve reached max productivity. Eek. In many cases, weak sales onboarding is to blame. But taking a more intentional approach to sales onboarding has a bevy of obvious benefits: • Reducing sales turnover • Shortening time-to-revenue • Higher odds of achieving your rev targets Hit on this in the book in Winning Move #32, but check out the vid below for a deeper dive on the P's and Q's of sales onboarding ▶️ * * * * * Found this helpful? Plenty more where that came from. Check out the Winning Moves Platform: the ambitious PE leader's toolkit for accelerating value creation. ↳ A digital arsenal of resources, how-to's, and tools to help private equity leaders make value-generating Winning Moves with confidence. Link in the comments below. ⤵️

22

12 Comments

Why is 60-70% of SDRs missing quota? It's because their leadership is failing them. I had the pleasure of interviewing Sara Storm on the SDR Hire Podcast - a tenured SDR and Revenue leader with multiple successful teams behind her, countless lectures and trainings delivered. Sara has a very unique, no BS approach to sales and SDR leadership. In this episode she shared: • What's the current state of the SDR/BDR role • Why sales leaders are failing their sales teams AND their customers • How can SDRs take ownership of their careers?! • Should you even be in an SDR role? • How she used to close 7/10 cold calls she'd make Here's the full episode: https://lnkd.in/eCANhKGu Sara thank you for sharing your expertise and holding sales leaders everywhere accountable! Hope you all enjoy and subscribe! #sdr #bdr #salesdevelopment #techsales #career

19

11 Comments

I’ve had a number of younger PEO sales reps reach out to me recently and asking for advice on building more value on their sales process. They say their managers just have them focusing on feature selling and saving money, and when you do that, it’s just a numbers game. I talk to them about building the ROI case and COI case to move up the client’s timeline and show the value of our industry and then discuss with them how to ask questions to discover the COI for the client. We all know to make it an emotional sell but if you don’t back up the emotional with the logic and only feature sell, then you’re not going to close a very high percentage of deals. If you are a young rep, ask you manager on help with this aspect and watch your numbers soar!!!! 📈 **ROI (Return on Investment)** - ROI quantifies the direct benefits clients receive from investing in PEO services. This includes cost savings from reduced HR overhead, compliance, payroll management, and improved employee benefits offerings. Expressing ROI in clear numbers helps clients see the tangible value a PEO provides, enhancing their confidence in the decision to invest. 🚫 **COI (Cost of Inaction)** - COI, on the other hand, highlights the potential losses and risks a client faces by not using a PEO. This could be in the form of higher operational costs, compliance penalties, or missed opportunities for strategic HR management and growth. COI paints a picture of the risks and hidden costs that come with maintaining the status quo. In the PEO sales process, integrating both ROI and COI into your discussions can lead to more informed, strategic decision-making by clients. While ROI pushes the advantages, COI pulls attention to the repercussions of not acting, creating a compelling case for why PEO services are not just beneficial but essential. Make sure your sales pitch addresses both sides to help clients see the full spectrum of impacts on their business. This dual-focused approach can significantly sway decision-making processes and foster stronger client relationships. 🌟 #PEO #BusinessGrowth #ROI #COI #SalesStrategy #HRManagement #ClientDecisionMaking

15

Every CEO wants to hire only the Top 1% sales talent. Very few of them are Top 1% CEOs themselves. Unable to pay Top 1% comp for Top 1% talent. A+ players flock to A+ teams in A+ settings. Work your ass off to create an A+ setting. Players building the team will follow.

262

32 Comments

GTM professionals drive themselves to extreme lengths. The rewards in software sales are substantial, so it's no surprise. This obsession with high-performance often means personal financial planning is ignored. The impact? More tax -> less income kept. Less growth -> less wealth created, less income for your future. Opportunities missed -> hard-work undone. The most painful example we see is old pensions. Whilst you're grinding away to earn as much as you can to provide for your future, your funds are languishing in poor performing strategies. How is that right? Here's one we found this week... Senior IC Looking to access funds in 10 years 100% invested in a 'cautious' fund This 'cautious' fund has an ongoing charge of 1.0%, and has failed to beat inflation over the last 5 years. Over the last 5 years, this individual has not made any real returns. Their wealth has gone backwards. This will never sit right with us. CTA: Where are your old pensions? How are they invested? Do you have enough saved for retirement?

5

At Outreach, we had a THRIVING SMB business. $20k+ deals, sub-30 day cycle times, 120%+ NRR. Why was it so strong? 1. Great leadership I had one of the best VPs ever running SMB. He hired top 1% directors and managers who could take almost anyone we hired and help them hit quota...and, of course, they hired great reps, too! Key to transactional SMB motions → your ability to make sub-average reps hit quota consistently. Can you coach reps up (bc transactional sales is not rocket science)? 2. Give buyers less control The paradox of choice is real, and it says the more choices a human has the harder it is for them to make a choice and to make a choice they feel good about. Key to transactional SMB motions → limit the things buyers can choose between. How can you limit choices to decrease the ways a buyer can stall in making the micro-decisions that add up to the macro-buying-decision? 3. Give sellers less control How much control do you have riding a bike? Lots at 16-19mph How much control do you have driving a car? Some at 50-80mph How much control do you have on a plane? None at 550mph The faster something goes the less control you have. Transactional sales are fast...all about speed. It's OK to limit the amount of control a seller has in their process when you have sub-30 day cycles. Key to transactional SMB motions → extremely tight sales processes that are managed to effectively by frontline managers. Can you help a rep master all parts of the process? 4. "Luxurious" rep to manager ratios Mostly young, new reps make up SMB teams. These reps need more help and mentoring so if you have 8:1 rep to manager ratios, you are pushing it. If you are at 12:1, you are probably failing the reps, customers, and company. Key to transactional SMB motions → make sure your managers can spend enough time with reps to grow them. Are you creating a culture where every rep is trying to figure it out themselves? 5. Weekly alignment on numbers Transactional sales is all about knowing and managing to your numbers. You need to be able to look at deal size, win rates, cycle time, competitive win rates, lost reasons, pipeline gen, pipeline coverage, etc every week. The business moves to fast not to make sure the numbers are where the plan says they need to be. Key to transactional SMB motions → have a central place with all your numbers that finance has agreed are "approved." Can you use data to figure out what your problem is and the impact of fixing it? 6. Right data Spending time looking for contacts, emails, phone numbers, etc is dead time. This business moves too fast for reps to have to deal with bad data. Key to transactional SMB motions → supply strong data...more than just contact info. How much time are reps spending dealing with bad data? SMB is a FUN business to run. Just make sure to run it right!

423

49 Comments

I’ve helped 12+ AEs and SDRs transition into SE/SC roles. There’s no doubt that you can earn a lot as an AE. AEs can make $1,000,000+ in a good year - a very lucrative career path. But the reality is most AEs don’t get there. It takes an exceptional AE to earn consistently at high levels, year in and year out. (I personally would be a terrible AE 😅) A big reason why folks pivot to Sales Engineering is because the earning potential is solid and much more consistent. That’s what the data in the image shows: 36% avg quota attainment for AEs vs... 74% for SE from this same company, with similar OTE’s As an SE, you don’t always have the extreme upside* that your AE counterpart will, but your income is more stable. (*there are some companies that pay SEs similar to AEs, with SEs able to clear $1M+ in a great year, though this is more of the exception than the rule) As an SE, there’s also less pressure to hit quota, quarter after quarter. The roles are different, with different responsibilities and varying degrees of risk (and upside). Both paths can provide tremendous opportunities depending on your strengths and the type of work you enjoy. Hope this provides some perspective for those who are considering SE or AE career paths. #sales #presales #compensation (source: RepVue)

116

18 Comments

How much is Salesforce holding your salespeople back? When SFDC isn’t implemented properly for your company… When salespeople can’t use CPQ to speed up deals Or can’t reach out to customers at the right time because alerts aren’t set up Or when they don’t know how the best way to input data so opportunities are getting missed every day… How many deals could they be missing out on? How many customers might churn? How many renewals don’t get handled at the right time? How much smaller are deals because your salespeople didn’t have the data they needed? And how much could you be losing, because the job opening for that CPQ consultant or SFDC developer has been open for 3 months? 

4

A brilliant piece of affiliate marketing. I am a customer of Sound Credit Union. They promote Minnesota Life Insurance company’s offer by saying they already paid $2,000 worth of insurance for me. All I need to do is claim it. Oh, and by the way, I can add up to $300,000 worth of coverage for just $1.10 a month per $10,000. Lots of great things are at play here. 1. Borrowing credibility: I trust Sound Credit Union 2. Creating high perceived value: They say they’ve paid for $2,000 worth of insurance. In reality, if they’ve paid at all, they’ve paid 22 cents, going by the implied rate for that much insurance. Chances are they’ve paid nothing, but they know how to cite large numbers to create high perceived value. You can be sure they earn a hefty affiliate commission. 3. Breaking down price to the ridiculous: They don’t say pay $33 a month for the insurance policy (although this is buried in a table somewhere below). The headline figure is $1.10 (per $10,000 worth of insurance per month). It looks like Minnestoa Life Insurance has perfected this customer acquisition strategy with credit unions. I am also a customer of First Tech Credit Union and got a similar offer. Credit Unions generally have higher income and higher quality customers than traditional banks. #conversionrateoptimization #ecommerce #marketing #sales #lifeinsurance #affiliatemarketing

5

SELL A MUST HAVE - FEDERALLY MANDATED PRODUCT! AE & SDR REMOTE I am open to talking to ANYONE with a #saas sales background who has the BEST number$$ and wants to be apart of a #gtm team (less than 5 sellers) Ideal candidate has sold #saas #insurance and worked at an earlier stage startup #seedstage #healthcare #healthaccesability 7M+funding as seed stage, they are very exec and tech tool lean. They hire from within (your boss was the first sales hire, taking the co $100k to $5m, and the head of marketing, was a founder at a company in a VERY similar space) Seed stage start ups take work! Helping to refine & increase average deal size, build predictable revenue. Fight for funding. build a book, reduce customer churn total forecasted headcount in the next 60 days 4 headcount: Account Executives (w/csm and am work) no renewal quota 2 headcount: Sales Development Representatives 1 to 1 AE to SDR ratio Deal size: $25k-$30k Sales Cycle: 2 weeks - 1 month Tools: HubSpot Apollo.io Orum verticals: #homehealth #nonprofits  MUST be willing to be getting your #insurancelicense this solution is a MUST have product, solves real problems based on #federalmandate with this direct to primary care, mental health saas tool, requires high volume #physical exams they can be done here AE salary $75k base - $150k OTE $85k base- $170k OTE $95k base- $190k OTE monthly quota = your salary (for example closing $75k/month) SDR: $55-$60k base Quota: 25-30 qualified, attended meetings offering $200++ attended w/ hr & c suite SDR growth: head of sdr AE growth: head of csm/am/enablement/rev ops Decision makers: HR managers, CEO/SVP ops 75-100 dials per day AEs work closely with small CSM team to help onboard, keep clients to their success measurements, and reduce churn (no expansion, retention quota) they really appreciate reps with top of funnel and post sale exp hired in 2-3 interviews (after meeting me!) 1) meet with your boss, VP of sales - 30 min via zoom 2) FOUNDER or meet with the head of marketing/head of engineering, who has built sales programs internally/ been at earlier stage orgs (series b) or potentially panel - 45 3) exercise: cold calling with your direct boss (first call) for #sdrs and #discovery call #accountexecutives- 30 very phone heavy, leaders like to solve problems via email with colors, emojis and visuals - they have sequences that work, after you set meetings at scale, you can start bringing ideas to be creative since this solution is sold to #hr teams and companies 20-500 employees, they are open to someone coming from #hr solution like #adp or any earlier stage startup startup experience is NOT req and this is a great chance to grow your skill set and be apart of a "no brainer" solution training done by Nick Cegelski 30 Minutes to President's Club

20

3 Comments

"I hate LinkedIn." -Tech Seller Yesterday at pickleball I struck up a convo with a guy. Turns out he's in sales. Sells software for one of the big B2B tech firms. One I know well (a client in a previous life). I dug in a little bit to learn more about his role. And what products/industry he was focused on. He then asked me about my business. Told him I'm endeavoring to build a SaaS business. He asked what it is. And I replied, "Are you familiar with tools to create personalized videos?" I find this question helps to provide context so I can explain what Popr.ai is. But, that's where the conversation took a turn. His response? "I hate tools like that." "I'd never use something like that." "Our enablement team is always trying to push new tools down our throats." "I just pick up the phone and talk to people." "Or send a really short email." My reply? "Sure, if you have something that's working for you, stick with it". I didn't try further to explain Popr. No point. I did, however, ask him if he's active on LinkedIn. He fired back quickly. "I hate LinkedIn." "I hate all social media." And, that was basically the end of our conversation on the topic. My takeaway? Maybe he's a highly effective seller. Doing things the way he's always done them. Or, maybe, he's a dinosaur. Or, maybe a little of both. For me, I choose to try to stay current. To not be afraid to try new things. So even though this guy and me have had similar careers. We may not have a lot in common. Except of course for pickleball lol. --------------------------- What's your take on this? Do you think someone like this can be successful in sales today? Why or why not?

13

10 Comments

Right on 📈 Jeremey Donovan. Agree always need to establish a next step and lock it in. The typical 1st / discovery call is scheduled for 30 minutes and is challenging. There is a lot to unpack in 20 minutes. Why 20? Lose 5 min on the front end due to people coming in late from their previous meeting and reserving the 5 min close. That is not a lot of time to provide intro's, background, value prop, demo use cases, q&a and then close on a next meeting. Doing the pre-research + having a short list of discovery questions + perfecting a tight 5 min demo/use cases allows for that 5 min needed for next step aligment and calendaring. A reason it really does take 5 minutes is because there typically is a need to coordinate other stakeholders calendars for the next meeting.

4

Stop over complicating your sales process. Suspects Exit Criteria - Your ICP Prospects Exit Criteria - Those who engage. Qualifying Exit Criteria - Confirm ICP, understand their use case, and they accept 2nd meeting. They have told you who the skeptics are Discovery Exit Criteria - Understand Economic Impact of their use case(s) and they are willing to bring others into the conversation Selection Exit Criteria - You are speaking with a real decision maker. You have been short-listed. Know competitors, Start to understand approval process and players. Commercials discussion Negotiation Exit Criteria - Confirm commercials and redlines begin. Cannot move to closing unless all redlines and commercials are confirmed. Closing Exit Criteria - No more commercial conversations, Send contract for signature, know when you will get signed contract back

25

AI SDRs are gaining and losing steam all at the same time. I hear about massive growth and massive churn at AI SDR companies on the same day. It's pretty easy to see why they won't work over time. We've already seen this show play out, just not at quite the same scale. Which makes this very scary, considering the current state of pipe gen. We automated sales activity with Sales Engagement Platforms 10 years ago. Humans run the automated machines we built. Humans currently do work at scale. For most companies (because they don't really know what they are doing), AI SDRs will just replace the humans and run the same systems and automations just at 10X volume. When it doesn't work at X level, why would it work at a 10X level? It won't. It's have an inverse effect (it's called the law of diminishing returns). It might work for a while, but it won't last. It took 8 years for Sales Engagement Platforms effectiveness to go from competitive edge to underperforming table stakes, mostly bc people cranked the volume so high (easy button). At the scale AI can work, it'll take less than 2 years for AI SDRs to create a bigger mess than Sales Engagement did. I want to be clear. I think AI SDRs are good and a logical evolution (and I still believe in Sales Engagement Platforms). I just don't trust the people who will use AI SDRs. They will do exactly what they did with Sales Engagement. They won't do the hard work of improving their system. They will just crank up the volume. Sales is a numbers game...that works both ways, which most people DO NOT consider. Do too little and you won't win. Do too much and you won't win. AI SDRs make doing too much too easy, and people will always follow the path of least resistance, even if it is bad for them. Those people will ruin the potential of AI SDRs, just like they've ruined the potential of Sales Engagement Platforms. Sometime, you can't have your pasta and eat it too. (so corny, I know).

90

52 Comments