Revenue Today

Today, we welcome James Breen and Amy-Louise Tracey, the Director of Sales and Senior Account Executive of Loopio respectively. To increase your RFP win rate to 51% and higher, James details the top 4 strategies you can use to achieve this: spend more hours writing, involve more contributors, be selective, and use a centralized system for RFP answers. James and Amy-Louise take a deep dive into strategy 1 and share the granular details of how and why spending more time to create customized responses increases your chances of winning an RFP.

Takeaways

• To win more RFPs, execute the following strategies: spend more time writing customized answers, diversify expertise by involving more contributors, be selective about the bids you can realistically win, and use a centralized system for RFP answers.
• Writing time varies greatly by company size, with small and midsize companies spending 21 hours, mid-market spending 24 hours, and enterprise spending an average of 25 hours. But regardless of size, any company improves its chances of winning by creating customized responses.

Quote of the Show

"They also involve more contributors. And it's not a lot more, we just found 1 or 2 more contributors that are participating in this RFP process. You're going to get a variety of different subject matter experts involved. So you might be reaching out to your customer experience team, your legal team, your product team, and your sales team. You have those great people that are experts within their domain that are really helping to beef up the content of your RFP." - James Breen

Connect with James and Amy-Louise in the links below:

• James
• Amy-Louise
• Company website
• 2022 Loopio Benchmark Report

Ways to tune in:

• Amazon Music
• Apple Podcast
• Spotify
• Google Podcast
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/6KEho9RSaHs

Today, we welcome James Breen and Amy-Louise Tracey, the Director of Sales and Senior Account Executive of Loopio respectively. They provide an overview of how you can increase your RFP win rate to 51% and some benchmarks SaaS teams utilize to achieve this.

Takeaways

• Most SaaS teams achieve a 46% win rate in RFPs, but one-third are winning 51%. However, it is important to note that not a single one is winning every single RFP.
• Companies regardless of size, from 10 to 10,000 employees, can benefit from learning the benchmarks and strategies that increase RFP win rate.

Quote of the Show

"46% is very much the average win rate of a software team, but there's over a third of organizations who have much higher than that, so a 51% win rate here. What do we want to see, or what do we want to learn about, and what are the strategies that they are actually employing in order to get this higher win rate? So these organizations, a third of them have a win rate of 51% or higher... no one is winning a hundred percent of RFPs." - Amy-Louise Tracey

Connect with James and Amy-Louise in the links below:

• James
• Amy-Louise
• Company website
• 2022 Loopio Benchmark Report

Ways to tune in:

• Amazon Music
• Apple Podcast
• Spotify
• Google Podcast
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/6KEho9RSaHs

Today, we welcome Chris Dutton, the Head of Demand Generation and Marketing Operations at 6sense. The elephant in the room is that generating a quality pipeline is hard. And because so much of sellers' time is spent on unproductive prospecting, more than $2 trillion is wasted on missed opportunities. Chris shares the first thing you should do to avoid this: identify your ICP.

Takeaways

• Leakage examples include focusing resources on the wrong accounts, missed and mistimed opportunities, low-quality pipeline, inability to differentiate solutions, misaligned sales and marketing, and not understanding buyers' needs.
• Clearly define your ICP by looking at past data, knowing your future verticals, expecting future technologies, and anticipating future product lines, to name a few examples.

Quote of the Show

"Define your ICP. What does that mean? Your ideal customer profile. And the way that you do that is, there are a few ways that you can do that. You can look at past performance. You can look at technographic data and firmographic data. Do you also want to look at what's your future go-to-market strategy? Where do you expect the organization to go? Are you going to be expanding your GOs? Are you going to be going into different verticals?." - Chris Dutton

Connect with Chris in the link below:

• LinkedIn

Ways to tune in:

• Amazon Music
• Apple Podcast
• Spotify
• Google Podcast
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/6KEho9RSaHs

Today, we welcome Donald Kelly, the Founder of The Sales Evangelist. His mission is to evangelize the method of effective selling and motivate sellers at all levels to do big things. He is the author of Sell It Like a Mango and has helped sellers for many companies build confidence in their selling abilities.

Donald shares the top secret he was taught in selling to a certain market, which was to go for the segment that never calls in and never complains but uses your solution over and over again. It wasn't the biggest or smallest customers, they were medium-sized organizations that had enough pain and problems and budgets.

Takeaways

• Increase your sales by focusing on medium-sized players who have just enough pain, problems, and budgets to use your solution over and over again.
• Before allotting budgets for sales teams, make sure you are focusing on the right target market and the segments within that can really enable sellers to sell more.

Quote of the Show

"It wasn't the large cities like the Houstons or the cities like New York and it wasn't the small ones like a small town or a rural community. It was a medium-sized organization. They had enough pain, they had enough problems, they had enough difficulties, they had a decent budget, and they could use our solution over and over and over again." - Donald Kelly

Connect with Donald in the link below:

LinkedIn

Ways to tune in:

• Amazon Music
• Apple Podcast
• Spotify
• Google Podcast
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/6KEho9RSaHs

Today, we welcome Donald Kelly, the Founder of The Sales Evangelist. His mission is to evangelize the method of effective selling and motivate sellers at all levels to do big things. He is the author of Sell It Like a Mango and has helped sellers for many companies build confidence in their selling abilities.

Donald introduces product market fit and how to make sure that teams are on the right path, are focused, and are putting the right pieces together. He discusses The Platinum Rule and how this differs from The Golden Rule and how to determine your target customer first to make sure your product sells. 

Takeaways

• The Platinum Rule states that you should treat others the way that they would like to be treated.
• Determine your target customer. Identify your ICP and what their pains, problems, and difficulties are. 

Quote of the Show

"The Platinum Rule states that you treat others the way that they would like to be treated. So when you think about this with your customers, that company that I worked for, PD, our goal, we were focusing on being the Golden Rule, we wanted to treat others the way we want to be treated. We wanted to make money so we figured if we like this product, people are going to like this product." - Donald Kelly

Connect with Donald in the link below:

LinkedIn

Ways to tune in:

• Amazon Music
• Apple Podcast
• Spotify
• Google Podcast
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/6KEho9RSaHs

Today, we welcome Angela Bunner, the Vice President of Solutions for ClickUp. She oversees solutions engineering, professional services, and customer enablement and has more than 20 years of experience in project portfolio management.

Angela talks about how freemium models are successful when the product is good enough that people want to keep using it. She also answers audience questions such as how she grew ClickUp, the biggest challenges they faced in the last year, and maintaining an industry-leading retention of 150%.

Takeaways

• Let the product speak for itself. Freemium models work when the product speaks for itself.
• Growing a team virtually requires collaboration through a platform.

Quote of the Show

"Let the product speak for itself. Like I said, that freemium model works because the product speaks for itself. Users are out there trying it and using it and they get excited about it, and that's what's bringing in growth on new teams, expanded teams, enterprise deals, and whatnot." - Angela Bunner

Connect with Angela in the link below:

• LinkedIn

Ways to tune in:

• Amazon Music
• Apple Podcast
• Spotify
• Google Podcast
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/6KEho9RSaHs

This episode of Revenue Today features Mary Vue, Head of Partnerships and Alliances at Syncari. A partnership strategy during your product-market fit motion may seem counterproductive, but having them integrated creates a necessary feedback loop between the company and the end users.

Not only will this create a roadmap to make your product or service better, but having them included early on embeds them in your sales DNA, smoothening out friction and actually helping achieve customer success better and faster.

Takeaways

• Partners create a vital feedback loop between your design and engineering team and customers to inform how to make your product better.
• A partner strategy inserted early in the PMF integrates them into the sales DNA and eliminates friction with the sales team and helps to achieve customer success.

Quote of the Show

"Partners are working on live customers on a daily basis. They see these problems on a daily basis and they become a great feedback loop to help inform your product roadmap, to help inform your product and engineering team, so that they can work on the right things, work on the things that are faster, create a better UI design, user experience." - Mary Vue

Connect with Mary in the link below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maryvue/

Ways to tune in:

• Amazon Music
• Apple Podcast
• Spotify
• Google Podcast
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/6KEho9RSaHs

Today, we welcome Christina Garnett, an award-winning community builder and advocacy strategist who is the Principal Marketing Manager for Offline Community and Advocacy at HubSpot.

Christina discusses the differences between product-market fit and community-market fit and how the sense of belonging and emotional connection around your product or service is central to its success.

Takeaways

• Community-market fit has an emotional value that creates a member experience around your product.
• It takes the voice of the customer and puts it at the heart of everything, creating a feedback loop to provide happiness around your product.

Quote of the Show

"What community gives is more of an emotional value, the longing, network, tangible opportunities to connect with other humans. And so, we really have this difference of emotional connectivity versus tech connectivity." - Christina Garnett 

Connect with Christina in the link below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinamgarnett/

Ways to tune in:

• Amazon Music
• Apple Podcast
• Spotify
• Google Podcast
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/6KEho9RSaHs

Today, we welcome a fantastic panel of guests to share their insights and experiences on standing out from the crowd. We are joined by Mark Tanner, Co-Founder of Qwilr, Jonathon Blackburn, VP of Global Sales at Qwilr, and Kendra Berner, Senior Strategic Team Lead at Lattice.

There are multiple in-between moments in the sales process that provide you the opportunity to really leave your mark on the prospect. Our guests share some of the most unique prospecting they received that got the sellers through the door, and how anything that makes the buying process easier makes you the more attractive choice for buyers.

Takeaways

• Use the in-between moments to showcase creativity and a deep understanding of the buyer's pains to set yourself apart.
• Make the buying process easier for the buyer to actually buy from you.

Quote of the Show

"The next layer of really setting yourself apart is truly understanding the pain from your prospect and then also a lot of the little moments that exist in a sales cycle. Having all of your communication resources in one place that's easy and makes the buying process easier sets yourself apart; speed of response, as well really digging down into understanding the process to get something approved." - Kendra Berner

Connect with our guests in the links below:

• About Mark Tanner
• About Jonathon Blackburn
• About Kendra Berner

Ways to tune in:

• Amazon Music
• Apple Podcast
• Spotify
• Google Podcast
• YouTube

Today, we welcome a fantastic panel of guests to share their insights and experiences on how sellers ask tough questions. We are joined by Mark Tanner, Co-Founder of Qwilr, Jonathon Blackburn, VP of Global Sales at Qwilr, and Kendra Berner, Senior Strategic Team Lead at Lattice.

With your pipeline now optimized, sales teams should make sure that they are asking the right questions that progress the deal forward, such as the availability of a realistic budget. This would give you an accurate picture of how the internal processes look that will ultimately determine if the deal pushes through or not.

Takeaways

• Ask tough questions and be multithreaded in large deals that make or break a quarter because losing the point of contact can be devastating.
• Understand the problem you are solving so you can accurately assess where your solution falls in the list of priorities.

Quote of the Show

"If it's going to end in a no, you want to get that no as quickly as possible. And I know that sounds demented, in a weird way, but... maybe there's a rep on a call who closes 90% of their deals. But for most reps, most conversations lead to a no. That is the stock standard thing. Whether it's 55% or 95%, most of the time, it ends in a no." - Mark Tanner

Connect with our guests in the links below:

• About Mark Tanner
• About Jonathon Blackburn
• About Kendra Berner

Ways to tune in:

• Amazon Music
• Apple Podcast
• Spotify
• Google Podcast
• YouTube

Today, we welcome a fantastic panel of guests to share their insights and experiences on performing deal reviews during a downturn. We are joined by Mark Tanner, Co-Founder of Qwilr, Jonathon Blackburn, VP of Global Sales at Qwilr, and Kendra Berner, Senior Strategic Team Lead at Lattice.

Once you know how and where you win, the next question you need to answer is how much pipeline do you actually need to hit your goal and quota? Perform deal reviews to prioritize the deals that have the best chances of winning and ensure the right timing exists. Avoid the scarcity mindset which is a kneejerk reaction during downturns.

Takeaways

• The answer is not always more pipeline. You need to prioritize the deals with the best possible closing and ensure your leads are quality leads.
• Perform deal reviews with your team to determine which deals are most likely to move forward and convert.

Quote of the Show

"Thinking about in your pipeline, where are your strongest champions and the best business case, and really ensuring that the right timing exists to change, instead of saying things like sticking with the status quo or no change actually happening." - Kendra Berner 

Connect with our guests in the links below:

• About Mark Tanner
• About Jonathon Blackburn
• About Kendra Berner

Ways to tune in:

• Amazon Music
• Apple Podcast
• Spotify
• Google Podcast
• YouTube

Today, we welcome a fantastic panel of guests to share their insights and experiences on closing deals during a downturn. We are joined by Mark Tanner, Co-Founder of Qwilr, Jonathon Blackburn, VP of Global Sales at Qwilr, and Kendra Berner, Senior Strategic Team Lead at Lattice.

Most companies know their ideal client profile, but in today's environment, it is more important than ever to look back on it and ensure that the team is working on deals that you are actually winning. This involves revisiting the ICP and communicating it so the team focuses their efforts on deals that win.

Takeaways

• Know where you win. Look at your pipeline and use insights to determine the percentage of deals that have a good chance of closing.
• Be honest about the deals you want to win and the ones you are actually winning.

Quote of the Show

"If you're a revenue leader and you feel like you have a pretty good idea of what your ICP is but maybe you want to cut it up and down or look back on that. I urge you to do the same thing across your team just to make sure that the types of deals that you believe and think you should be working on are the ones you're actually winning." - Jonathon Blackburn

Connect with our guests in the links below:

• About Mark Tanner
• About Jonathon Blackburn
• About Kendra Berner

Ways to tune in:

• Amazon Music
• Apple Podcast
• Spotify
• Google Podcast
• YouTube

Today, we welcome Mollie Bodensteiner, Global Revenue Operations Leader at Deel and a trusted advisor for hypergrowth startups. SDRs are treated as the lowest on the totem pole, but the reality is that they are an investment in any business.

SDRs need to receive direction and coaching, as well as be measured against more reliable KPIs to set them up for success. Companies from top to bottom need to be very clear on their focus and remove distractions. Mollie shares how trying, failing and learning led to the meteoric rise of Deel and how other leaders can do this too.

Takeaways

• People expect personalization. Create scorecards internally that measure how many personalized emails are being sent.
• Activity is not a leading indicator. Meetings set is a more reliable KPI for sellers.
• Hypergrowth can only be achieved by focusing and removing distractions.

Quote of the Show

"Get really purposeful on what you're trying to do and make sure you've got that steering at the top. There's nothing worse than the distractions. The thing that I practice a lot with my team is focus. We have to focus, and if it's coming in and distracting from the focus, we've either got to adjust our priorities and adjust our expectations or get it out of here." - Mollie Bodensteiner

Connect with Mollie and learn about the revops positions available at Deel in the link below:

• About Mollie

Ways to tune in:

• Amazon Music
• Apple Podcast
• Spotify
• Google Podcast
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/6KEho9RSaHs

Today, we welcome Angela Bunner, the Vice President of Solutions for ClickUp. She oversees solutions engineering, professional services, and customer enablement and has more than 20 years of experience in project portfolio management.

Angela shares how listening to the experiences and needs of their end users, not their buyers, has been critical to the growth and development of ClickUp. She shares how staying obsessed with end users not only ensures product market fit but also results in product-led growth. 

Takeaways

• Listen to the needs of your end users because they will be the ones who will ultimately drive your product forward, not the decision-makers.
• Be obsessed with your customer because it goes hand in hand with product market fit.

Quote of the Show

"Over time, when you focus on the sales aspect of it and less on listening to the customers and the product, it becomes shelfware. You don't get the adoption that you need because you're selling to the buyers on top and not necessarily listening to the users, and those are the ones that are going to drive the product and be successful." - Angela Bunner

Connect with Angela in the link below:

• LinkedIn

Ways to tune in:

• Amazon Music
• Apple Podcast
• Spotify
• Google Podcast
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/6KEho9RSaHs

Today, we welcome Christina Garnett, an award-winning community builder and advocacy strategist who is the Principal Marketing Manager for Offline Community and Advocacy at HubSpot. Today, Christina digs into the benefits of community management and why creating an online community for your business helps your business grow. 

Not only does the community provide excellent support, but they can also act as your brand champions for others to learn from. In terms of ROI, this can be quantified in the loyalty and leverage to your brand, helping provide honest feedback on what you do best (or worst) and why. 

Takeaways

• The CMX SPACES Model shows you different parts of business value that the community can actually provide, like providing support and becoming champions for your product.
• The value of community is loyalty and leverage. A community built on this provides honest feedback that results in positive change and growth.

Quote of the Show

"Communities can answer questions and really kind of take a large lift off your support team. They can help your product. They can tell you exactly what kind of product features they want, they can tell you what product features they need, if there's any bugs, if there's anything that needs to be different." - Christina Garnett

Connect with Christina in the link below:

• LinkedIn

Ways to tune in:

• Amazon Music
• Apple Podcast
• Spotify
• Google Podcast
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/6KEho9RSaHs

Today, we have an amazing panel of guests to share their insights and experience in crafting stories. We are joined by Jorge Soto, Head of Community and Partnerships at Reprise; Joe Caprio, Operating Partner at Glasswing Ventures; Ed Jaffe, Director of Research and Customer Experience at 2Win!; and Tyson Goeltz, CRO at Reprise.

The tail end of a meeting is just as important as any other part of the demo, so AEs and SEs should make sure to leave a good impression instead of flustering to drill in new features and benefits to the buyer. The panel also discusses some best practices for virtual meetings and killer post-demo follow-ups. 

Takeaways

• The end of a meeting is critical to establish credibility. Don't scramble to show additional benefits because AEs and SEs that did their job right won't need to.
• Success is a product of team selling, so maintain objectivity during the post-meeting debrief and avoid opening up subjectivity.
• Be specific in your follow-up to retrigger the reason the buyer is on the call in the first place.

Quote of the Show

"Just know, it is not just one person. The success is a culmination of everyone doing their individual task across the customer journey. I think the debrief, which I'll just spin on for a second... I love objectivity. When we get into a debrief and we say, I think you did that really or oh, I think I really dropped the ball here, it opens us up to all this subjectivity and you're spinning on things that are hypotheticals or maybes." - Tyson Goeltz

Connect with our guests in the links below:

• About Jorge Soto
• About Joe Caprio
• About Ed Jaffe 
• About Tyson Goeltz

Ways to tune in:

• Amazon Music
• Apple Podcast
• Spotify
• Google Podcast
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/6KEho9RSaHs

Today, we have an amazing panel of guests to share their insights on the AE/SE relationship. We are joined by Jorge Soto, Head of Community and Partnerships at Reprise; Joe Caprio, Operating Partner at Glasswing Ventures; Ed Jaffe, Director of Research and Customer Experience at 2Win!; and Tyson Goeltz, CRO at Reprise.

AEs and SEs should work together at the front and, much like a dance, learn to anticipate each others' moves. How well AEs and SEs work together is also dependent on how their organization views both roles. AEs and SEs should divide their responsibilities between themselves, maintain objectivity in the debrief, and always be searching for a champion.

Takeaways

• AEs and SEs that work together can spot when customer requests are not commensurate to the person and set up for that call.
• Organizations should promote taking the ego out of the equation to foster mutual respect between the AE and SE.
• A well-balanced meeting between AE and SE establishes roles upfront.

Quote of the Show

"They are going to choreograph a dance together and you can't just step on the dancefloor and say okay, I'm going to lead, you're going to step on my toe... and I think the best again SE, AE relationships, they practiced. They know how each other works. They can anticipate each other's moves." - Tyson Goeltz

Connect with our guests in the links below:

• About Jorge Soto
• About Joe Caprio
• About Ed Jaffe 
• About Tyson Goeltz

Ways to tune in:

• Amazon Music
• Apple Podcast
• Spotify
• Google Podcast
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/6KEho9RSaHs

Today, we welcome Ryan Staley, Founder and CEO of Whale Boss and host of The Scale Up Show. SaaS companies do NOT know their customers intimately. Not knowing your perfect customer profile (PCP) prevents them from effectively targeting and selling to their best customers.

Ryan shares actionable tips so that SaaS companies can instead focus on emotionally connecting with buyers and understanding what motivates them to make a purchase. He also discusses quantifiable outcomes in order to be a successful company.

Takeaways

• You can double your deal size by knowing your customers and figuring out who your best buyers are, also called the PCP.
• Double down on knowing the problem you solve to avoid spending too much on marketing to customers who are not a good fit for your product.
   

Quote of the Show

"Look at the last 12 months of data that you have with your 5 biggest wins, your 5 fastest wins, and your 5 biggest losses, and then put it through that lens of what's the vertical, what's the revenue size, what's the ownership structure on top of it. Two, what's the outcome you've created. And last but not least... the actual tangible people you're working with." - Ryan Staley

Connect with Ryan in the link below:

• About Ryan

Ways to tune in:

• Amazon Music
• Apple Podcast
• Spotify
• Google Podcast
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/6KEho9RSaHs

Today, we have an amazing panel of guests to share their insights and experience in crafting stories. We are joined by Jorge Soto, Head of Community and Partnerships at Reprise; Joe Caprio, Operating Partner at Glasswing Ventures; Ed Jaffe, Director of Research and Customer Experience at 2Win!; and Tyson Goeltz, CRO at Reprise.

The panel discusses how account executives and sales engineers must work in partnership during demos instead of limiting themselves because of stereotypical views of each other. They also talk about why revenue leaders should respect their AE’s and SE's calendars based on these two's roles.

Takeaways

• Your job during demos is to show why your product is valuable to the prospect, not how the software works
• Sales engineers don't want to be demoing all the time, they want to build too.

Quote of the Show

"I would argue that my job when I'm giving a demo is not to teach you how the software works. That's what professional services deal with later. My job is to show you how it's going to be valuable." - Ed Jaffe

Connect with our guests in the links below:

• About Jorge Soto
• About Joe Caprio
• About Ed Jaffe 
• Tyson Goeltz

Ways to tune in:

• Amazon Music
• Apple Podcast
• Spotify
• Google Podcast
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/6KEho9RSaHs

Today, we have an amazing panel of guests to share their insights and experience in crafting stories. We are joined by Jorge Soto, Head of Community and Partnerships at Reprise; Joe Caprio, Operating Partner at Glasswing Ventures; Ed Jaffe, Director of Research and Customer Experience at 2Win!; and Tyson Goeltz, CRO at Reprise.

The panel shares their insights on getting the right people involved in meetings to encourage more stories and eventually create more effective demos. They also discuss the idea that some discovery questions are naturally meant to show you how to tailor the demo.

Takeaways

• There are times when your discovery is there to set up a moment of the demo
• There should be a partnership between the account executive and sales engineer but understand that it's never easy

Quote of the Show

"Some episodes are going to focus on one character versus another so, rather than trying to have a power struggle over this particular meeting, there are some meetings that the AE is the focus and I'm more on the support role if I'm the SE. Sometimes it's going to be the reverse of that." - Ed Jaffe

Connect with our guests in the links below

• About Jorge Soto
• About Joe Caprio
• About Ed Jaffe 
• Tyson Goeltz

Ways to tune in:

• Amazon Music
• Apple Podcast
• Spotify
• Google Podcast
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/6KEho9RSaHs