4, 5, 6...
4 lessons, 5 tactics, 6 insights, and other best practices to perfect our craft in sales
Happy Wednesday friends.
More often than not these emails take on a common theme.
While admittedly by design, this “themed” process can often mean months go by with time-sensitive content shelved for distribution “at a later time”.
So - in the next couple of weeks, I’m going to shift back to featuring some insights that - while not necessarily all share a common them - have resonated with me as a sales leader myself.
In my day-to-day, I found myself talking about mastering the internal sale, email follow-up, coaching, demo next steps, and selling to the C-suite among others, and thought I’d share in hopes it helps others…
In this week’s edition of Stretch Weekly -
Coaching. How a successful coaching program can improve win rates, elevate team performance, reduce employee churn, and help ramp reps faster.
Harris Consulting Group brings us 4 lessons I wish my sales manager taught me. Hear from top sales leaders in SaaS, including Kevin Dorsey, Cynthia Barnes, Larry Long Jr, and Sarah Brazier.
And…don’t miss snippets on mastering the internal sale, email follow-up, coaching, demo next steps, and selling to the C-suite, and more.
THANKS for reading!!
-Grant
And lastly - as always, if you find this newsletter valuable- subscribe or share it with someone who might as well 👊.
STRETCH SHARES
5 Essential Keys of a Coaching Culture
Chorus created an insightful e-book on the 5 essential keys of a coaching culture.
Learn how a successful coaching program can improve win rates, elevate team performance, reduce employee churn, and help ramp reps faster.
Specifically, Chorus mentions 5 key parts of a successful coaching culture, and details on how to best practices to follow:
Team Coaching. Film reviews as a team can leverage tribal knowledge and feedback to improve.
Self Coaching. Shocker: use Chorus or other tools to listen/review their own calls and request feedback. See talk/listen ratio and more. *I’d add reviewing other reps’ calls to this list.
Manager and Rep 1-on-1s. Dedicate weekly time for skills coaching in addition to deal reviews. (looking at myself in the mirror) *Top sales orgs dedicate at least 15 minutes in 1-1s to skill coaching.
Onboarding. Enablement should help here, but curate top playlists of calls on discovery, competitors, pricing, objections, and setting agendas. Share and circle back to these on each new hire.
Peer to Peer Coaching. Enables reps to learn from each other and think critically about conversations independent of manager. Aim for 4 peer to peer calls reviewed each month.
4 Lessons I Wish My Sales Manager Taught Me
In hindsight - most things become clear.
Preparation for sales management is no different. Harris Consulting Group brings us 4 lessons I wish my sales manager taught me. Hear from top sales leaders in SaaS, including Kevin Dorsey, Cynthia Barnes, Larry Long Jr, and Sarah Brazier.
Lesson 1: Leader or Manager?
Kevin Dorsey says All leaders are managers, but not all managers are leaders.
The GOAT, Michael Jordan was a great leader on the basketball court but is a poor manager.
Lesson 2: Don’t Wait to Become a Leader
Larry Long Jr advises taking responsibility for your improvement by learning, reading, observing top performers, and start applying what you’ve learned.
Lesson 3: Stay Engaged on Your Journey
Cynthia Barnes reminds us that the path to leadership is a marathon and not a sprint. Alexander the Great was great because he was disciplined over a grueling 10-year span.
Lesson 4: Keep Improving After Your Promotion
Sarah Brazier warns against the improvement plateau. Keep setting goals, building trust and diversity in your team, and engage in “aggressive” leadership.
STRETCH SNIPPETS
🧵 Jason Lemkin says that “High volume outbound effectiveness is declining. But still necessary” and other insights in his Top 6 insights for SaaS Sales in 2022.
💥 OUCH! Often the internal sale is more challenging than closing the actual deal! Hear from Jeb Blount and Victor Antonio as they discuss the steps needed to master the internal sale.
📧 Hope all is well. Gong labs gives us 7 tips for writing the perfect follow-up sales email. Thoughts?
💰Brandon Fluharty says this approach to selling to the C-suite was a major reason he went from earning 6-figures to 7-figures a year: Leveraging your own C-suite in 4 simple steps.
🙅♂️ Phil Morettini says these common 5 sales tactics are ones your sales force should never use.
🧠 Mindset
Thanks for reading!
My hope is if you find this valuable, consider sharing it with friends (or signing up if you haven’t already).
— Grant 👋
About stretch vp: confessions, learnings, and insights from sales leaders in SaaS
Compiled and aggregated from a network of sales leaders in SaaS, Stretch VP showcases learnings, insights, and experiences as well as best practices to overcome common hurdles, obstacles, and setbacks in your quest for excellence as a sales leader in SaaS.
Are you a VP, Director, thought leader, or content producer in the SaaS space? We’d love to have you contribute. Just reply to this email and I’ll be in touch.
Also… check out the blog or follow on Twitter