Keeping this intro a bit short and sweet this week. This week focuses on things we can do to help our team navigate the complexities amongst the deals in our pipeline as effectively as needed to win more opportunities.
In this week’s edition of Stretch Weekly -
Devin Reed offers some amazing insights on How Selling to Decision Makers Affects Your Win Rates.
Jason Lemkin lists his top 21 excuses for not closing deals- as well as some candid rebuttal.
Hear from both Jacco Van Der Kooij and Godard Abel as they discuss what it takes to build a SaaS company (heavy emphasis on scaling sales).
Plus more timely snippets to help you teach, coach, and train your team to manage and win more deals.
And lastly - as always, if you find this newsletter valuable- consider sharing it with someone who might as well 👊.
THANKS for reading!!
-Grant
STRETCH SHARES
How Selling to Decision Makers Affects Your Win Rates
Always insightful research from Devin Reed and Gong as they analyzed 9,056 opportunities and looked at how DMs’ involvement in deals impacted win rates. (DM was defined as having a title of VP, CXO, or Managing Director)
Key takeaways:
Deals that don't involve DMs are 80% LESS likely to close
Enterprise deals are 233% LESS likely to close if the DM isn't involved.
Win rates are highest when DMs AREN'T overly involved in deals
The highest Win rates are when DM is the "approver" instead of the "evaluator" (deal fatigue)
DMs are busy. Focus on what they care about most.
Getting a DM involved is crucial for deal success, but don’t over complicate your deal by trying to get them involved in every meeting.
The 21 Top Excuses for Not Closing A Deal
Jason Lemkin shares what we all know - that sales is hard. But also that we shouldn’t be closing every deal we are in. But..the best sales reps close so much more than mediocre ones. Lemkin’s lists his top 21 excuses mediocre reps use - as well as some candid rebuttal.
My favorites:
Competition is better at ____ (aren’t you better at something too?)
No budget (why were we even talking)
Leads from marketing have gotten worse (true - but haven’t you gotten better?)
The art of sales is turning a few more of these No’s, or Later’s … into a Yes. And the best sales professionals are very good at it. And the best onboarding teams can often bridge gaps here.
Which ones have you heard more than others?
The Blueprint to Building a Successful SaaS Company
This podcast caught my eye the past week as I’ve enjoyed hearing from both Jacco Van Der Kooij and Godard Abel in the past.
Jacco is CEO of Winning By Design - where he runs a SaaS Sales Training and Coaching company. I’ve found his insights to be refreshing and helpful for me as a sales leader in SaaS.
Godard Abel is a serial founder and CEO in the tech community and runs well known SaaS review site G2.
Give this episode a listen, and although not meant specifically for Sales Leaders - it definitely leans that way.
Hire people that you NEED not that you WANT. Hire people that take notes in the interview - Jacco
STRETCH SNIPPETS
🧙♂️ Who's the hero? Belal Batrawy encourages us to rephrase the "I help __ with ___" question by putting our prospect in the hero role - and us as Merlin the magician.
❌ Kyle Coleman tells us what we can do when prospects are opening emails but not responding.
👻 Ghosted after your sales demo? Michael Hanson (WITH AN O!! - no relation) walks us through a few ways to decrease no-show rates.
⏳ Great read by Kevin Dorsey on developing and coaching time management techniques for sales leaders.
🎧 Added a few new podcasts to my queue thanks to this list from Bomb Bomb on the 15 Best Sales Podcasts for any Sales Pro.
𝙕 Check out 5 Things to Know About Gen-Z: The ‘Kids’ Taking Over Your Sales Team from the cool kids at Chorus.
🎰 After analyzing over 300k emails - Gong released the 7 Laws of Highly Effective Sales Emails.
🧠 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. Contact Me HERE.
Also… check out the blog or follow on Twitter