Scaling Sales
Specific insights to help leaders scale and grow sales
Straight from the horse’s mouth…
In horse racing circles, tips on which horse is a likely winner circulate amongst the crowd. The most trusted authorities are considered to be those in closest touch with the recent form of the horse, that is, stable lads, trainers etc. The notional 'from the horse's mouth' is supposed to indicate one step better than even that inner circle, that is, the horse itself.
The phrase originated around the turn of the 20th century. The earliest printed version is from the London newspaper Reynolds Newspaper, June 1896:
As the great British nation takes far more interest in horse racing than in politics, the exchange of rulers would be delightful, because, look you, we'd get all our tips straight from the horse's mouths, instead of being deluded and swindled every day by their lordly owners. Don’t take it from me - hear it straight from the horse’s mouth.
So -in this week’s edition of Stretch Weekly - hear how to scale sales from those best to talk about it…
5 Tips for Scaling Your Sales Team from Chorus.ai and Joe Caprio
How Top Sales Orgs Improve Sales Velocity from the gurus at Outreach
Your First 90 Days as a Sales Leader with Steve Goldberg (Sales Loft CRO) and Michael Watkins
And lastly - as always, if you find this newsletter valuable- consider sharing it with someone who might as well 👊.
STRETCH SHARES
5 Tips for Scaling Your Sales Team
Chorus (and former VP Sales - Joe Caprio) says by following a few basic principles, you can build a sales team that is readily scalable from day one, equipped not only for the challenges of sales today but for tomorrow as well.
In a nutshell fine tune the following:
When and Where. You’re ready to scale if your leads are in plentiful supply, your benchmarks are secure or, you have high sales maturity.
Know What You Need. Geography, Verticals, Team Structure etc.
Tech Stack and Sales Process. Ensuring that your process is fluid and enabled by the right tech stack is critical to building a high functioning, high growth sales org.
Coaching. Standardize your coaching curriculum, particularly during on-boarding.
Know What to Look for in Each Hire. Build a repeatable process for recruitment and interviewing.
How Top Sales Orgs Improve Sales Velocity
Perfect timing for us sales leaders as we ramp up activity and push to close out the year with a strong Q4.
Outreach offers a good read with 5 things you can do (or tweak) as a leader to successfully scale your sales team. Especially intriguing as it maps Expectations vs. Reality. 6 points that stood out to me:
Top of funnel calling represents the largest gap between expectations and reality. grimace.
Activity: Quality over Quantity.
Meetings. Sales Leaders expect reps to book at least 50% more meetings than they actually do. But when reps book meetings, hold rates are high.
Opportunity creation is an Opportunity. Sales teams are missing conversion expectations by more than 37%.
Good discovery = excellent meeting hold rates.
Close rates are near 33% out of expected 39%. How is your team stacking up?
This stands to reason that improvements in earlier stages of the sales process may lead to greater returns toward the end of the sale. For example, improving the number of meetings held and opportunities converted from meetings will create more impact than sending more cold emails.
Your First 90 Days as a Sales Leader
Just listened to this podcast and thought it may be helpful for any new leaders or those just about to take that jump into sales leadership.
Insightful hearing from Steve Goldberg - SalesLoft's new CRO and his 90 day outlook and plan as a new leader.
Show notes: Michael Watkins is co-founder of Genesis Advisors, a leadership development firm, and a professor at the IMD Business School in Switzerland. He’s also author of The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels. In this special episode, Michael joins Steve Goldberg, SalesLoft’s new CRO, as they discuss how to navigate your first 90 days as a sales leader. Whether you’ve received a promotion, moved to a different company, or even transitioned to a newly created role, there’s something in this podcast for you. "What are you great at and love doing - that you need to do less of? What don't you like doing and need to do more of?"
STRETCH SNIPPETS
😇 Nice shareable from Ring DNA on the 7 Rarest Traits of Successful Sales Leaders. Which one's do you lack if any?
🙅♂️ Came across this good read in Sales Hacker from Tom Williams on disqualifying prospects. Why and How...
🛠 Need a sales tech stack review? Morgan Ingram offers his favorite tools (with others chiming in...)
😏 The 4 words make you instantly more persuasive...
✌️ SaaStr presents the two characteristics of every great salesperson. Do you have what it takes?
📌 SalesLoft gives us the Key to 2x Sales Email Reply Rates. (hint: Personalization - but not too much)
💡Alex Olley says: Before you go into discovery mode on a sales call there's 1 thing only about 2% of reps actually do: a genuine up-front contract.
💲 LinkedSelling put together a comprehensive guide to Lead Generation and Client Acquisition.
🗣 Jeremey Donovan on LinkedIn says its the AE’s responsibility to answer the question “Why should I change now?” via The Lost Art of Closing by Anthony Iannarino
🧐 Awesome thread on the psychology and science of sales. Via your new favorite twitter follow if you don’t already: @Meddpicc
🧠 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.
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