Sell the Whales
Sell the Whales
Insights from experts on how to sell to the enterprise
Hello Friends -
(yes It’s Masters week everyone)
Call it a coincidence, but after deciding to take the next three weeks off from a serving up a specific themed email, it looks like yet again, this week leans towards a common concept and subject matter.
The next few weeks may not be so lucky - as there is just too much great information and content to share - but this week we settled on something familiar.
Landing the whales. Bagging the elephants. Selling the Enterprise.
In this week’s edition of Stretch Weekly -
Andy Whyte talks with Thibaut Ceyrolle on how to find and hire elite sellers, what made Snowflake successful in the Decision Criteria with buyers and how to effectively get Champions to fight for you.
Nate Nasralla gives us 10 concepts to help you land larger deals in the Enterprise.
Plus timely sales-focused snippets to help you lead your team to land the whales, bag the elephants, and sell to the enterprise.
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
Masters of MEDDICC - Enterprise Selling
If anyone knows Enterprise selling, it’s Andy Whyte. Join Andy as he interviews Thibaut Ceyrolle from the Unicorn-growth technology company, Snowflake.
Listen and learn how to find and hire the elite sellers, what made Snowflake successful in the Decision Criteria with the buyer and how to effectively get Champions to fight for you.
“Don’t compare apple to apple, but apple to apple pie. Your solution is different – your product simply does not compare to the competitors”.
Discover why trust, knowing when to say no, and integrity is critical in selling and see what you can find to help you sell even more!
The Inner Life of the Enterprise
Nate Nasralla posted tips for sellers on the “Inner Life of Enterprises” on LinkedIn the other day - 10 concepts to help you land larger deals, with empathy for enterprise employees.
Lotta sales teams are moving up market for larger deals. If you're trying to land your first $100K+ deal, here's my list of 10 things to know about the "inner life of enterprises." So you have more empathy for your deal champions... ...and avoid getting ghosted in a 6+ month cycle.
But many of us missed the actual thread as it got buried in the comments section (LinkedIn Algo…) so I figured I’d feature it here since I found it relevant to what I’ve experienced.
1. The Law of Large Numbers. It’s hard to have a meaningful impact on revenue. Adding $10M in revenue is 0.0001% of sales for someone like P&G. Don’t over-index on this in your messaging.
2. Meetings as Forcing Mechanisms. Large companies have A LOT of meetings. It’s a version of corporates deadlines, to force feedback. Prospects need time for internal meetings, before booking a follow-up call. That’s a good thing — they’ll have more feedback to share with you.
3. Calendar Tetris. Your contact tries booking a 30-minute call, between 5 packed schedules across time zones. If you get a follow-up date 3 weeks in the future, it doesn’t mean they’re not interested. Most likely, they couldn’t find a time sooner. Plan on this.
4. The Art of “Languaging”. Using the right language makes buy-in easier. It taps a narrative leadership is already bought into. Employees learn to frame requests around trigger words that grab attention. Use them in your sales materials and forward-able emails.
5. Non-Committal Feedback. You won’t always know where you stand in the sales cycle. Your champion probably won’t either, because they get ‘de-prioritized’ during meetings. Ensure your champion has a sharp problem statement with the cost & consequences of not acting.
6. Titles Matter, A Lot. It’s how corporate power is signaled. Be cognizant of WHO pitches your idea — ideas aren't independent of a messenger. An idea shared by an analyst is “outlandish,” but may be shared by an SVP as “visionary”. Cultivate support up and down the food chain.
7. Mismatched Urgency. Large companies never have the same urgency sellers do. And your champion’s own financial situation is rarely linked to a single deal. So the importance of any one sales meeting is diluted. Figure out the personal win your buyers are craving. Speak to it.
8. The Stigma of Failure. Long-time employees have lots of informal clout. They also know about all the deals that didn’t work, and failure isn’t well-tolerated in the enterprise. Discover what’s been tried. Show how you’re different. It removes risk for these key contacts.
9. Approval Bottlenecks Are Real. Senior execs sign big deals. But they don’t have much free time. This creates bottlenecks for everyone — not just you. Plant seeds early with internal docs your champion can share. Execs are more likely to recognize and prioritize you at signing time.
10. The Top-Down Scramble. A board member reads a WSJ article, forwards it to an exec, who forwards to their team and says, “What are we doing about this?” If you’re not part of this newly urgent priority, you’ll be out of mind. Know the latest news and align with what’s top of mind.
STRETCH SNIPPETS
👑 The Discovery King of LinkedIn, Charles Muhlbauer finally gives us his long awaited 11-step Discovery Roadmap. Memorize this. Bookmark it. Print it out. Write it on your hand. Do whatever you need to adopt this.
🗣 Jeremey Donovan posts an excerpt from John McMahon’s book The Qualified Sales Leader: "My preference is for a sales leader to be in every Economic Buyer (EB) meeting to help the sales rep during the meeting and build a relationship with the EB and Champion.”
🎥 Too soon? Check out this two-part series ([Part 1] and [Part 2]) with Joe Rogan and Chris Van Praag talking about the benefits salespeople get by using Video. Amazing job Chris.
✅ Armand Farrokh tells us to slow it down to prevent a good deal from going bad. Namely:
TRIANGULATE: Ask multiple people what the process to buy software is. If you get the same answers, you’re good.
PATTERN MATCH: Ask about a past purchase they’ve made. Ask about a purchase that got squashed.
SPIN PLATES: Run commercial, security, and legal review in parallel. Save several weeks.
🙌 First Quarter is in the books - so no better time than now to feature these 15 ways to help your sales team in 2022 from Jason Lemkin. Love this list - even if it was originally addressed to CEOs, the lessons still apply to sales leaders.
🧠 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.
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