Ray Owais

Calling All SALES People – YOU HURT YOURSELF WHEN YOU DO THIS!! A huge piece of advice to all of you included in SALES process for your business including CEO’s, MD’S, SALES Directors, Client Directors, Head of Sales, EVP’s, VP’s, SVP’S…I think you get the drift. If your business is taking part in an official RFP process and the RFP states the lines of communication to be used (which it will) i.e. people you should contact (probably a #Procurement person or maybe a Stakeholder)…then abide by it! Now sometimes during the RFP process you may learn of other more senior people who may have an impact on the RFP outcome. This may be via demos or chemistry sessions, or your senior people already know and have a relationship with senior people in the business… BUT please, no matter how desperate or brilliant you think you are…. DO NOT CONTACT THOSE SENIOR PEOPLE DIRECTLY (unless requested to by the contact in the RFP!) It may in your mind seem like a smart thing to do, as you can influence the outcome and get advantage…and I get that is the SALES person in you, and you’ve seen it pay off sometimes… But here’s what actually happens: If the Procurement team are valued and are in charge of doing the official RFP - then take it as given!! All that will happen by your actions is that the senior person will reach out to the Procurement team and tell them…. and guess what that does to your proposal…? Don’t think for one second, your proposal goes to the top of the pile. IMHO, IT’S A HUGE BLACK MARK! What your actions have actually managed to achieve are: 1.     You will have annoyed the Procurement person managing the RFP 2.     You will have annoyed the CPO or Head of Procurement 3.     You will have annoyed the Senior stakeholder who is sponsoring the RFP 4.     You will probably annoy the Senior person you contacted… after all there’s a Procurement function to deal with this stuff! So, SALESPEOPLE…no matter the temptation, do yourself a favour and abide by the RFP rules of communication. You have been warned! _________________________ 😃 Hi I'm Steve Walton. I help companies to fully realize the value procurement brings in terms of cost savings, risk mitigation, supplier innovation and sustainability. DM me if you’re ready to move procurement beyond a tactical purchasing function, and need consultancy and training. 💸📉📊

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A question for Sales Leaders re: quotas - A friend in Medical sales just got their quota...halfway through May (almost halfway through the year). As a territory manager they hustled in 2023 and achieved 111% to quota. They were #4 in Canada and #1 in Ontario. Great, right? Wrong... As a reward, they were gifted with a 12% increase in quota not from previous year's quota, but from previous year's achievement, and to me this just doesn't make sense. 👉 This type of quota calculation rewards those who achieved 90% (or even lower ) 👉 Demotivates those high achievers - They used their relationships to get orders in before quarter/year end and those doctors won't be needing those products perhaps for 18 months 👉 Promotes #quietquitting - doing the minimum requirements of one's job and putting in no more time, effort, or enthusiasm than absolutely necessary 👉 Promotes mediocrity - the more I sell the more will be expected of me next year My friend is understandably demotivated. They are the first ones to help with any events, often being away from home on a weekly basis to help other colleagues with their events/sales. They no longer want to put in any extra work and are questioning the company and whether it may be time to leave. I would love to hear from Sales Leaders out there as to how you calculate quotas, what systems/products you use, and how you deal with employees who have questions.

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Enterprise Salespeople - just a friendly push (from someone who isn't impacted by your results but wants you to kick ass) May & June - time to fine-tune  😎 If, on average, you have a 6 + month sales cycle - hopefully you rested up this long weekend.... It's GO time! Any Discovery Calls booked inside what's left of May & the month of June have a shot to close by Calendar Year End. Factor in some down time in July & August & December. This is when you want to: 🚀 review and own the heck out of next steps with ops inside your CRM 🚀work with marketing to provide timely and intelligent collateral for each stage gate of your ops 🚀ensure that decision makers are identified and introduced 🚀hammer away with your sales leader/founder the key accounts and get support 🚀build plans with your champions to get these deals to their natural close 🚀understand how market forces/head winds/corporate budgets etc might create a sense of urgency for prospects Good Luck & Go CRUSH Your Quotas - like only you can!!! AND make sure you have some personal activities for growth inside your daily calendar!!! That part is always non-negotiable!! If I can help - happy too! startupsalesgrowth.ca #sales #saas #saassales #founders #startups #startupsales #proptech #realestate #enterprisesales #ae #bdr #salesteams #salesculture #salesprocess #salescycle #salesstrategies #salestips #quotas #salesquotas #revenue #salesleadership #salespeople #worklifebalance #marketing #salesandmarketing #mentalhealth #salesprospecting #crm #nextsteps #coaching #b2b

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It’s the start of a new quarter! For many SDRs, you may be approaching the role like any other day or week… but here’s what I’d do to ensure you get a 🔥start to the quarter: 1.) 🗺️ Map out your plan to quota (look at your email/call/LinkedIn execution rates and set your daily/weekly activity goals to hit your number) — knowing these like the back of your hand allows you to know where to focus 2.) 🔎 Identify your “lowest hanging fruit” accounts and target those early and often (look at accounts you’ve spoke to recently, your pipeline plays who asked to follow up, then work with your AE if you’re paired and prioritize the best accounts) — BONUS if you can identify some accounts with critical events like mutual connections to your ELT for a warm intro, job changers, hiring, funding, etc) 3.) 🏃‍♀️🏃SPRINT — as an SDR I used to start every quarter out with what I’d call a “Sprint week.” This is where I’d do double the activity I was expected as a means to really fill my pipeline and get as many conversations started as possible. Now the whole double activity double your output isn’t always advised but if you can put the extra time in early to double your prospects and push yourself for more, you can see some major return. 4.) 📈 Create consistency — I always coached my team that if you can come into the following month with 33% of your quota already set to run, it affords you the flexibility, freedom, and lack of pressure to get really creative and smart with your outreach. If you’re not there for July just yet, start building for a big July and hot start to August. Hope this is helpful to at least one SDR!

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Attention SDRs and Sales Reps🎙️ If you are not getting enough coaching, use Chat GPT to supplement the lack of support - P.S sorry you aren’t getting support 😥 Paste a transcript of your recorded call or role-play you did with a co-worker into ChatGPT (check with legal if you can do this) Ask ChatGPT to: • Analyze your call based on your call framework or script • Identify areas for improvement by asking Chat GPT (or whatever tool you may use) questions • Suggest alternative phrases to communicate value better Prompts you could use: "What did I do well on this call?” - Start off feeling good "What did I not do well?” "How could I have dug into the pain more? Please provide questions I could have asked?” “Can you give me 3 ways I could have handled the objections?” "Suggest alternative ways I could have gone for the close?” “Did I miss anything in the call that could have helped me go for the close?” A.I. will not replace you; the Reps who learn how to use it to help them improve will. If you are a sales or enablement leader and want to learn more about how you could leverage A.I. to help improve your team. Come to the Allego Sales Success Summit, where Sam Richter CSP, CPAE, will discuss how to use AI to help improve your sales team. https://lnkd.in/eKg3w7w2

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SDRs don't work for AEs.... In fact, AEs should work for SDRs. If you're in a position to have an SDR helping you crack meetings you need to point them in the right direction with the right messaging and use cases. SDRs aren't your assistants. They're the tip of the spear. Cole Praver 🙌 #sales

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How’s your sales incentive scheme going? Because one of the biggest challenges we’ve observed is reps who don't understand how their incentive plan works.   If your reps don't understand how their commission scheme works, the plan ceases to achieve its intent.   We’ve seen situations where reps get to the end of the quarter, they’re paid an incentive and they go, “Oh, I didn't even realise I’d qualified. Thank you!”   Now if that happens, you know the whole purpose of your incentive scheme has been lost. Because incentive plans exist to motivate your sales team. They’re meant to be something reps chase, a bonus that drives higher sales and incentivises reps to perform.   Not something that’s a pleasant surprise, nice as that is.   We've learned the most effective incentive plans are so simple a rep can work their bonus out in their head. Keep your incentive scheme simple enough so reps can say, “I know when my sales hit this target I make 2% of all my sales, and I can calculate that bonus myself.”   That simplicity makes an incentive plan more successful.   Sure, you can put lots of gates and conditions on a scheme, but if you do that, it soon gets beyond the point where reps can calculate their bonus in their head. And as soon as you get that complexity, incentive schemes lose momentum and effectiveness.   Numerik has a tracking solution where a rep can see what they're earning every day in real time. That can be set up to include incentive schemes.   Making those figures visible really boosts motivation.   Some Numerik customers ran incentive schemes before they used Numerik and incentive schemes with Numerik. Sales increased as soon as reps could see their earnings in real time and easily understand what their bonus could be if they sold even more.   #sales #salesleadership #salesperformance #numerik   Sharing snack-size sales advice to gear your sales reps’ performance up a notch. Grab my guide to real-time sales performance management in the comments below.

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Multi-threading... A skill that's fast becoming the most critical in a sales reps arsenal. Why? 🤔 The market is tough at the moment. 🤔 Buyers are more budget conscious. 🤔 CFOs are asking teams to reduce spend and cut back on investment. 🤔 Prospects that once had buying power and sign off capability now have to get approval from C-Suite. It sounds like an uphill battle 🏃‍♂️‍➡️⛰️ but the truth is, multi-threading is not as daunting as you might think. ⭐️ Here's some tips that have worked well for me in the last 6 months ⭐️ 🗺 Map out your accounts. Org charts are critical for multi-threading. You need to understand who your prospects are, who they report to, and who holds decision making power. Tip - LinkedIn SalesNav let's you build drag and drop org charts! 🗣️ Check with your your champion. Confirm your org chart is correct. Ask them what the process is for bringing on a new vendor. If they don't know, 🆘 they are not a true champion. 📧 Share content early. Begin introducing yourself to key stakeholders quickly. Tip - Connect on LinkedIn with a short and sweet connection request, something like "Wanted to put a face to a name following some great conversations I've been having with (champion name) re (challenge). I'll send over some content via email shortly. I look forward to hearing your thoughts." 🎺 Make sure your content is personalised, engaging, and stands out. TOP TIP - Using a tool like trumpet 🎺 (digital sales room) is a sure fire way to encourage stakeholder engagement. Upload clear and concise value props, how you can solve their businesses challenges, client case studies and more. Ask these contacts to bookmark the page as you will regular update it with content as the deal progresses. And, track their engagement, so you can meet them in the moment. So far, my prospects have been LOVING it! 📞 Pick up the phone. Once you've connected on LinkedIn and sent content, call prospects to ensure that they have seen it. Ask what questions they have and tell them about next steps. By doing the above, when it comes to negotiation these stakeholders will be informed and aware of the entire process to date, and you and your product will be top of mind 🧠 Tenured AE's in my network (I know there are a lot of you), what do you do to successfully multi-thread? P.S. You can guess what I'll be doing in the office today :😉 #multithreading #sales #digitalsalesrooms #dsr #aestrategies

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Today's CS teams grapple with balancing manual tasks and the pressing need for proactive customer engagement. Spreadsheets can turn into a data swamp, making it challenging to identify at-risk accounts effectively. The reactive approach leads to limited visibility into customer health, delayed response to churn signals, and precious time wasted on manual processes instead of nurturing relationships. Picture a future where your CS team operates proactively, driven by data insights. That's where ChurnZero comes in. ;) #customersuccess #datadrivencs #proactiveengagement

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There's been a lot of chatter on LinkedIn over recent weeks and there seem to be two very specific camps that are forming. Camp 1 believes that outbound sales is dying, that SDRs are becoming dinosaurs and soon will be extinct. Camp 2 acknowledges that Camp 1 exists if a team doesn't adapt to the new selling strategies and business buying habits in today's economy. Buyers want to do the vast majority of their own research and limit the contact with the sales team. That's OK! There is a way to still navigate those sales opportunities without alienating potential buyers. In today's sales economy, it's crucial to recognize the evolving dynamics. Sure, modern buyers prefer self-guided research, minimizing direct interactions with sales teams. However, this doesn't render outbound sales obsolete. Instead, it necessitates a shift in approach. Successful sales teams understand the importance of adapting to changing buying habits. They leverage technology and data analytics to tailor outreach, offering value-driven interactions that align with the buyer's journey. Rather than inundating prospects with unsolicited pitches, they focus on building meaningful relationships through personalized engagement. In essence, the role of SDRs isn't disappearing; it's evolving. They remain essential in driving revenue growth, albeit through refined strategies that prioritize buyer empowerment and relationship-building. Which camp are you in? #B2BSales #OutboundSales #SalesDevelopment

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Leaders who want to make informed decisions for their teams to outperform the competition and avoid unwanted internal issues need current and actionable data. That's why having access to resources like the 2024 Sales Engineering Compensation and Workload Report is so valuable to your team's success. This report gathers and analyzes over 1,000 responses from individual contributors (ICs) and leaders across the presales industry. If you're looking to learn about this year's latest SE trends and insights, the 2024 SE Report has the information you need to stay at the top of your game. But before diving into the full report, here's a sneak peek to help you and your team prepare to navigate the latest in presales. 1️⃣ Compensation Is Complicated 2️⃣ Live Intro Demos Are Not Paying Off 3️⃣ Sales Engineers Across the Board Are Looking for More 4️⃣ Burnout Is the Result of More Than Just Long Hours 5️⃣ Automation Is Essential to Improving the Value of Your Team's Time

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SDR leaders, quit fueling aggressive promotion expectations. Promising SDRs quick progression to AE. And instilling the idea that SDRs should aim to get out of SDR ASAP. It makes them look down on the SDR role. It makes them impatient to get out of it. And as soon as they hit quota.... It makes them feel entitled to an AE role. Then when you can't give it them... Big problems. 1. Talented SDRs become disengaged 2. Negativity and complaining starts 3. SDRs start looking elsewhere I've seen this play out far too many times. And regularly have SDRs in this position reach out on LinkedIn asking for advice. So leaders, save yourself these problems. Set clear and realistic expectations instead. To be considered for AE they should have: 𝟭. 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗾𝘂𝗼𝘁𝗮 You must quantify what the expectation is. E.g. X consecutive months at quota, or X/X months at quota. 𝟮. 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝘀𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀 You must outline what these skills are and have processes to fairly measure them. 𝟯. 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲𝘀 You must be communicating and upholding these regularly from the top-down. 𝟰. 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗔𝗘 You must expect a level of understanding around your product(s) and sales process. To meet these will typically require minimum 12 months in role. Then they should only be considered when they are ready. Just because an SDR hit their pipeline quota doesn't mean they're ready to hit a revenue quota. Besides, we should be promoting SDR as a role worth mastering vs one to exit ASAP. The more you master the SDR role, the better your chances of success as an AE. Fact. - - - P.S. The SDR Leader Bootcamp registration ends in one week. New to SDR leadership? Struggling to lead your team to quota? Want frameworks for building great teams? The bootcamp might be for you. More info @ https://lnkd.in/etdUeNP3

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Want to win more of your pipeline? 💰 Multi-thread It’s one of the most important things you can do to help drive urgency in your sales cycle Most mid-market deals include an average of 6-10 DMs Enterprise deals can include upwards of 20+ DMs The trap that a lot of sellers can fall into is over-relying on your champion Champions are great - don’t get me wrong It pays dividends to have a champion but it’s 10x when you have 3-4 champions advocating on your behalf Unfortunately most buyers don’t know how to buy so our job as sellers is to educate our buyers on how to effectively buy a solution to solve their problems & it’s actually pretty simple to do Take a look at your closed-won deals - especially your high value deals Who all was involved? Who is currently involved? What was the buying process like? What unexpected obstacles did you have to overcome? Use this as a roadmap to educate your prospects on how to buy I love multi-threading at the end of discovery in driving next steps (and farther along the sales process as well) Here’s a quick talk track you can easily apply when driving next steps with prospects: “Next steps typically involve looping in ABC partners (this could be higher level DMs in their function or other cross-functional leaders who are involved in the buying process for your service/offering) to discuss XYZ priorities (this should be the key initiatives your prospect is looking to solve/improve/attain in implementing your solution). We want to make sure that we’re all in alignment and moving in the right direction together. We usually see that looping in cross-functional partners early helps us to uncover potential roadblocks that we’d need to account for and improves our collaborative efficiency. What does your buying process look like and who is usually involved? Would it make sense for us to go ahead and loop then in on our next call?” Why it works? 1️⃣ You’re educating the buyer on who’s typically involved with the buying/implementation process at other similar organizations 2️⃣ You’re collaboratively driving next steps and confirming the prospects buying process 3️⃣ You’re using multi-threading as a way to add value (helping reduce unforeseen roadblocks and improve efficiency) 4️⃣ You’re reducing the internal selling effort required for your champion (again - adding value) Expand your reach by broadening your decision-making unit through multi-tasking and watch your sales cycle shrink What other tips do you have for multi-threading within your pipeline? Happy selling, friends!

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Half the outbound prospecting tips I see on LI are RevOps tips in disguise. Things salespeople had to do to hit quota that RevOps should have, but didn't, do for them. Here are just two examples. 𝗧𝗲𝗿𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 There's no bigger waste of time than calling suboptimal prospects outside of your ICP and Personas. The first step here is a data science exercise. You take your ICP and Personas definition and run it against all available internal and external data. Then you map out the capacity of each rep to determine how many accounts they can handle. How long does it take to complete each step in the sales process? How many accounts can they do that with before they run out of time and skip steps? Then you take that number of accounts and use your data to identify the absolute best accounts for each rep. Does any of this sound like a "sales activity?" Is this really what you hired expensive salespeople to do? To fumble through something RevOps could do 10X better and 10X faster? 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 What salespeople should be doing is research on that carefully curated list of accounts and contacts. RevOps can give them a BIG headstart by aggregating data into a single place so that they can quickly see things like: - Contact Info - Website URL - LinkedIn URL - Firmographic Metrics - Technographic Metrics - Marketing Engagement - External Intent Signals As an AE, I spent 30% - 70% of my time on all this stuff. As AE #1 in a small startup this took up most of my time, as I had to start from zero. But even at Salesforce, working inside their well-oiled machine, I still had to do a lot of this on my own. Most companies will give reps thousands of accounts when they can only handle a couple hundred or so and expect them to do the data science instead of spending their time actually selling. Don't waste money on AEs. Set them up to use their time more effectively. If you want to read more, we wrote up an article on this a while back in 📰 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙍𝙚𝙫𝙊𝙥𝙨 𝙒𝙚𝙚𝙠𝙡𝙮 📰 https://bit.ly/43lFOxQ ✌️

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ZoomInfo Copilot is working 24/7 — surfacing important updates you should know about your top accounts. With breaking alerts delivered via Slack, you'll never miss when a buying group shifts or a key account spikes on intent. 🔔 Have a question about one of your accounts? Ask Copilot's interactive, AI-powered chat and get answers in seconds. Ready to give Copilot a try? Message me today ! #ZoomInfoCopilot #zoominfo

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“Your sales team told us you could do X, Y, Z, why are these features not available to us?” WELL… they never were. 😠 Best way to cause a client to churn? Screw up the onboarding process. I’ve seen too many renewals fall off the wayside because people didn’t have their act together on that first, and arguably most important touch point. There’s a litany of ways to botch the experience, but the worst and most common is when your CS team has to manage unreasonable expectations or false promises offered by the sales team. Maybe the AE hyped up a bunch of features that are still under development, or boasted that your product can be deployed company-wide in a matter of days when that was only the case once, and the “company” consisted of five people. Now, the CS team becomes the bearer of bad news. This is how you lose trust and respect with your clients. And it’s significantly harder to resell them on your product’s value when they feel like they’ve been jipped. Get on the same page, get a roadmap, and be clear and honest with the client about how it will all unfold. Don’t set yourself up to fail. It’s hard to recover.

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💡 Want more revenue? Focus on product, product marketing, and sales enablement. In today's cautious market, simply adding or swapping out sellers won’t guarantee more revenue. However, when your product is a “Must Have,” your value proposition is crystal clear, and your sales team is armed with the right tools and support, you can thrive—even in tough times. This is where you truly stand out. I see too many companies fixated on their sales teams alone. But more sellers, regardless of their hustle and training, won’t make a material difference if your product, materials, and tools aren’t rock solid. Investing in product, product marketing and sales enablement not only improves your near-term odds but also ensures long-term success. Agree? #RevenueGrowth #ProductMarketing #SalesEnablement #MarketStrategy

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An AE on my team just closed/won a 137k ARR deal (multi-year contract) 🤯 (steal her scripts for negotiating) 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁, 𝘁𝘄𝗼 𝗸𝗲𝘆 𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗽𝘀: - Getting on the same side of the table - Holding your ground 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟭. 𝗦𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 When negotiations start. It's important to approach it from the same side of the table vs having a battle. Here's what she said: "Hey Jill - Correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds like we're trying to find a path to partnership. Is that right?" This script diffuses the situation and allows you to do some additional discovery. Like understanding if you're the provider of choice, if price is the final step in their evaluation, etc. 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟮. 𝗛𝗼𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 Totally OK to make concessions like giving a discount. But sometimes buyer's ask for too much. When that happens... Here's the best script for holding firm: "I can respect some tough negotiation but we do have to recognize the value of the product" That script is great for letting the buyer know they've done a good job but you also have to hold firm at the current proposal. Works like a charm. What are your best negotiation tips? Let me know in the comments! 👉 Join 6,000+ sellers getting my (free) sales newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/gwQVvVBK

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