Rew Dickinson

An addition to my list of reasons why Sellers in Sales Enablement have a secret advantage. Instinct. Your instincts as a Seller will help you win in Enablement. Instinct is based on experience from knowing what does and does not work as an IC. And with limited experience a person lacks knowing if the context behind an Enablement intervention will actually make an impact. But, with instinct your ability to cut through the fluff and spot the gaps becomes an advantage. #salesenablement #sales

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Salesforce revised its pipeline coverage ratio to 3x, shedding light on the math keeping execs up at night. How can 1 ratio blow up your entire GTM model? It's not rocket science. It's just math. Particularly, pipeline generation math. Salesforce went from 2x to 3x. You might be going from 3x to 4x, or even 4x to 5x. What does this mean? Assumptions about pipeline coverage are falling like dominos and leaving GTM orgs with a massive hole in their forecasts. When this happens, the math gets really bad, really fast. Picture this: you're a best in class GTM org like Salesforce and you've just updated your pipe coverage ratio from 2x to 3x. Needing 50% more pipeline is painful enough. But the punishment doesn't stop there. Pipeline generated by your sellers is also down. Buyers are reluctant to champion products, and budgets are tight. This leads to longer sales cycles, more discounting, and plummeting deal sizes. Across the board, reps are producing less pipeline. Ranges vary by category, but let's assume pipeline creation is down 25% for illustrative purposes. (We're going to keep the math simple, because specifics will vary by company). On a $100M new business goal, you'd previously need $200M in pipeline. At $1M in pipeline per AE, you could bring it in with a team of 200. Now you need $300M of pipeline to close that same $100M in revenue. AEs are creating $750k instead of $1M, so that same team of 200 is bringing in $150M in pipeline, only half what you need for the year. Draw out the math and you suddenly need 200 additional (fully ramped!) sellers to deliver the same $100M in revenue. That's DOUBLE the headcount. Your CEO and CFO's heads are spinning, because this wreaks absolute havoc on a company's operating model. But that's a post for another time. You can tweak the assumptions if you'd like, but it's terrifying any way you look at it. No amount of passion, skill, or dedication can overcome math. You can't escape math. The bad news? This doesn't seem to be going away any time soon. The good news? Recent advances in AI can change some of the assumptions around the people, process, and technology equation required to generate new pipeline. In the old world, the only answer would be to double headcount. In the new world, there are ways to drive enormous leverage into the equation. Scaling with people doesn't have to be the answer, you can scale people with AI like no time in history. Which means the cavalry could be on the way...

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Is your cold email *actually* cold? or... is there some history? Here's how I approach old accounts. I look to grab: 1) Context Salesforce notes & Call recording takeaways = gold 2) If anything is new with them News, hiring, earnings reports, etc. 3) Anything new on our end product, case studies, process, etc. & then I stitch them together to rekindle conversation (Lavender makes this REALLY easy) ex. Kyle - when we caught up in Q4, you brought up some use cases (ex. closed lost follow up) that we weren't great for. Since then - we built out our SFDC & Gong integrations. Your team's been on a hiring tear lately. Think it's a good time to catch up?

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Struggling with churn? Validate the value your customer receives. This is not a static metric/KPI - it needs to be nurtured, revisited, redefined, and reinforced throughout the customer lifecycle ♻ #customersuccess #sales #customervalue #value

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The "90% Rule" helped me earn 7.5x more in commissions in a single year. For the majority of my career, I designed my life around “always being on.” It helped me in SMB, Mid-Market, and Enterprise selling. I always said YES. Why? Because I didn’t want to: - Let my clients down - Disappoint my boss & team - Let others think I wasn't giving it my all It worked. I was a perennial P-Club member. I earned a decent income. I was recognized often. However, something happened when I graduated to the highest level of IC selling… Strategic Account Sales. This is about pursuing the biggest whales in the economy. Operating the old way in my first year actually held me back. It wasn’t “YES” that was driving me forward. Saying yes made me busy. Busier than ever, in fact. But it wasn’t making an impact. - To my clients - To my boss & team - To the life I wanted to live That’s when I decided to make “NO” my default mode of operation. Here’s how it works (and why it’s so damn effective in boosting a sales career): https://buff.ly/4cwf3uj 🐝

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I used to only rely on renewals, my CSM and quarterly check-ins to uncover opps in my patch. Had some existing customers but I waited around for deals to come my way. The results? Low pipe and missed targets. All because I was reactive when I should’ve been proactive. ………………………………. > that all changed when I began one simple play the results were staggering: Step 1: Take a look at your current customers footprint. Step 2: identify the accounts where usage is at 80%+ Step 3: look at trends - which will be at 100% in 2-3 months Then pick up the phone and call them. The conversation might sound something like this: Me: “Hi Linda - how’s your morning going so far?” Customer: “pretty good. What’s up.” Me: “have a chance to read the email I sent you a couple days back?” Customer: “don’t recall it.” Me: “Can I give you the coles notes quickly?” Customer: “Sure.” Me: “Seems like usage of product X has been great the last few months. Fair to say your teams are seeing value?” Customer: “They are.” Me: “we’ve actually seen an uptick of usage especially a surge the past few weeks Based on the trends I’m seeing you’ll be at X number of seats by late summer. it looks like you’re at the point where you’ll need to accommodate for growth.” *pause* Customer: “I’ll need to look into that further.” Me: “To save you some time, you’re currently at 92% usage and based on the past 3 months usage you’ll exceed that by the 2nd week of July.” Customer: “oh, I see.” Me: “mind if I share a recommendation?” Customer: “go ahead.” Me: “Would it be bad idea to look at some options and potentially adjust the contract to accommodate for the growth over the next cpl months?” Customer: “that might be a good idea” Me: “Sounds good. How about this. Let’s lock in some time early next week and I can walk you through a couple of options on seat growth and cost. We can see if it aligns with your growth and take it from there.” Customer: “that works.” Me: “hey since I have you on could you remind me of your budget and approval process when it comes to right sizing existing contracts?” Customer: *walks through the process* Me: “I know you’re going to get super busy once we end this call. Mind if we pop open our calendars and lock in time for next week?” Customer: “Sure, let me open up my calendar.” ……………………………… > want to build a healthy pipe, fast Be proactive, not reactive

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If you go about selling with the ulterior motive to convince people, it tends to show through on some level and create resistance. Why? People don’t like being convinced. Convincing sounds like this: Prospect: “Why should we choose you?” Seller: “We’re used by over 2,000 sales teams including Salesforce. We typically boost sales by 20% within 30 days. We were recently named the top sales training company by Gartner.” Of course you’re going to tell people you’re the best. You’re biased. Letting people convince themselves sounds like this: Prospect: “Why should we choose you?” Seller: “I’m not sure you should. You can choose trainers like A, B, and C. If you don’t mind me asming, why consider a former kindergarten teacher?” Then shut the front door and listen. Let others give you their value proposition instead of you giving them yours. Why? People are more persuaded by what they hear themselves say, rather than what you say. It’s not your job to fill people’s heads with information. Your job is to draw it out. Buyers have the answers. Sellers have the questions.

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Day 1: 100 Days of Salesforce Self-Learning Challenge Sales Cloud  Businesses will never stop selling, and when a product has been sold, it does not mean the end of your customer! In fact, it is the beginning of a mutually beneficial relationship. Let's see what I learned on my first day 😎 I woke up very excited and ready to kick-start this challenge.  Today's topic was all centered on the sales cloud and how businesses easily manage their sales processes, customer data, and interactions. Our focus today was lead, which is in the sales cloud.  What is the difference between a lead and a customer? A lead is someone interested in buying from you, and a customer is someone who has already bought from you. Does it make sense? Some terminologies learned today. 📌 Lead Capturing: This refers to the process of gathering information about potential customers or prospects. Salesforce captures leads through various channels, such as web forms, email campaigns, or social media. 📌Lead Validation: Lead validation involves assessing the quality and accuracy of the lead information collected. Verifying contact details, Lead Assigning: The process of assigning captured leads to sales reps or teams. This makes it easy for everyone, and leads are distributed evenly. To do this, go to Lead Assignment Rules 📌Lead Scoring: Einstein Lead scoring helps you score your leads based on certain criteria, e.g., leads from a trade show can be scored to show the conversion rates and how likely they will convert. The higher the score, the hotter the lead. 😍 😎 😎 📌 Lead Nurturing: Lead nurturing involves building relationships with leads over time through communication and engagement with your lead. 📌 Lead Conversion: This is what every person desires. A lead passes through certain stages to qualify to be converted and In Salesforce, leads can be converted into accounts, contacts, and opportunities. 📌 Lead Management Automation: We did get so much into this step since it will be covered in workflows. 📌 Reports and Dashboards: You can only see the total converted leads in reports alone and nowhere else; this is the purpose of reports and dashboards. I love this part. Have you joined the Chennai community trailblazer? https://lnkd.in/d5dWSBMS Day 1 of 100 days Done and dusted: 99 days to go.  We meet tomorrow for Day 2. In Salesforce, learning never stops. 💃 #salesforce #TrailblazerCommunity #ChennaiTrailblazerCommunity

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Crossed 100 members in my academy today The truth is I never wanted to be a coach It was never my goal My goal for myself was to run a $100 million dollar sales org But I realized something during my days at Salesforce It was a hypothesis in my first sales job But Salesforce solidified my view on two simple truths 1 Companies are terrible at developing their people And 2 they will never develop you as fast as you want to be developed All of the training that’s done is high level Often times by people who won’t walk the walk and show you how it’s done All of the coaching from leadership is reactive and focused on what’s best for this one deal Basically attacking symptoms instead of teaching systems and processes that are the root cause You’re sent to a 1-2 day training seminar expected to transform overnight No one is doing reinforcement until it’s 2nd nature I was shocked by this as a rep because those were the things that I wanted So I went all in on myself and during my time as a rep I invested close to 20k on my own development (close to 75k total now) And I vowed that when I got into leadership I would simply provide the environment that I wanted as a rep Both tactical and strategic training Walking the walk for my team Hands on in the weeds coaching Ongoing practice to drill skills Accountability to high standards And never ending improvement On both sales skills as well as mindset That was the culture I wanted to build because it was the right thing to do And it’s a big reason why I was able to scale multiple companies I ran sales for And why I was able to become a CRO at 33 and named a “Top CRO in Tech” at 34 Because I didn’t care about helping people hit quota I wanted to help reps live better lives Me helping someone hit quota is table stakes. That’s easy. Instead I measured myself as a leader by one thing When someone looked back on the experience working with me 5 years later Their life was fundamentally better because of the skills they learned So when I became a CRO and thought I reached the pinnacle I was humbled I was reminded that if I wanted to make the most of this thing called life I needed to help as many people as possible Which would never happen being a sales leader at a tech company I needed to create a destination for software sales professionals A place where the people that are hungry as hell can go To get what they so desperately needed in a safe environment to grow And that’s when I came up with the idea of the Beautiful Savage Sales Academy From just an idea 12 months ago To going live just 6 months ago To now 103 beautiful savages that I get to help It’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my professional career But god damn does it feel good to help people take back control of their careers If you have big goals Stop waiting on your company to help you Go all in today Your future self will thank you ❤️👊

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Having trouble figuring out how to get qualified leads and the must-have RevOps systems? This is your last call to join RevGenius masterclass today at 11 AM ET, as we'll share everything you need to know on sorting out qualified leads and finding just the right times for sales to jump in! 📈 Key Takeaways: ▪ Capture high-quality leads and establish RevOps for efficient management. ▪ Prioritize leads for team focus on top opportunities. ▪ Optimize customer journey strategies to enhance PLG funnel conversion. #saas #saasgrowth #freewebinar #gtm #saasbusiness #startupsuccess #startupgrowth #revenueleadership #saasstartups #revops #salessuccess #businessgrowth #gotomarket #scaleups #scalingbusiness #scalingup #revenuegrowth #revenuestrategy #salesefficiency #successstrategy #gtmstrategy #revenueboost #monetization #revenuegeneration #productgrowth #customerengagement #customeracquisition #customerretention #gtmmotion #gtmplays #customersuccess #cs #gtmomentum #revenueteams #revenueoperations #gotomarket #gotomarketstrategy #webinarseries #freeevent #gotomarketstrategy #growthstrategies #growthjourney #revenuecycle #revenuestreams #growthdrivers #salesleadership #growthlevers #revops #leadconversion #leadcapture #leadnurturing #salesfunnel #customerjourney #productledgrowth #saasmarketing #saassales #salestools #salesandmarketingalignment #revgenius #plg #masterclass 

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RevOps reports, guides and best practices - you want it, and we got it over at RevOps Co-op. 💪🏻 I was browsing the various RevOps reports we have, and they are absolute 🔥 so had to share here. I mean, just take a peek at a few we have available 👇🏻 The 2024 State of RevOps Report from Openprise 3 Ways Your GTM Tech Stack Can Help You Survive the "SaaS-Acre" from Nue.io A B2B Guide on Ramp Pricing from Cacheflow RevOps Roadmapping Starter KIt from Go Nimbly The RevOps Expert's CRM Migration Checklist from Syncari and Carabiner Group The Impact of an Economic Downturn on the SaaS Industry from Everstage RevOps Trends Report from Scratchpad You can find 'em all here → https://lnkd.in/gT5YAfyR #revops #revenueoperations #salesops #salesoperations #mops #marketingoperations #marketingops

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Once I got in trouble with our BDR director at Salesforce. He was responsible for 100+ reps. As a BDR I was crushing my numbers at the time. He wanted to understand how I worked, and share some best practices with the organisation. When he tried to book time in my calendar, he couldn't find a slot. I was literally booked out 2 weeks in advance. Irritated, the director approached my manager: "What's going on here? Christian literally has his calendar blocked for the entire next 2 weeks. Is he even working?" What he didn't know: - I blocked 3 hours in the morning for prospecting - I blocked my lunch break (healthy boundaries) - My afternoons were filled with client calls He thought I was being lazy. In reality, I was organised & efficient. That's why I was a top performer. I owned my time, instead of letting others own it. ✍ Are you owning yours? PS: In my next newsletter I'm sharing how you can get 3 hours of your time back every single day. Join 12k subscribers to get it (and grab my free prospecting course while you're at it): https://lnkd.in/gTbPiShP

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This concept came up at the awesome update ai design session. What is CSM drunk dialing? Only contacting your customers when you need something: - Renewals - References - Expansions You get the drift. Your customers see RIGHT THRU this. They will only take so much of your shenanigans before they kick you to the curb. What proactive activities are you doing so that your customer does not feel like an afterthought?

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One of the most significant challenges customer success teams face today is the ability to effectively and concisely translate “technical challenges” into “critical business problems" for the buyer... This skill is crucial because too often, CS teams get bogged down in solving technical, feature, or process-related issues without taking a step back to understand and discuss with their customers what these issues mean for the business But if a customer is unable to connect the success and value of a technical solution to their strategic commercial objectives - then you have a churn risk waiting to happen! #customersuccess #customerexperience #salesexcellence #salestraining

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Sometimes Discovery Calls go completely sideways... And now you're about to run a demo with your solutions engineer... BUT you've realized that you're missing a lot of key components on your Mutual Action Plan 😭 Here's what to do at the beginning of the demo with your prospect and your SE: #1 Set a clear agenda of what's going to happen on the call #2 Cover the biggest missing questions from earlier #3 Do the demo with the SE #4 Set time aside to fill the MAP together and get next steps on the calendar Do this well and you'll take back control of the deal. ♻️ Repost to help more AEs crush it 💪🏼

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There’s a conundrum when it comes to measuring sales training impact… I’ve worked with a lot of enablement teams that use leading indicators to measure training impact: Workshop Attendance Gong Recordings SFDC Hygiene Rep Surveys The problem: There’s no clear way to connect these metrics to business outcomes. Then, on the other side, you have teams that focus mainly on lagging indicators: Win Rate Pipeline Creation Sales Cycle Length Average Contract Value The problem: It takes a minimum of 3 months to see any results, and even if you do, no one believes that the changes can be attributed to sales training. Basically, if you focus too far down the funnel, no one believes you, but if you focus too far up the funnel, no one cares. Here are the only 3 questions you need to be able to answer to know if your training worked: 1/ Did reps use the training? Did they show up and engage during the session? Are they practicing the skills covered? Are their skills improving as a result of practice? 2/ Is there a clear change in outputs as a result of the new behavior? This is where you can think about leading indicators like (talk ratio, buyer engagement, and business case creation) 3/ Did the the new behavior lead to a change in key outcomes. This is where you tie a thread from the leading indicator to the lagging indicator. (Eg. What’s our win-rate on opportunities that include a business case?) The team over at Replicate Labs are taking what used to be a long drawn out process of measuring impact (that involved lots of help from RevOps), and turning it into a few simple steps. They’ve built one of the only training adoption platforms I’ve seen that allows you to see how practice produces outputs that lead to outcomes. If you’re tired of relying on surveys or waiting 3+ months to see results that no one believes your team influenced, reach out to James Pursey, and see for yourself.

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your job as a sales rep: find clients nurture clients close clients learn to listen to clients be a therapist for your clients, your colleagues know when to prompt with questions build external alignment with buyer panel build internal alignment with pricing, legal, solution engineer get along well with customer success be generous with advice coach and be coachable don't take feedback to heart it's nothing personal, choose between constructive feedback be proactive about tasks be curious, go discover latest case studies before you're told make your peers love you if people love you you'll promote if not no understand your boss' priorities know when to overwhelm people with info practice negotiation skills with your friends don’t be cocky be humble but know your self worth empathize with other roles, know your actions or inactions have an impact on others' jobs ask for feedback ask to shadow calls ask people to join your calls to give you feedback don't be afraid to try new things be organized, organize your week so you dont miss frequent activities go to events meet people represent your business ask for more responsibility delegate non-core tasks to others, such as allies you build in other departments understand sales enablement follow the latest sales tools be a champion of change internally advice clients on not only your product, but on the future and innovation! AND MY FAVORITE: network religiously - sales is the only job you get paid to meet others :) and enjoy, it's the best job if you're the right fit that gives you the freedom to be the owner of your own business without taking all the risks of investment!

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GTM & RevOps teams should marry. They need a commitment device. No, darling, I am not talking about a ring. I mean SLAs. Wait what....? Service Level Agreements (SLAs) don't need to be boring documents that guarantee 99.95% uptime and that only Jeff from IT cares about. SLAs can create accountability for alignment. Alignment is what we keep talking about in RevOps. Let's look at 4 SLA examples: Marketing <> Sales “Every Month Marketing will deliver 40 marketing-qualified leads to sales. And Sales will contact each lead within 12 business hours of receiving each lead.” CS <> Product "Customer Success will invite the product team to __ customer calls every month to gather product feedback. And Product will attend all those customer calls." Sales <> Finance “Sales will submit all contract and pricing details to Finance within 16 business hours of closing a deal. Finance will review and approve the contract within 24 business hours to ensure timely invoicing and revenue recognition.” RevOps <> GTM Teams “RevOps will conduct a monthly performance review meeting with representatives from Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, and Product. Each team will present their key metrics and progress against SLAs. RevOps will facilitate the discussion to identify and resolve any misalignments or roadblocks." They are the vows of RevOps and GTM. May the live happily ever after, Till bankruptcy do us apart. But in all seriousness, SLA can have a huge impact. Just writing them down creates commitment. Signing them makes them stick. This makes it official and impacts behaviour even more. I have seen great results in businesses adopting SLAs. They create the desired change. P.S. Do you have vows, ehh SLAs, in your company?

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