Gary Crowe

Here's the stark facts in sales today. - 31% of reps are making quota - Nearly half (44%) of deals slip - Sales cycles are double digits longer, win rates are double digits down - Inbound leads are down - Salesforce recognised the need to increase pipeline coverage to by 50% (from x2 to x3) Most of those we speak to recognise all these challenges. But they are stuck. "Do more with less" is the message. They have cut teams and fought for those remaining. Their organisations are stuck with blind hope and knives sharpening. The only solution they know is to fire and replace. Because the real problems aren't acknowledged. The market has changed and it's harder. But are teams are not more skilled. The same teams, that could achieve in the old world are failing in this one. And the last message anyone wants, is we need to spend some money to solve that. "That's your job isn't it?" cries the leadership to time-starved managers and leaders. Anyone want to guess what's going to happen to sales manager average tenure (already at an all-time low of 18 months)????

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🚀 Salespeople reveal what they're thinking in 2024…👀🚀 We've just released our latest report, in which we asked hundreds of AEs and sales leaders for their views on everything from their sales process and tooling to their confidence in the year ahead. Some eye-openers such as: 🔍 Only 9% of AEs think their company’s buying process is very good—meaning there's a huge opportunity to make impactful improvements that could set your team apart. 🤝 1 in 2 AEs lost a deal during the handover to Customer Success. But, when these teams collaborate effectively, customer churn plummets. 🧵 78% of AEs find it difficult to multithread beyond their champion—highlighting an opportunity to improve and learn how to strengthen relationships across the buying team. From refreshing onboarding practices to tackling stakeholder visibility, we’re sharing what sellers really want (and need) to win.. This report is for anyone involved in driving sales success—from those on the front lines of sales to strategic leadership. These insights give you a peek under the bonnet of what’s really going on in the minds of Account Executives and revenue leaders. 👉 In the spirit of buyer enablement we’re not even harvesting your email address and flooding you with sales emails…simply download the full report, in peace, in the comments #SalesInsights #trumpet #SalesStrategy #AccountExecutives

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🤯 “Ramping up SDRs, AEs and CS people  takes us no less than 6 months.” 💣 🙈 This is what I heard on a recent demo from  a CRO of a rapidly scaling tech business. 📈 Time to efficiency is a struggle Heads of Sales Enablement and Customer Success are going through across their commercially-driven teams… 📖 At the moment, they expect internal  sales and CS decks, call recordings,  business pitches, etc. should do the job. 🙄 But it doesn’t! 🗓️ They're wasting too much time for people to start performing, closing deals, effectively onboarding customers, reducing churn & upselling… ❌ Sometimes, they still don’t perform... And then guess what? Off leaders go through to recruiting mode again starting from ground 0. 🎯 Hence the need for action-based learning.  Not just passively reading through PDFs  and listening to call recordings. 👨‍💻 Below are some use cases we see our customers here at UJJI AI ✨ leveraging our tech for: 🔸 Business-specific lead gen and outbound 🔸 Pitching quick and easy over the phone 🔸 Delivering demos and answering queries 🔸 Effectively onboarding new customers 🔸 Efficiently implementing product features 🔸 Practising great customer support 🔸 Guiding customers to upselling 🚀 Ultimately, growing tech businesses comes down to predictable new business development, high customer retention and low churn. 💬 So, DM me if you want to see examples  of AI-powered. easy to build and consume knowledge equipping experiences. 👇 Anything to add to this, Sales and CS leaders? Gautam Rishi Rohan Dickinson George Heron Russell Mitchell Callum Hartley Jon Teale James Dixon Seán Colfer Caroline L. Guy Rubin Jake Carter David Muscat Arun Raveendran Steve Eveleigh Ayo Kukoyi,

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Tech SDRs - you have a bloody tough gig in comparison to commercial hires in other industries... Here's why... 🏦 Investment Banks - no entry-level hire is expected to create new relationships. 🏗️ Real Estate - Directors/Partners win the lion's share of new projects with no new business expectation placed on anyone with less than 2 years experience. 💸 Asset Managers - your portfolio is handed to you post-probation and you're allowed the time/opportunity to build your reputation and win business. 👨‍⚖️ Law - Partners win most of the business and hand clients to the wider team. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Recruitment - Junior hires ramp by speaking with candidates until they prove themselves competent to manage their first client which would have been won by a senior colleague. But then... 🤖 TECH - SDRS ARE EXPECTED TO BOOK MEETINGS FROM MONTH 2! You learn to do the hard bit first in tech. Next time you look at your pals in other fields - remind yourself of the above. #SDR #BDR #TechSales #Sales #Recruitment

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Sean’s Sales Tip 🚫 Focusing solely on increasing the pipeline to meet sales quotas is a misguided strategy. It is akin to saying I will risk $300 in the slot machine, instead of $200 to make a win. 🔔 Salesforce's recent decision to require 3x pipeline coverage, up from 2x, rang the alarm bells for me. 💸 Such an increase demands significant effort and resources, leading to a dramatic rise in customer acquisition costs (CAC) and other bid related costs without guaranteeing an equivalent increase in revenue. 🤔 Think about the optics of this announcement. You are saying to your sales teams it is OK to lose 66% of your deals now, instead of 50%. 🎯 The emphasis should shift from maximizing pipeline to optimizing win rates and accelerating deal velocity. Step 1 🏆 Improve Win Rates Improving win rates is a more efficient and cost-effective approach to achieving sales targets. For instance, a modest increase in win rates from 20% to 25% can yield substantial revenue gains with no extra pipeline required. Step 2 🚀 Accelerate deal velocity To enhance deal velocity (and also win rates), salespeople need to focus on creating pain, recruiting, and equipping champions within the client organization so that your deal gets done and becomes a priority. 💡 Prioritizing win rates and deal velocity over pipeline growth is a smarter and more sustainable strategy for achieving sales quotas. This means that Sales Leaders need to be trained in how to coach their teams effectively and for them to get out of the office more often.

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I did an informal poll on CSM vs Sales commission splits. I was pleasantly shocked to see that over 95% of companies do not have Sales take a commission on renewals unless it’s a particularly challenging one; the AE is there to help with it as a “bounty renewal”. in this case, the AE gets a % but is not taken from the CSM. Other interesting data points: "Commission on upsells and renewal made up 30% of the total compensation package. However, the exact commission % was determined by dividing the 30% by $$$ into the total ARR managed by the CSM." What metrics should this be based on? Most followed this model to Typically, companies that are earlier in their CS maturity will base this off a few leading indicators (adoption milestones, EBRs, etc.), and then move to comping on lagging indicators (retention, expansion, NRR, etc.) once their leading indicator activities have been proven. The following are examples of metrics you can use, not an exhaustive list: Leading: QBRs and/or EBRs (attained vs scheduled) Product adoption milestones (product dependent) Lagging: Net Revenue Retention (NRR) - this is likely the most common Retention Expansion Advocacy (hard to make this scale across large teams and mixed portfolios - this is better as a SPIFF or annual metric to Bonus on) From there, you can determine the weight of each metric on the bonus. I'll give an example using a bonus that is achieved by a renewal retention goal and an NRR goal. Criteria for 100% Bonus Attainment: 90% Renewal Retention (50% weight) 125% Net Revenue Retention (50% weight) "This keeps it pretty simple with two priorities. Retain and Expand Revenue. The Retention goal being assessed separately ensures CSMs don't have significant churn masked by massive upsells. In this example, if a CSM had 85% Retention and 115% NRR, they'd end up at 93.22% to goal for their overall commission/variable comp."

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I did an informal poll on CSM vs Sales commission splits. I was pleasantly shocked to see that over 95% of companies do not have Sales take a commission on renewals unless it’s a particularly challenging one; the AE is there to help with it as a “bounty renewal”. in this case, the AE gets a % but is not taken from the CSM. Other interesting data points: "Commission on upsells and renewal made up 30% of the total compensation package. However, the exact commission % was determined by dividing the 30% by $$$ into the total ARR managed by the CSM." What metrics should this be based on? Most followed this model to Typically, companies that are earlier in their CS maturity will base this off a few leading indicators (adoption milestones, EBRs, etc.), and then move to comping on lagging indicators (retention, expansion, NRR, etc.) once their leading indicator activities have been proven. The following are examples of metrics you can use, not an exhaustive list: Leading: QBRs and/or EBRs (attained vs scheduled) Product adoption milestones (product dependent) Lagging: Net Revenue Retention (NRR) - this is likely the most common Retention Expansion Advocacy (hard to make this scale across large teams and mixed portfolios - this is better as a SPIFF or annual metric to Bonus on) From there, you can determine the weight of each metric on the bonus. I'll give an example using a bonus that is achieved by a renewal retention goal and an NRR goal. Criteria for 100% Bonus Attainment: 90% Renewal Retention (50% weight) 125% Net Revenue Retention (50% weight) "This keeps it pretty simple with two priorities. Retain and Expand Revenue. The Retention goal being assessed separately ensures CSMs don't have significant churn masked by massive upsells. In this example, if a CSM had 85% Retention and 115% NRR, they'd end up at 93.22% to goal for their overall commission/variable comp."

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Most SDRs want to be AE's as quickly as possible. Nothing wrong with being ambitious. The problem is there are very few roles about and for those roles that do exist there's often good AEs with experience looking too. Rather than seeing this as a hard luck story see it as an opportunity. According to The Bridge Group for SDRs with less than 11 months of experience, the failure rate is a massive 55%! Instead of trying to get promoted ASAP. Focus on becoming a master of your craft. I personally was an SDR for over 2 years and made me a way better AE when I finally made the leap. I watched many who were promoted way before me struggle. In sales, sometimes you have to slow down to speed up.

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Most sales managers waste their 1:1s. They focus on things like - Current activity metrics - How key deals are going - Current quota attainment - What else is in the pipeline As a result they turn their 1:1s into forecast meetings. Don't be that manager. Give your sales reps some room. - How are they doing? Mentally, emotionally? - Are they on track with their personal & career goals? - What are challenges this week where you can support? - In what areas do they need coaching to get to the next level? The point of 1:1s is to develop talent. Not to talk about day to day business. Repost ♻️ if you think 1:1s shouldn't be forecast meetings. What does your ideal 1:1 meeting look like?👇🏼 PS: Join 70+ members who receive weekly live coaching: https://lnkd.in/gTbPiShP

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3-step framework to nailing your demos. 1. Frame the broader problem Ex) Most sales leaders I work with are really struggling to understand where the risk in their pipeline is 2. Frame their problem Ex) You just told me you are 100% reliant on your CRM to try and sus out risk in deals 3. Tell a story of how your solution can solve this (don't feature dump, make it punchy) Ex) Now with XYZ you will know exactly what is happening in every single one of your deals. Tonight at 5:00 PST we are hosting a session on nailing your demos! Shoot us a message if you are interested in joining.

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VPs Sales, STOP managing your SDRs | Here's why... 👀 Here's the sh*t you should be doing: 💵 Focus on supporting your AE team/s close deals 🧬 Prioritise strategic collaboration with other functions 📊 Review data to set strategic direction 👔 Spend time hiring A-Grade Leaders & AEs 🤝 Give attention to customers to optimise renewals & upsells ⚙️ Implementing & driving adoption of core sales processes Here's the sh*t you either should NOT be doing or worse... MISSING: 🗣️ Coaching the most inexperienced/junior reps in the org 🔁 Hiring & promoting in an ever-changing team dynamic 👥 Providing daily support for people still finding their way as an adult 🧑‍🏫 Teaching the BASICS of how cold-call, email, qualify, etc. 🔬 Study current prospecting trends & ideas 💪 Keeping impatient and hungry young professionals motivated Be honest with yourself... 🧠 Think about where you're burning your calories 🧠 Think about whether you have the time to manage this stakeholder group 🧠 Think about whether your prospecting knowledge is as sharp as it should be 🧠 Think about whether your SDR team is delivering the results you want 🧠 Think about where you are going to have the biggest business impact ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️ 👋 Hi I'm Andy, Founder of RevRocket. I specialise in building, optimising and growing your SDR function so you don't have to. Considering getting support for your PipeGen Team? Shoot me a DM ✉️

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10 things SDRs should get for Christmas... [this list is 100% NOT exhaustive...] 1. More commission on multi-stakeholder meetings 2. More recognition from senior leaders and founders 3. More support from their AEs on understanding business pains and ''speaking'' prospects language 4. More training on problems that their ICP prospects face in their day to day 5. More SDR managers who say ''well done'' and ''thanks for the hard work'' everyday 6. More accurate phone numbers so they can more conversations [phone still wins] 7. Someone to remove automation from their day to day for just ONE WEEK to prove they can win without it 8. HR to provide training on soft skills of having a sales job with lots of rejection 9. The CRO to pick up the phone once in a while and say ''Mrs SDR - you're hard work is so appreciated'' 10. Fair pay for everyone and an attainable OTE. What would you add? ♻️ Repost, so Santa [CROs and Founders] see my Christmas list... PS. Thanks, my SDR friends! 🎅

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SDRs who deserve to be AEs... ✅ Help coach other SDRs ❌ Are in it for themselves ✅ Hit quota every month ❌ Sometimes smash it ✅ Build amazing internal relationships ❌ Moan about their AE and Manager ✅ Prioritise the team winning ❌ Think they're an individual contributor ✅ Train every single day ❌ Believe they know it all ✅ Compete against themselves ❌ Compete against others in the team ✅ Are genuinely happy when others win ❌ Get bitter when others are successful 99% of success is in WHO you are. And HOW you do things. Embrace being different. Embrace being better. What am I missing? ---- PS. My SDR to AE bootcamp closes tomorrow. 5 seats left; https://lnkd.in/ejFQERRF

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Some thoughts on learnings from the recent episodes of the Sales Is King podcast: 🔑Buyers are open for business BUT NOT interested in uninformed generic nonsense from lazy sellers. 🔑Selling is frickin hard these days so don’t think the old game plan will work. Pipeline requirements are now 6x quota - let’s face it. Identifying every potential player on the decision committee and build a bridge to each of them is a must. 🔑Buyers have it just as bad. Harder than ever to build consensus. A lot of first timers out there getting chewed up by procurement teams that are sometimes disconnected from the actual needs of the business. A lot of choices. 🔑It’s harder to also renew customers. Subscription fatigue exists. And with every challenge comes opportunity: 🎖️Those who sell with value win almost twice as often as those who don’t. 🎖️AI is making sellers more efficient, better prepared and improving their ability to personalize conversations with buyers. 🎖️Marketing is alive and well IFF if reinvents itself and creates brand experiences people will remember and care about. 🎖️The art of the pivot is your most important weapon. 🎖️The TikTok-fication of social media is underway. 🎖️Startups are poised to eat the lunch of the established players. Follow me for more. Agree? ♻️ Repost to share.

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SDRs can be taught to be AEs SDRs can be taught to be CSMs [shoutout to Eric Partaker for the post inspo] Also... SDRs can be taught to be Managers SDRs can be taught to be Marketeers SDRs can be taught to do almost any role Fact: It's better to hire someone who is 60% ready with the right behaviours. Than 100% ready with the wrong ones. SDRs deserve a chance. Do you agree? PS. Share ♻️ with others in your network. And follow Chris Ritson for more sales content like this.

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The 3 biggest mistakes sales leaders can make this summer: 1️⃣ Allowing errors in payslips of their teams 2️⃣ Not giving reps real-time access to earnings 3️⃣ Making their team recalculate commissions manually Why it’s crucial to address these now: 🔥 Errors in Payslips: Salespeople thrive on commissions. Errors will make them feel undervalued and lose trust in you - impacting morale instantly! 🔥 Shaky market: Selling in 2024 is not easy. We must think outside of the box to keep morale high - some of our clients decided to advance X% of commissions to boost motivation! 🔥 Focus on Selling: Reps should sell, sell, sell - not do admin. Every minute spent on admin work is a minute lost from selling. When 30 reps are checking their earnings weekly, sales suffers. 🌟 That said --> to boost your teams' performance, start by automating compensations to ensure accurate, on-time payouts. This eliminates errors that demoralize reps. Next, keep your team motivated with commission transparency and partial commission advances. Don't worry about clawbacks - Dolfin has you covered. Then consider equipping your reps with the right tools so they focus on revenue-generating tasks. Your sales team is working harder than ever. They really deserve control over what matters most to them: 📣 Their Sales Commissions 📣

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Calling all B2B sales professionals. With our friends at Aircall, we need your help with our State of Sales Coaching survey 2024. 3-5 minutes of your time could win you amazing prizes - the latest AirPods, Sonos speaker, Nespresso machine, and of course MySalesCoach scholarships. Sales coaching is widely considered the most critical function of a frontline sales leader. Previous studies demonstrate that it significantly boosts win rates and quota attainment. However, many sales organisations find it challenging to establish and execute an effective sales coaching culture and strategy. Our survey seeks to identify the key trends, best practices, and impacts of sales coaching in 2024. You'll be first to get the study published in October packed with insight, data and trends. Leaders and Individual Contributors should complete the survey - with scholarship places up for grabs for each. Your voice really matters, complete today for a chance of these amazing prizes and to be first with the report. Link here to complete - https://lnkd.in/eKRcTPXV

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Are you tired of the same old sales scripts and automated messages? 🥱 It's time to step out of the automation rut and bring back the human touch to your sales outreach 💥 Join us for an virtual webinar aimed at SDRs hearing insights from Mike Hamberg, Head of Pipeline at YuLife and Emma Ward 🌜, SDR Manager at Lunio as they'll be unpacking... 🚀Innovative Outreach Techniques: Discover new, creative strategies to connect with prospects that go beyond the typical automated messages 💪 Enhanced Autonomy: Learn how to take control of your sales process, making decisions that reflect your unique personality and style 🤝 Building Authentic Relationships: Master the art of building genuine connections with prospects that lead to lasting professional relationships 🔥 Boosted Engagement and Conversion: Understand how personalized, creative outreach can significantly increase your response rates and conversion metrics Secure your spot now: https://lnkd.in/eJDrxKBk #steppingoutsideofautomation  #SDRswebinar  #salestips

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