Scaling Sales and Qualifying Deals with Adam Aarons

Adam Aarons is a seasoned sales executive with extensive knowledge of the risk and compliance space. Adam is well known and admired for his time as the CRO of Okta, during which Okta grew from a $1M startup to a publicly traded $300M+ ARR category winner. Adam was previously an active advisor to Drata, and has now joined the company full time to drive revenue at scale as CRO.

In this conversation with John McMahon, Adam discusses the keys to scaling a salesforce, including productivity per head, average deal size, and ramp times. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the ideal customer profile and where they are located. Adam also highlights the critical role of qualification in the sales process, focusing on the ICE framework (Identify pain, Champion, Economic buyer). He stresses the need for continuous discovery and the importance of establishing decision criteria. Adam shares insights on forecasting, metrics, and the value of customer success in reducing churn and driving revenue. He also discusses the challenges and lessons learned when transitioning from a sales rep to a manager, VP, and CRO on this episode of Revenue Builders.

HERE ARE SOME KEY SECTIONS TO CHECK OUT:

[0:00:42] Introduction to Drata and its automation of compliance data collection

[0:49:52] Using an automation platform to coordinate customer outreach and marketing campaigns

[0:55:18] The need for effective communication and expectation setting between managers

[1:00:55] The importance of coaching for young CROs

HIGHLIGHT QUOTES

[0:57:08] "Having respect and empathy for people that haven't done it before, that you're working with to make sure that they understand the why versus just saying, hey. Trust me, let me go do my job like I know what I'm doing.”

[0:52:03] "If you're a leader and you're doing this work, it's hard work. You should expect it to be hard. You should enjoy the grind and enjoy the challenges because you learn so much in these jobs that even with the things that you and I have talked about, there's so much more depth that you could dive down into."

Learn more about Adam through this link:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-aarons-438111/

Check out John McMahon’s book here: https://www.amazon.com/Qualified-Sales-Leader-Proven-Lessons/dp/0578895064