
Elite Selling Podcast - Mastering Tech Sales CRO and Stage 2 Limited Partner, Lesley Young - Empower Your Business with Data and Metrics
Data-driven selling, KPIs, and risk management. 0:00
Leslie emphasizes a data-driven approach to inform conversations and drive business growth.
Importance of people and process in sales, specifically the need to remove risk from the forecasting and pipeline management process.
KPIs and data analysis in sales meetings. 3:45
KPIs in tracking business performance and providing valuable insights
KPI meetings to be actionable and provide hypotheses for improvement
Speaker 1 discusses their experience with KPIs, mentioning how they used data to inform their work and make progress in their business.
Pioritizing meetings and executing deals, highlighting the importance of having decision-makers and influencers in the room.
Managing sales teams and tracking KPIs. 8:45
Salesforce for capturing interactions, but challenging to see AES business health.
Importance of armoring frontline managers with tools to facilitate productive one-on-one conversations with AEs.
Consistent KPIs across mid-market and enterprise teams include pipeline health, with pipelines serving as a lifeline for success.
Sales pipeline management and optimization. 12:39
Importance of pipeline generation and progression, particularly in the enterprise segment, where deals can take months to close.
Challenges of asking SMB sellers to develop pipeline, including the need for technology and resources to help progress deals.
Importance of understanding the velocity of the sales process and setting KPIs accordingly for their segment.
Need to engage with customer success to increase lifetime value and generate new business opportunities.
Sales planning and strategy for success. 17:33
Importance of account and territory planning, highlighting the need for a detailed hypothesis for revenue growth.
Have a plan to achieve sales goals, citing the need to track progress and make adjustments as necessary.
"path to cash plan" that was helpful in their previous role at ppl AI, which every rep should already be doing.
Frankie emphasizes the importance of sales reps taking their businesses seriously and coming to QBRs with a point of view, rather than just hoping to avoid criticism.
QBRs should be a collaborative session where reps can get input and ideas on their plans, rather than a time for management to "beat up" on them.
Sales data analysis and its impact on business success. 24:14
Griffin Reilly emphasizes the importance of using data and KPIs to understand where improvements are needed in a QBR.
importance of accountability in sales, citing the need to be intellectually honest with oneself and to take action based on data insights.
value of sales ops in providing data and insights to sales teams, allowing them to focus on improving their processes and closing deals.
partnering with rev ops to get a formula for deals, conversion rate, ACV, sales cycle time, and book of business.
partnering with customer success to identify opportunities for growth in accounts.
Sales strategies and elite seller characteristics. 31:27
"The Sales Acceleration Formula" by Mark Robear and "Qualified Sales Leader" by John McMahon for sales leaders looking to improve their skills.
team, company, and customer interests over personal gain, seeking elite sellers who share this mindset.
looks for daily practice of the sales craft, including qualifying and developing hypotheses for delivering value to customers.
Leslie's definition of an elite seller is a partnership where both parties win in the long term.
