The Predictable Revenue Podcast

Derek May, an Account Executive with the Commercial Insurance Department of HUB International Insurance Brokers, joins Sarah Hicks for the first episode in the Selling into Ever-Changing, Highly Regulated Industries series on the Predictable Revenue Podcast. Derek specializes in Technology and Cyber products and is responsible for providing insurance and risk management solutions to public and private companies. He was the first person in Western Canada to receive the Cyber COPE Insurance Certification designation, is a Canadian Accredited Insurance Broker, a Certified Risk Manager, and was named Elite Broker by Insurance Business Canada in 2016. Highlights include: how Derek stays up to date on all the regulations in his space (5:19), how he uses these pieces of information to engage his clients (10:16), how he positions himself as a valued partner rather than just another broker (11:39), how he builds trust (13:30), and why reputation is everything (15:27).     SHOW NOTES:  More on becoming a trusted advisor to your clients: How to Get The Attention of Any Decision-Maker to Expand Your Sales Within An Enterprise Account And on building trust: The Importance of Relevance and Trust in Outbound Sales how to win your prospects’ trust  

Billy Sheng, Head of Sales at Esper, joins Sarah Hicks on this episode of the Predictable Revenue Podcast.   Billy has a long history of working in sales, operations, and starting companies - he’s a Founder of Minyans. He still works closely with the University of Washington’s entrepreneur community - specifically the Birks center of entrepreneurship. He also did a stint at Apshi last year before it was acquired by Google. Highlights include: how Billy’s sales team subverts the ingrained saas structure (3:10), why he built his sales team in India (6:18), the outsourcing stigma (8:24), the financial gain (13:00), hiring abroad (17:55), what to watch for when building an intercontinental team (26:29), and how to manage it (33:15).   SHOW NOTES:  More on behavioural interviewing and finding the right person for the role, no matter where they’re based: How to Build a Top-Performing Inside Sales Team From Scratch   More on managing remote sales teams:  Running a Successful Remote Sales Team  Manage a large sales team virtually and build a kick-ass discovery process

Chad Sanderson, Managing Partner at ValueSelling Associates, joins Sarah Hicks on this episode of the Predictable Revenue Podcast. Chad cuts through the outdated, theory-based “fluff” so often attributed to sales training, and gets down to the nitty-gritty with a raw, no-BS perspective to look at what is working, what’s not working, and where there may be opportunities to drive predictable revenue growth through sales optimization. Highlights include: how current popular sales methodologies are self-serving (2:50), what B2C nails that B2B doesn’t (4:08), how long you actually need to spend researching your ICP before you reach out (9:36), what a first touch look like (14:30), smoothing the SDR to AE handoff (18:18), incentivizing the right behaviours in your sales reps (23:07), and how to implement this framework in your organization (25:09).   SHOW NOTES:  More strategies for building a customer-focused buying journey: Rev Ops: The Missing Link That Will Increase Your Revenue by 26% More on researching your ICP: How to Get The Attention of Any Decision-Maker to Expand Your Sales Within An Enterprise Account

Dave Kennett, CEO of Replayz, joins Collin Stewart on this episode of the Predictable Revenue Podcast. Dave is a veteran sales leader if there ever was one. In the past 21 years, he has been Director and VP of Sales and Business Development at 8 companies, including Payfirma and Hootsuite. He is now CEO at Replayz, a company that offers on-demand sales tune-ups for Inside Account Executives from the world's best inside sales reps. Highlights include: things most reps get wrong early in the discovery call (15:04), how to resist the question about price when it comes up too soon (35:20), the discovery process top reps are using (45:52), how to change your mindset for demos (52:30), and crafting the perfect customer story soundbyte (1:01:02).   SHOW NOTES:  More on discovery: Manage a large sales team virtually and build a kick-ass discovery process Deal Mechanics: How to Work (And Close) 3x The Deals

Greg Callahan, a Partner at Bain & Company, joins Collin Stewart on this episode of the Predictable Revenue Podcast. Greg is a member of Bain's Customer Strategy & Marketing practices, with a focus on B2B commercial excellence and growth strategy, and leads Bain's Account Planning and Sales Operations practices globally. Highlights include: why account planning is so important in the first place (1:30), how Greg does it differently (3:36), how to nail the fundamentals (15:40), how to prioritize accounts (35:32), the perfect account plan, broken down (40:08), and what leaders need to do to support their revenue org with account planning (1:00:47).   SHOW NOTES:  More on the land and expand model: Swimming upstream: how Proposify went from selling self serve deals to working with enterprise clients with CEO Kyle Racki   How to Get The Attention of Any Decision-Maker to Expand Your Sales Within An Enterprise Account  

Aaron Evans joins Sarah Hicks on this episode of the Predictable Revenue Podcast. Aaron has 13 years of sales enablement, coaching, and hands-on training experience in multinational, corporate and start-up business environments around the globe. He’s a qualified coach and practitioner of Neuro-linguistic programming and Neuro-Semantics, and a passionate SaaS sales enablement leader. Highlights include: sales process vs sales enablement (2:38), mapping competencies necessary in sales roles (4:01), pinpointing incompetencies (6:50), scoring SDRs on those competencies (9:15), scoring AEs (13:08), coaching to improve these competencies (17:49), and the business impact of having a robust coaching program in place (22:40).   SHOW NOTES:  The scoring system for profiling your ideal customer: Hunting your Zebra: How to Profile Your Perfect Prospect   More on sales enablement: Why Marketers Suck at Sales Enablement…And How to Fix It Turn your critical internal sales knowledge into an effective training program with Christi Wall

Jason Reichl, co-Founder of Go Nimbly, joins Sarah Hicks on this episode of the Predictable Revenue Podcast.   Go Nimbly is the first revenue operations consultancy with the goal of allowing high-growth companies to increase the revenue of each of their customers through eliminating operational silos. Jason dives into revenue operations (5:00), the impact of a good rev ops team on the org as a whole (6:48), the infrastructure this rev ops team should operate within (12:30), the importance of hiring operations generalists (15:26), how rev ops can increase your revenue growth by 26% (18:36), abandoning vanity metrics (24:29), a better comp structure for everyone within the revenue org, and how to build a rev ops team on a limited budget (27:25).   SHOW NOTE:  Our experience with being customer-focused: Learning to put our customers first, the hard way.  And on breaking down silos: How to align marketing and sales to increase revenue with keynote speaker and expert business coach Jeff Davis  

Erik Huberman, Founder, and CEO of Hawke Media joins Sarah Hicks on the Predictable Revenue Podcast. Hawke Media is the fastest growing marketing consultancy in the United States. The company has serviced over 2000 brands of all sizes, ranging from startups to household names. As a serial entrepreneur and marketing expert, Erik is a highly sought-after thought leader in the world of digital marketing, entrepreneurship, sales, and business. In this episode, he teaches us how to write a concise, value-packed value proposition that travels through word of mouth without you spending a cent. Highlights include: why the traditional marketing ecosystem sucks (2:50), how Hawke Media fixed it (4:55), how sales and marketing collaborate on and benefit from the value prop (7:10), how to create your pitch (8:39), how to test it out in the wild (12:41), how to make it concise (18:36), the impact of a great value prop on inbound (25:14), and the impact on outbound (27:53).   SHOW NOTES:  More on the value prop from Aaron Ross: 3 Things Every Enterprise Customer Wants To Know  How To Do Sales Outreach The Right Way with Aaron Ross   And from Guillaume Moubeche: Building a Successful B2B Outbound Sales Strategy From Scratch   More on testing a value proposition: Why Validate an Outbound Strategy?

Dirk Van Reenen is the founder of BERGflow, a company that specializes in Human Systems Development and Organizational Design in the workplace. He works with business owners and entrepreneurs that own service-based companies and get them ready for next-level growth.  Highlights include: the importance of finding the right people for each role (7:21), the importance of a team with diverse behaviors and capabilities (11:04), the ideal prospector (12:30), relationship builder (19:05), closer (21:13), and manager (24:45), how to draw out the behaviors you’re looking for in the hiring process (29:44), keeping the team motivated (39:35), and always being “pivot-ready” (45:22).   SHOW NOTE:  More on building sales teams: Building a sales team: What you need to get right early on with Zach Barney   How to build a killer outbound sales team and avoid some common mistakes along the way with Aaron Ross   Building and evolving a successful sales team with Oliver Williamson

Steven Benson, Founder and CEO of Badger Maps, joins Sarah Hicks on the Predictable Revenue podcast to talk about what sales leaders should be doing to empower their reps and their business during a down economy.  Highlights include: The challenges sales leaders need to overcome in a bad economy that they probably aren’t thinking about already (5:55), protecting your margins (8:23), to discount or not to discount (11:14), necessary changes to sales leader behavior (12:34), changes to KPIs (15:56), coaching your reps (20:37), changing your messaging and the way you position your value (25:20), and how to leverage your existing customer relationships (41:59).   SHOW NOTES: George McGehrin’s recession-proof business model:  How George McGehrin gets his clients to pay HIM to market to them Bill Wooditch’s advice for fighting the fear during a recession: How fear of uncertainty is holding us back (and why it shouldn’t) Aaron’s message: You’re going to be okay Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It: How to Apply FBI Tactics in Sales – Outside Sales Talk with Chris VossHow Nick Cegelski builds relationships with every decision-maker in a complex remote sale: Deal Mechanics: How to Work (And Close) 3x The Deals