Metrics that Measure Up

In this episode, we continue the discussion with the authors of Selling the Cloud. Building upon the first half of our conversation where we discussed the need for grit and passion to be success full in Enterprise sales, we move into several new topics. The Power of No is a key skill to develop.  A great enterprise sales professional is qualifying prospects out every step of the process to reduce time investment on low probability to close opportunities.  Often the most important "no" is to walk away from blind RFP's that you have had no opportunity to influence or understand before receiving. The other skill is to understand "no means no" but also to ensure the prospect understands you are available to help if they need to re-evaluate their decision that did not include you.The importance of credibility and trust, often starts with the enterprise sales professional knowing when to walk away from an opportunity where you know your solution is not appropriate.  Buyers will respect your integrity, and your trust capital over the long term will grow.One fundamental step to being able to walk away from poor fit deals - investing more time in building a high quality, healthy pipeline.   If you build more pipeline than you think is required, you will not force-fit your solution into opportunities you should have walked away from in the first place.We discussed their hot take that  "opportunities close themselves".   If the enterprise sales professionals manage the process by ensuring the buyer has all of the information they need to make a decision, that closing is a natural step, and not the primary objective!?We also discuss why Customer Success is not just a department - it is the responsibility of everyone who touches the customer, especially sales.  In today's land and expand, recurring revenue model, having a Chief Revenue Officer who owns customer acquisition, expansion and retention is a key element to ensuring customer success is a culture...not just a function.Finally, we bring out the crystal ball by having Mark and Paul share their perspectives on how Artificial Intelligence (AI) will impact Selling the Cloud...if you are an Enterprise sales professional you will like what they have to say which is AI will serve to decrease the time spent on administration and increase the time available to invest in serving the prospect!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast we are joined by Paul Melchiorre and Mark Petruzzi - authors of Selling the Cloud.Paul has over 30 years of experience in enterprise sales leadership, at leading companies including  Anaplan, Ariba,  SAP, and now in Private Equity.  Mark brings over 30 years of experience in strategic consulting firms including Deloitte, N3, Accenture and operating roles at Oracle, and Ultimate Software.GRIT was the first topic we covered as a required attribute for every enterprise sales professional. Paul shared some of his best tips to identify grit during the interview process.  Mark added the importance of passion as a critical component of the "WHY" behind grit.We also discuss "process versus playbook", and why flexibility differentiates good versus great in the SaaS industry.   Paul shares why he believes that no one sales methodology is that much better than another and that the primary benefit is the standardization of language while also maintaining the flexibility to embrace the reality of each company.Playbooks that work at a large, established entity like Salesforce is most likely at a < $10M company without the same brand name recognition....flexibility is key.My favorite topic was discussing why  "Discovery" is the most important phase of the sales process.  Being able to ask meaningful questions, listen to the answers, and learning everything possible about why the buyer will really buy by putting yourself in their shoes...and it's not about your product's feature/function.Next, we discuss "3 Level Listening", which includes gathering data, identifying what is meaningful to the buyer, as an individual first before their company, and then applying it to your efforts. Mark shared how Charlie Green and his trusted advisor approach highlights the need to control your own ego, be present in listening, and focusing on truly understanding what the buyer is saying - active listening + thinking aloud.Paul then shares why "balance" of performance across the entire sales organization is so critical to building a high-performance organization.  Balance was defined as having at least 70%+ of sales reps hitting quota.Finally, Mark shares the lessons he learned from Hollywood and why storytelling is so important to being a top-performing enterprise sales professional - especially customer stories!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

B2B Sales communities are all the rage in 2020.  Sales Hacker, Modern Sales Pro, Bravado, Revenue Collective and now RevGenius are building B2B sales communities to provide experiences, connections, ideas, and research.Jared Robin, co-founder at RevGenius recently joined the podcast to share the story behind Rev Genius and his vision for the community."Necessity is the mother of invention" a catalyst for RevGenius as Jared contemplated the next step in his career journey due to the impact of COVID. Jared felt too many communities felt "exclusive" and were not truly open RevGenius started as a LinkedIn Group to share events for B2B sales professionalsJared's desire to include members across revenue teams, including marketing, sales development, RevOps, etc. was a goal to enhance "revenue team alignment" .  Jared shared his thought that the path to CRO is not only through sales, so it's critical to gain insights, experiences, and connections across every revenue team functionThree key metrics to measure the success of RevGenius- Member Acquisition- Member Engagement- Monetization - not a top priority.....yetJared strongly believes that professionals need to take responsibility for growth,  and not depend solely on the training and experiences you gain from their current employer. If you want to level-up or grow = community involvementTwo key thoughts for everyone to make the community vibrant- Always be Helping- Always be LearningIf you are interested in learning more about building on-line communities or to evaluate why you will join a revenue team community, this episode if chalked full of insights.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast we are joined by Howard Brown,  Founder and CEO of ringDNA.How does being a clinical psychologist lead to founding a Sales Engagement Platform company?  Howard shares the common theme - helping individuals and companies overcome THEIR challengesKey topics discussed include that if B2B companies are too focused on internal processes leading versus the customer's motivation to buy.  Sales training represents a major opportunity to improve alignment to the buyer's journey, especially the prospect's personal needs.  Howard discusses why increasing business acumen is a significant area of opportunity.We also discuss that "coaching" is different from training and a large opportunity to increase sales productivity.  You should be asking yourself,  how much time are sales managers investing in 1:1 coaching versus administration, planning and managing versus coaching.Sales #1 job is to HELP buyers make a decision and it may not be your solution - play the long game. Too much focus on quarterly numbers versus customer needs can lead to short term gains at the expense of long term company valueHoward shares his insights are why Marketing, Sales and CS alignment STARTS with aligning to the buyer's journey AND starts at the top with the CEO!  Howard experience is that Go-To-Market models need to be re-designed, centralized, and informed by customer journey dataHoward summarizes our discussion with the quote " We are moving to an Experience Economy" and companies that align to the customer journey will be the long term winners!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Founding a B2B SaaS company is an exhilarating, yet high-risk experience. Creating a new market category at the same time even higher risk and often serves primarily to pave the path for second-generation market entrants who learn from the successes and failures of the first generation.Anurag Khemka, is a founding father of B2B Marketing Automation. Back in 1996, when the internet was first being commercialized, most B2B marketers were just starting to think about how to develop more personal, 1:1 relationships with potential customers.Anurag founded MarketFirst, the first generation of enterprise-class marketing automation technology.  Developing the software was the easy part, educating an entire market on how to design, build, and execute B2B marketing campaigns on the internet was the real challenge.Marketing Automation is now one of the most mature segments of the MarTech market (8K+ companies).  Marketing Operations is a mature, yet still evolving profession that was spawned out of the need to manage and maximize the return on Marketing Automation investments.Anurag is a founding father of both Marketing Automation and Marketing Operations, and for anyone who seeks to better understand how history predicts the future,  you should listen to this episode!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast - Court Lorenzini, Founding CEO at DocuSign discusses his journey to co-Founding DocuSign and then his decision to leave after five years to found two more companies.During our conversation, Court shared his unique path to DocuSign, including his father's legacy as a founding father of Silicon Valley and his habit of recording his observations of how people managed difficult situations starting at the age of 13.Court  shares his belief that most CEO's are strongest or prefer one of the three stages that every start-up moves through including: 1) Napkin to Product-Market Fit; 2) Rapid Growth and; 3) Profitability.  Court loves, and used the term "Fills my Cup"  when discussing the joy he finds from starting companies and achieving Product-Market Fit.Court also shares his two key pieces of advice for aspiring entrepreneurs including: 1) Pressure test your idea rigorously to the point of trying to kill it early and often and; 2) Learn from predecessors who have attempted to blaze a similar path in your same market previously.Finally, Court shares his premise that founders created 70% of Terminal Value in the first five years of a companies life.  So, if your cup is filled by creating and establishing product-market fit, and you believe in statistical probability, it may serve founders better to repeat the company creation process multiple times to optimize the probability of great success.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast - David Appel, Head of the SaaS Vertical at Sage Intacct shares his insights and lessons learned from over 1,500+ SaaS financial solution implementations.During our conversation, David and Ray discuss several key attributes and approaches that SaaS CFOs take to ensure the data, metrics and KPIs they collect can tell the story of what the "financial data" is telling.Great finance leaders make sure financial information and KPIs get out to everyone as soon as possible to enable timely, data-driven, metrics information decision making.  Great CEOs and CFOs ensure the measures that each department have in place are directly linked to the corporate objectives, and not allow functional leaders to primarily highlight those metrics that show their function in the best light, but not for the benefit of the entire company.Dave ends this episode with a quote from Steve Jobs "Building great companies is not dependant on the hierarchies that run companies, but they are built upon the ideas that run companies".See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast, we talk with Jon Miller, co-founder of Marketo and Engagio,  and now Chief Product Officer at Demandbase is a MarTech visionary. Marketo was purchased in 2018 by Adobe for $4.75B, and Engagio was recently acquired by Demandbase.Jon shared the B2B Marketing metrics that matter and the lessons learned in his personal career journey as a founding father and leading MarTech visionary.Jon shared how 1st gen Marketing Automation was designed to automate a linear process with discrete hand-offs between marketing and sales. We also discussed how today’s buying process requires insights into demand and buying intent BEFORE a buyer visits your website.We also discussed how the evolving land and expand customer acquisition model requires a non-linear, collaborative process between Marketing, Sales, and CSThe most interesting conversation for your host was Jon's perspective on the top KPIs for today's B2B Marketersincluding: 1) Pipeline Growth; 2) New + Expansion ARR; 3) Return on Investment.  B2B Marketers still need leading indicator metrics that show how buyers are progressing across the buyer journey, such as stage by stage conversion, but measurements such as website visitors, leads, and content downloads are mostly vanity metrics.As a thought leader in Account-Based Marketing and Account-Based Sales, Jon highlighted this new Customer Acquisition and Expansion model requires new KPIs and benchmarksJon also discussed his decision to leave Marketo and why the time was right now to combine Engagio and DemandbaseJon's comment that he is driven to “build the next great marketing platform”,  coupled with his career journey exemplifies his vision, commitment, and passion for marketing technology#SaaS #b2bmarketing #KPIsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In today's episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast, Thomas Stewart, Executive  Director for the National Center for the Middle Market shares some very interesting insights into the 200,000 companies that represent 1/3 of the American economy.Highlights included that 85% of Mid-market companies are private, 33% are family owned and 17% are in the manufacturing industry.  On average, middle-market companies grow an average of 6.5% per year, 3% faster than the average S&P 500 company.Middle Market companies that view Digital Transformation as strategic and are advanced in adoption grow at an average of 9.5%, almost 50% faster than their peers.Lastly, middle-market companies buy technology very differently than larger, Enterprise companies.  They typically will not pilot or test innovation, they will watch...watch....watch and then jump in headfirst.  Definitely not your early adopter persona.A great listen for anyone responsible for doing business in the middle market - or just wants to learn more about the middle market.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In today's episode of the Metrics that Measure Up, Sally Duby, Chief Sales Officer at The Bridge Grop discussed the findings from their Sales Compensation research conducted in August, 2020 in partnership with the Silicon Valley Vice President Sales Group.Sally shares benchmarks and compensation trends across a wide variety of roles including Chief Revenue Officer, Field Sales - Account Executive, Inside Sales - Account Executive, Sales Development Representative, Sales Operations and Sales Enablement.The trends identified since the latest research The Bridge Group conducted in 2018 is quite surprising.  In this episode we find unexpected trends in Equity, On-Target-Earnings by Annual Contract Value (ACV) and how Quotas vary so greatly based upon ACV.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.