IN THIS ISSUE
Happy Mother's Day.
If it isn't Mother's Day where you live, why not celebrate anyway?
Do something thoughtful for the best mother you know.
We're already a third of the way through 2021. Can you believe it?
Is your year on track so far?
This week's Driven brings you one strategic topic for senior revenue leaders. It also shares 2 that are more tactical for sellers and marketers.
- While you're focused on your lofty go-to-market strategy, your lowly systems may undermine what you're otherwise getting right. Make it easy to buy from your company.
- Want to improve sales performance? Don't be distracted by fancy sales-enablement tech. Instead, offer your sellers the one thing that will help them most.
- You probably ought to be on LinkedIn to fill your sales pipe. But don't do this.
REVENUE
How to stop making it hard for your customers to buy from you
"It’s amazing to me to see how often companies behave as if they don’t want you to contact them. And, when you do, nothing happens."
Challenge
You know how this works.
Because you're a bigshot in your company, you focus on high-level stuff.
But maybe you overlook mundane details, like how a customer will reach a sales person in your company:
- An interested prospect goes to your website and can't find a phone number.
- She tries live chat. But your chatbot can't answer her burning question.
- She finally finds a phone number. Your voicemail recording annoys her.
- She can't leave a message because your voice mailbox is full.
- She sends an email inquiry, suspecting no one will respond.
- Someone in your company gets back to her. But it's days later. She's moved on.
Ideas to consider
- Treat your brand like your company's most valuable asset. A brand is much more than a logo and company's colors. It's the result of all the ways your company treats its customers and prospects.
- No matter how high you rank in your company, check how your processes and systems serve the people who will pay you money. Don't delegate this.
- Look at every element of your revenue operations from the perspective of customers and prospects.
- Act like a prospect trying to get information from your company. Check your voicemail, email, and chat systems to see how helpful and easy they are to use.
- Check them a few times a month. Put reminders on your calendar. Things fail without warning. When they do, someone has to spot and fix them fast.
- Interview customers and prospects regularly. Ask how your company is doing.
- When you lose a deal, talk to whoever led the buying decision. Ask what you could have done better.
Driven subscriber Kristin Zhivago says this:
"If you can’t find time in your busy day to talk to people who want to buy from you, your priorities are messed up...."
Source
"How to Sell." Kristin Zhivago. April 28, 2021. Zhivago Partners blog post.
Kristin writes solid material on how to grow revenue. Her ideas go beyond what you'll find in any other sales and marketing books I've read.
Kristin's ideas are among the best I've seen to help business owners and senior revenue officers increase revenue growth.
She doesn't offer hacks or quick fixes. You have to do the work.
Related
Roadmap to Revenue: How to Sell the Way Your Customers Want to Buy." Kristin Zhivago. 2011. 286 pages in print. Kindle, hardcover, and audio editions. 41 ratings on Amazon.com. Average score, 5.0 out of 5.0.
Roadmap is 10 years old. But it's still as current as the day she wrote it.
It's among a handful of the best books I've read on how to increase revenue. Kristin loaded it with practical advice and insights. She provides step-by-step instructions for interviewing customers and prospects.
“Can You Make It More Difficult For Me To Give You My Money?” David Brock. May 3, 2021. Partners in Excellence blog post.
Links to David Brock's articles appear often in Driven. He sometimes comes across as a curmudgeon. But he's always insightful. And I usually agree with him.
zhivagopartners.com
MARKETING | SELLING | SOCIAL MEDIA
How not to fill your sales pipe using LinkedIn
"No matter how I tweaked my messaging, I didn’t come anywhere close to the results I get when I manually send personalized messages."
Challenge
Today most B2B sellers must use social media to help achieve their quota.
LinkedIn is likely to be among their most effective social channels.
But many sellers use LinkedIn in ways that annoy the people sellers want to connect with.
For higher-ticket SaaS sales, use of templates and automated messages on LinkedIn can destroy trust before you build it.
If your company sells niche SaaS to a small number of target accounts, you can't afford to burn any bridges.
An idea to consider
Avoid an almost-certain way to fail at building new relationships on LinkedIn.
If you make this mistake, it can hurt you and your company's brand.
The author of a worthwhile article describes a simple, non-spammy LinkedIn outreach process.
It's slower and takes more effort than using automation. But it's much more effective.
So it's the better investment of your time and energy.
Source
"Hi {firstname}: http://LinkedInMessageAutomationIstheActual Worst." Candace Edelyn. May 6, 2021. OpenView blog.
Related
"Six Steps to More Effective Prospecting Campaigns." Alice Heiman. Undated Sales Gravy blog post.
openviewpartners.com
SALES & SELLING | LEADERSHIP | COACHING
You're probably not providing enough of the thing that will most help your SDRs
Without something driving us toward knowledge and growth, we are pushing a rock up a hill.
Challenge
The role of sales development reps (SDRs) is broken in many SaaS companies. Or so several sources alleged in the last issue of Driven (Number 61, April 24).
That article provoked as much interest as any Driven has published.
Its point was not to blame SDRs. They're victims.
Rather, the goal was to shine daylight on how poorly SDRs are often managed. And to suggest ways you can lead them more effectively.
How can your company provide better support for the people who hold these hard jobs?
Ideas to consider
Compensation and career growth are important to SDRs. But nothing is more valuable to them than effective coaching.
Sellers consistently say their front-line managers fall short as coaches.
Sales managers and supervisors have so much on their plate, it's probably not fair to criticize them for not being good coaches.
For most sales leaders, coaching isn't part of their job description or performance metrics.
Few sales leaders have any training or experience in coaching. Nor have they worked with a good role model for it.
To improve the performance of your SDRs, make it a priority to coach them better.
Train your first-line mangers to be good coaches.
Make coaching part of their job description and performance metrics.
Source
"7 Sales Coaching Tips From An SDR's Point-of-View." Caroyln Nangle. April 22, 2021. Imagine Business Development blog.
Related
"What Should We Expect of Our Managers?" David Brock. April 29, 2021. Partners in Excellence blog.
imaginellc.com
WRAP UP
That's it for this issue.
Driven continues to evolve through experimentation and your feedback.
If you don't share your feedback, I'm left to guess what you want.
If you've enjoyed this issue, please share it with a friend or colleague.
See you next on May 22.
Best,
Dave Vranicar
Dave Vranicar at Driven
ABOUT DRIVEN
Driven is a fortnightly digest for busy revenue leaders in business-to-business (B2B) SaaS.
It's likely to be most useful if your company sells higher-ticket products that require moderate to heavy involvement of professional sellers.
Driven is here to help you:
- Achieve your revenue goals
- Overcome your obstacles and challenges
- Fix expensive problems
- Be the best version of yourself.
You'll find an online archive of back issues 12 through 43 at this link.
About links, commissions, and endorsements
When I provide links to articles from vendors, does it imply an endorsement?
Only of their content. Not of their products or services.
If I recommend a service or a book, it’s because I think it’s likely to help you. Period.
I get nothing from providing links to any commercial service, including the books for which I provide a link to Amazon.
That may change. I’ll tell you when it does.
Dave Vranicar at Driven