Issue 52

IN THIS ISSUE

In this final Driven issue of 2020, you'll find articles on these topics:

How to get your whole revenue team to work together
How to get more value from small content marketing teams
How to build a community to help build awareness and brand for new product categories
How to run sales in early-stage companies, before you hire a sales team

REVENUE | EXPANSION STAGE & MATURE

How to get your whole revenue team rowing in sync

"You’d be surprised at the number of organizations that don’t set [revenue] goals or set those goals in silos.

"Setting goals as independent teams isn’t necessarily a bad thing, except when those goals conflict, which they often do inside fast-growing companies."

Challenge

Companies often have Sales, Marketing, Customer Support, and Product teams that move in different directions.

The activities of these groups are sometimes out of sync, like a rowing crew that doesn't work together.

Worse, maybe the teams are often out of sync. Or always.

No wonder the boat doesn't cut efficiently through the water.

Is it possible you don't see the problem because you've never led a team that does any better?

The disjointed behavior occurs when...

Teams work to different key performance indicators (KPIs)
Work from different data
Have inconsistent or incompatible goals and objectives

Why it matters

In such situations, you handicap your revenue by as much as 20% or more compared to companies that have better-coordinated revenue teams.

"We looked at the expenses of 1,819 companies and found that the median percentage of all expenses that goes to acquiring customers is 57%.

"This means you spend more money on acquiring customers than on anything else in your business. The effectiveness of spending more and improving your acquisition has gone down over the years."

A solution to consider

Make sure revenue data is consistent and available throughout the organization.
Unify goals across your departments. Make sure the goals of one team don't conflict with those of another.
Focus more on customer retention by building up your Customer Success capabilities.

Resource

The State of Revenue Operations: Reducing Friction in the Flywheel. ProfitWell and HubSpot. December 2020. [Downloadable PDF, 22 pages. No charge.]

MARKETING | EARLY & EXPANSION STAGES

How to get bigger results from small content marketing teams

"Most content marketing teams are small. About half of B2B and B2C marketers report content teams of one or fewer full-time employees."

Challenge

Content is a major contributor toward sales and marketing effectiveness at most B2B SaaS companies. This became even more true in 2020, after COVID-19 took live events off the table.

The need and appetite for good content seems to be insatiable. So how can you keep up? So how can you produce more effective content and promote it better, without hiring more people?

A solution to consider

No big surprise here: Improve the way you manage your content marketing efforts.

If you hire only one person to do content marketing, hire someone who understands how to do this.

Resource:

"How to Get Big Results from Small Content Marketing Teams." Ann Gyn. October 28, 2020. Content Marketing Institute blog.

When and how to build a community to help sell your product

“Community building is all about finding and connecting with people who care in the early days, which is essential to any fledgling startup’s survival.”

Challenge

Many B2B SaaS companies struggle to reach their target markets in ways that are cost effective.

It's especially hard to communicate with prospects if you offer an innovative product that doesn't fit in an existing category. Your target audiences have low awareness of the problems you solve, so they aren't looking for solutions.

Why it matters

If your prospects aren't looking for a solution like yours, you can't...

join any buying processes that are already underway
reach your prospects through paid search or search engine optimization (SEO).

It's slow and expensive to build awareness and brand. Many smaller companies can't afford to do it unless they have plenty of funding or influential partners.

A solution to consider

It may help to build a community of potential customers.

Gainsight built a community to help build awareness of customer success.

Terminus worked with its competitors to build the #FlipMyFunnel community as a way to raise awareness of new technologies that support account-based marketing (ABM).

Outreach.io acquired Sales Hacker in 2018 and has been growing the Sales Hacker Community since then.

All 3 software companies sell higher-end B2B SaaS products.

A note of caution

Building a community is hard work. It takes time an sometimes a big investment. Some approaches are faster and more effective than others.

It may be tempting to build a community the focuses on your solution(s) or your technologies. It's much easier to build a community if you focus on helping solve the problems your community members face.

In building a community, you can enlist help from your competitors. That's what Terminus did.

Resource:

"From Instant Pot to Instagram: Critical Lessons in Startup Community Building." First Round Review blog. 2020.

SALES & SELLING | EARLY STAGE

How to run sales in early-stage SaaS companies

"A lot of time founders think that once they’ve built a product, they can 'sprinkle some sales pros on it' and poof, it’ll work."

Challenge

The founders of early-stage companies must do all the selling before they hire professional sellers.

They may have to sell 10 or more accounts before they're ready to grow a sales team.

Yet some founders – and especially those from STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields – often have little knowledge or experience of selling.

This can be especially challenging in young SaaS companies that sell higher-ticket solutions to bigger companies.

Why it matters

Founders can waste a lot of time and energy trying to sell when they have little or no knowledge of how to do it well.

They can waste vital time before they generate cash flow. And they can make big, expensive mistakes in hiring their first sales team.

One solution

You can get solid advice on how to run early-stage sales from Peter Kazanji, a guy who's done it and has written a book that explains how.

The book, Founding Sales, is "the early-stage go-to-market handbook on startup sales for founders and others in first-time sales roles."

You have 3 ways to read it:

You can buy a a paperbound version on the Founding Sales website for $50.00.
You buy a Kindle version on Amazon.com for about $50.00.
You can read it free online by registering with the Founding Sales website.

Related:

"How to Get Your First 100 Customers – Smart, Actionable Advice from Top Executives." Casey Renner. October 28, 2020. OpenView blog.

Lenny's Newsletter. Lenny Rachitsky. "A weekly email advice column about product, growth, working with humans, and anything else that's stressing you out at the office." The newsletter highlights the best advice from a Slack community for subscribers. Free monthly edition. Paid weekly edition, $15.00 a month.

WRAP UP

If you liked this issue, please share it with a colleague or friend.

To you, your team, and your loved ones – have a great holiday and a healthy and prosperous 2021.

I'll bet most of us will happy to start a new calendar, with all the promise each January brings!

See you next on January 2.

Best,

Dave Vranicar

ABOUT DRIVEN

Driven is a fortnightly digest for busy revenue leaders in business-to-business SaaS.

It's likely to be most useful if your company sells higher-ticket products that require moderate to heavy involvement of professional sales people.

Driven is here to help you:

Achieve your most important goals
Overcome your biggest challenges
Solve expensive problems
Become a better version of yourself.

You'll find an online archive of back issues 12 through 43 at this link.

A word 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.