IN THIS ISSUE
This January offers plenty of distractions.
If you stay in your lane, you'll come out far ahead of everyone who's checking the news and social media 20 times a day.
This week's Driven brings you these topics:
- How to run a virtual kickoff meeting that delivers the results you want
- How much revenue should your SaaS company be earning per employee?
- How to start your year strong by outsourcing the stuff you won't do yourself
- How to build a community through content marketing
- How to coach your sellers to be more effective in virtual meetings
Dave Vranicar at Driven
REVENUE | OPERATIONS
How much revenue should your SaaS company earn per employee? Check this benchmark.
On average, revenue per employee for SaaS companies depends on 2 main factors:
- How big the company is
- Whether it's bootstrapped or backed by equity investors.
How does your company measure up? See the details.
"Revenue Per Employee Benchmarks for Private SaaS Companies." Nick Perry. SaaS Capital blog. December 4, 2020
saas-capital.com
How to run a successful virtual revenue kickoff meeting
"Sales kickoffs may never be the same again – and that's OK."
Your challenge
It's time to run your annual revenue kickoff meeting. But with so much of your team working remotely, how can you run a successful online meeting that motivates everyone and holds their interest?
Why it matters
When you eliminate travel and lodging costs, you can expand your annual revenue kickoff meeting beyond your sales team.
But even virtual kickoff meetings are expensive and take a huge amount of effort to organize.
How can you maintain interest during a day-long virtual kickoff? How can you generate buzz and energy?
With planning, you can run an effective virtual kickoff meeting. It will help get your year started on the right foot.
Ideas to consider
Here are a few of the things you can do to make it successful:
- Keep sessions short.
- Use polls to increase engagement.
- Gather feedback immediately after each session.
- Sponsor online social events such as virtual happy hours. Allow participants to order in meals and expense them.
- Invite customers to participate.
Resources
Create a Virtual SKO Like a Design Thinker. Sommersault Innovation. 2021. [Downloadable PDF. 9 pages. No charge.]
Related
"Michelle Dotson on Delivering Your Sales Kickoff Virtually." Episode 111 of the Sales Enablement Pro podcast from Highspot. [Michelle, a marketer at Zoom, explains how her company ran its first virtual kickoff meeting. 16:25 total listening time. Highlights: How to run a global kickoff across time zones. Limit sessions to no longer than 30 minutes, with most closer to 15. Gamify the sessions to hold the interest of participants. Transcript available. Total reading time: ~10 min.]
hubspotusercontent30.net
MARKETING | COMMUNICATIONS | CONTENT
How to create a community and fuel its growth through content
"How do you get people to sign up for—and engage in your community— when it currently has little-to-no users and engagement?"
Opportunity
You can build a "thriving space" where customers and prospects talk to each other, create content, help each other solve their problems, and discuss your products and services.
Why it matters
With so many B2B SaaS companies creating so much content, it's harder than ever to build a brand through content marketing. The competition for attention is more intense than ever.
You may feel you're on a treadmill, where have to keep creating more and more content, and you're getting smaller results.
Content marketing is still important. It's the most cost-effective way for smaller and mid-sized SaaS companies to build a brand.
Ideas to consider
- Focus on using your content to build a community instead of just creating content for demand generation.
- Understand what it takes to create a flywheel that builds momentum and powers community growth.
- Empower members of your community to create content that attracts new community members.
- Leverage communities to gather feedback and insights for your product team.
Resource
"Flywheels and How to Create Content Communities." Andy Johns. April 28, 2020. Andy Johns blog.
Related
"3 Ways to Win with Customer Communities." Ethan Beute of Bomb.Bomb interviews Joe Heuber, customer community manager at Sprout Social. June 2020. B2B Growth Podcast. [40:45 in total]
andyjohns.co
SALES & SELLING | EXECUTION | SKILLS
So how's remote selling working for your team? (Maybe they could use some advice from a pro.)
"It pains me to see sellers misled by myths and 'tips' passed on by those who have never worked professionally on-camera."
Opportunity
Remote selling is here to stay.
Face-to-face selling may come back in the second half of 2021, but many people predict it may never again be as prevalent as it was before Covid-19.
Remote selling requires different skills. And some sellers may not be fully aware of how to present themselves effectively on camera.
Here's an example. Plenty of us don't know how distracted and disengaged we look when we're not looking at the camera. We don't look at the camera because it's natural to look at the video image of the person we're speaking to.
I struggle with this all the time.
By coaching your sellers and giving them feedback, you can help lift their performance during virtual sales sessions. You can help them turn a disadvantage into a big advantage.
Ideas to consider
- Evaluate the video performance of your sellers and other customer-facing team members.
- Make sure they have the right equipment to look and sound good: a decent camera, good lighting, a noise-cancelling microphone, and more.
- Coach them on how to behave in ways that are more engaging for prospects and customers.
Resource
"The Top 10 Video Mistakes Salespeople Made in 2020 (and how to avoid them in 2021!)." Julie Hansen. January 5, 2021. Performance Sales and Training blog.
performancesalesandtraining.com
RESOURCES | SERVICES
Get the help you could use to start your new year strong
Your challenge
This time of year you're likely to be onboarding new hires, running kickoff meetings, attending online trade events. and trying to get your 2021 programs off to a solid start.
If you're currently understaffed, your content marketing and demand-generation efforts may get off to a slow start.
Remember those customer research interviews you said you were going to do? You didn't find time for them, did you?
The content strategy you said you were going to develop? It was more elusive than you expected.
Why it matters
You could be halfway through Q1 before you start building any real momentum. It could take even longer before you generate results.
An idea to consider
Outsource some of the work you need to get done early this year.
My company, Redwell, can accept a small number of select clients for consulting services and project work.
Click on the link to see where we may be able to help. Then email me for a short conversation to discuss your needs.
Services available through Redwell and referral partners.
Dave Vranicar at Driven
ABOUT DRIVEN
Driven is a fortnightly digest for busy revenue leaders in business-to-business SaaS.
Revenue leaders include these groups:
- Chief revenue officers
- Leaders in sales and marketing
- Leaders in customer success and product
- Founders, CEOs, and board members who care about revenue
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.
Dave Vranicar at Driven