Categories: Sales Leadership | CRO Best Practices | Economic Change
We recently hosted a panel discussion with several top revenue leaders in the sales industry, facilitated by sales veteran and Force Management Partner Brian Walsh. Boomi CRO Marcy Campbell, NWN Carousel CEO and President Jim Sullivan, and Battery Ventures Operating Partner Bill Binch joined us to share each of their unique perspectives on what's driving positive revenue outcomes for sales organizations in our ever-changing economic environment.
The result was a powerful conversation full of wisdom and insights that are hyper-relevated to the challenges facing sales organizations today. The discussion was largely guided by audience-submitted questions, so today we're breaking down some of those questions and sharing the poignant and thought-provoking responses we heard from our panelists. Dig in to identify the strategies that you can use to set your organization on the track to overcoming economic challenges and achieving revenue goals this year.
If you want more of these insights, you can watch the on-demand video of the full panel here.
Q: How do you see the buyer decision process changing?
Marcy Campbell: “When I first started selling, I would talk to a customer and they didn't know anything about my product. I'd have this education phase, and I'd take them through this process, and then maybe a competitor would come in. Today, they're online. They know your reputation, your competitors, your pricing. They probably know who your customers are. And when they engage with the salesperson, they want to get information and access. And if you wait and you get back to them in a day or even two days, they're probably getting it somewhere else.”
Bill Binch: “You know, pre-MEDDICC days when I came out of college and was taught to sell, I was trained on the ‘why buy, why buy now, and why buy from me?’ And to me, what's really important right now is to take out the ‘why buy from me’, the differentiation, and focus on the ‘why buy’ and ‘why buy now.’ And to me, that really means that the M and the I in MEDDICC, the Metrics and the Identified pain have really come up. Because the D, the Decision maker and Decision process, those are really fluid right now. Companies that we're selling to, even buyers that have been at the company for years and have bought our types of software previously, some of them don't even know their process right now.”
Q: What is the number one skill or activity that makes sales teams successful in the current economic environment?
Jim Sullivan: “I think whether it's this current environment or a great economy, the people that do the best are ones that are really focused on the best fundamentals in the first place. So if you're running a process that is: I've listened to the customer, I've created the right solution that's gonna drive their business outcomes, I've got my required capabilities, [I’ve got] the differentiation. I can justify it with the metrics. And then I've run the right process to build the coalition of yeses. And then I get to an economic buyer and I really leverage my coach. So I think it's really driving the basic fundamentals. In some ways, that's the way it should be all the time. In a great economy, some people can get away with not doing all that. When it's a tougher economy that the tide goes out and you see who's prepared or not, but the best people that are doing all the basic fundamentals are usually successful in both economies because they've done all these things.”
Marcy Campbell: “I think the challenge that we have in times like this is that, we're not precise enough on the deal structure, and we don't understand all the obstacles. I think you have to walk into a deal with a certain amount of paranoia. When things change and they change swiftly in economic times like we have today, you have to be prepared for a plan B. You have to have multiple stakeholders in each deal, especially if it's a large deal, but even in a small deal now. You have to have an economic buyer who's willing to stand with you in front of an executive to say, yes, we agree this is impactful to our business. Without those things, it's just a hope and a prayer.”
Q: In the changing business climate, where are you changing or doubling down on your sales leadership approach?
Bill Binch: “To any revenue leader, [the economic shift] means that you're likely missing your new business targets and churn and downsell is increasing. You've got to evolve inside your organization. And to me, the key thing to focus on is getting new logos. That is a whole supply chain of changes that need to happen inside an organization. Number one, your marketing needs to shift to be very acquisition-focused, if you sell to enterprises, very account-based. In the sales team, maybe you need to modify your comp plans. You need to modify in real time the behaviors you're focusing your team on, and maybe that’s not trying to maximize the biggest ARR deal. Maybe the ideal comp plan is trying to go and get multiple logos. Because the reality is, if you're in any type of software company, a lot of your value is created based on your net retained revenue or your net dollar retention. And the only way you drive that NDR is by getting new customers that you can then go back and sell to. So to me, I try to think about how you steer through this turn and come out of the turn going as quickly as possible. So, when I meet with my companies and they say, what are you hearing and what do you suggest? That's the first thing I focus on: What have you done to optimize your business at this state to get new customers on board?”
Marcy Campbell: “I think that the challenge is to lead by example. You have to be able to understand the sales process. If you're a coach, then you better know that sales process and you better be able to walk through each piece of that deal and have the experience of going in front of executives where they were going to say no and you could turn that to a yes."
Brian Walsh: "It's one thing to be able to point a scoreboard and say, you know what we need to do? We need to score another touchdown. It's another thing to actually have the ability to show people how to score."
Marcy Campbell: "Yeah. I think that's right. It's really hard to tell people like, okay, have you tried this? Let's do this. Here's another play. You know, there are nine closes, you only need one. Knowing the science of sales is really important."
Jim Sullivan: "You got to have a very strong product marketing and product management process. And that could be iterative where you don't get it right the first two times, so the sales teams can iterate back and move really quickly, but you got to get to the best product market fit. And then for sales leaders, try and make it as simple as possible to explain the value and how you quantify it and who you call on. Then the sales teams can be really productive and successful. Ideally you're trying to get this into execution mode, and then you can get into the volume or increasing the size of the deal. Having seen great sales organizations with bad product market fit, it gets really tough. Or they have incredible product market fit, but didn't get the product marketing alignment to help the sales team to be like, hey, here's the right collateral. Here's who you call on to have great execution. You sort of gotta have it all to be successful."
Q: How can you create urgency for your product when customers are protective of their budgets?
Jim Sullivan: “Ideally to get to the business outcome, it has a business case around it. The more thorough, the better, but it doesn't need to be overly complex. Not everything's going to the CEO, but probably almost all things are probably going to the CFO. And that CFO is probably less business case oriented, more financially oriented. But that project owner is gonna be driving something. So whatever the offering is, it's gotta really move the needle on the business, and it's probably gonna be you know, revenue impact, productivity impact. To some extent, with the [enterprise-level] solutions we're talking about, it's gonna trump just taking cost out. And I think it's gonna be compelling. If you have that, and you've done your business case work, you can be real aggressive. You can create a high sense of urgency. Because you've done the homework and you've got a champion and you've got the goods to help the business. And that's what will rally things to get done not only in this environment but in any environment.”
Bill Binch: “There's kind of an old cheeky statement that a CMO I used to work with used to say, which is no one ever went to Home Depot to get a shovel. They went to Home Depot because they needed a hole in the ground. And I really try to focus back to what is that hole in the ground that we're here to solve for. All of us sell, probably most people on this call sell complex technical solutions, which means, like, enterprise multi-month sales cycles. If you're going through that, someone on the other side of the street is spending time with us. Why are they investing this time with us if there's not some pain? If I can't keep identifying and bringing everything back to that, then it's really hard. So that leads me to always think about how I talk about them and not about us.”
Marcy Campbell: “It's easy to sell to people when they're buying. There's a difference between helping someone buy and actually selling. And when you think about selling, it's really a process. You know, you have to understand what your customer's environment is. You have to be able to paint a picture of what the future holds for them, but you also have to think about not only the required capabilities and the features that you can provide but you need to talk about what the metrics are. Like, why does it matter? When you have a CFO who's trying to make a decision, you may or may not know him. Your advocate may know him, but you have to understand what pain and what problems they're trying to solve and then how you actually will solve them and in great detail. And this is where I think the discipline in the process becomes really important.”
Q: What activities you are leading your teams through to de-risk deals?
Jim Sullivan: “In these particular times, right, I think you gotta qualify early and often. Right? Because you could run this perfect campaign, you're getting all the help, but you didn't ask upfront, do they actually have the budget. Or, you know, they just say they love everything about it, and someone's gonna really work a bunch of your time, but they're never gonna be able to get it approved right now financially. That's why I think qualifying early and often is important in these markets.”
Bill Binch: “There's a shift there when you think about reps. Don't bring me the why we're gonna win this deal – break it. Like we always say as leaders: don't bring me the problem, bring me the solution. In a tough market, I think you can roleplay with your reps and figure out why this deal is gonna go off the tracks. You never quite anticipate the right reason it goes off the tracks because we all know most good enterprise deals die at least once before you end up closing. So to me, if you can roleplay that out and anticipate it, you're honing that skill to be so much sharper for when it actually does happen. I think it takes a lot of courage for a sales rep to not come in and say, Hey boss, this is why the deal is advancing down the field, but instead say: Let me tell you where this deal is gonna get blocked or where we might even move backward and go into a losing spot. And then that I think is a force and function to get all the right people in the room or on the Zoom call or whatever to roleplay and go through that deal.”
Marcy Campbell: “I think the challenge that we have in times like this is that, we're not precise enough on the deal structure, and we don't understand all the obstacles. I think you have to walk into a deal with a certain amount of paranoia. When things change and they change swiftly in economic times like we have today, you have to be prepared for a plan B. You have to have multiple stakeholders in each deal, especially if it's a large deal, but even in a small deal now. You have to have an economic buyer who's willing to stand with you in front of an executive to say, yes, we agree this is impactful to our business. Without those things, it's just a hope and a prayer.”
Q: How do you increase pipeline or offset reduced pipeline in a down market?
Brian Walsh: “Territory and account planning, both as appropriate. Territory planning to get more specific and creative in how we are driving awareness and education in the market. Account planning to drive how we are positioning ourselves in our most strategic accounts. There is no silver bullet at a time like this, but that's where you start. Also, you have to make sure that any messaging you’re using to create conversations and opportunities is focused on the business outcomes you're seeing other customers achieve, not features of your product or service.”
Bill Binch: “The reality is, going back to the premise of a pivoting economy, that means there's probably fewer inbounds coming in. It’s harder for you to get their attention. If you want to be a must-have solution, what you do get into your gunsights, you have to increase the conversion rate. So if I'm a leader, I'm really, really zeroing in on once we identify and qualify something as, what we'd consider to be a valid or realistic opportunity, how do we maximize it? To me, that means really ramping up things like our team selling approach or multithreading inside of accounts, it to me means really bringing in executives much earlier.”
Q: What is one thing you want everyone to take away from this conversation about success during economic change?
Watch the Full Conversation
Get even more in-depth insights from our esteemed guests by downloading the on-demand video of the panel discussion, Navigating Sales Success in Economic Change. They shared specific strategies they implement in their industry-leading organizations, anecdotes from their own journeys as sales leaders, and advice for leaders of companies at every stage. Leverage their unique experience for your sales organization by watching the full conversation.
