Champify

"Nurture is the new outbound." That's what a big time SVP of Sales told me recently. Here's what he meant and why I think he's right: BACKGROUND: This came up in a QBR Champify was running with a customer. This sales leader is someone with 25+ years of experience across startups, high growth B2B scaleups and public companies. Someone that has built orgs responsible for generating +$500m in ARR. The point being, he knows what he's talking about. What he meant was that it’s getting harder to get in touch with the right people and the chance that they are ready to engage with you on first interaction is way lower than it was in the past... The companies who take a long-term approach, add value at every customer interaction, and are top of mind as problems arise will continue to grow. At Champify we put almost as much thought and effort in nurture as we do booking new meetings. What are you doing to optimize for future pipeline?

Last chance to register 👉 https://lnkd.in/ed96M584 Don't miss out on RVP of Enterprise Sales Shea Brucker and Champify CEO Todd Busler as they walk through: 1. What a good account plan looks like 2. How frequently you should be updating and reviewing your/your team's account plans 3. How to get your team to adopt the strategy They'll be walking through real world examples and hard learned lessons. #outbound #pipelinegeneration

This platform may crash harder than #crowdstrike on July 24th 🔥 Tune in to watch Morgan J Ingram, Dom Odoguardi and yours truly talk about politics..... I mean.... talk about cold calling for 45 minutes straight! We'll be breaking down the worst tactics for you to use to end your month at the bottom of the leaderboard And if we're lucky we'll get Dom to drop a pint glass again on the call Can't wait to see you there! Link in the comments to register ⬇ #coldcalling

Response and connect rates are down. The bar for copywriting and insight to book a meeting is way up. And breaking into accounts even harder. Here's the typical advice I'm hearing from sales leaders (and why it's not enough): Many leaders are harping on their team’s to do “better” prospecting. "Invest your time in the right areas." "Improve your messaging." "Narrow in on your targets." "Deeply understand your prospects’ business." "Be creative to get access to the right people." That's all good advice, but... The problem is – where do you start and how do you change the collective behaviors of a sizable org? The answer is simple: A strong ACCOUNT PLAN. And we're going to teach you how to develop one... On Wednesday, I will host a session with Shea Brucker (VP of Enterprise Sales) at Contentsquare, where he will share everything he’s learned to successfully break into top accounts. He’s been lucky enough to learn from some of the best sales leaders with successful runs at companies like Medallia, Box, Datadog, Anaplan, and Adobe. You're not going to want to miss this! When: July 24 at 12pm ET / 9am PT Register here: https://lnkd.in/e3sd2VTz P.S. Yes, it will be recorded - sign up and we will send the recording :)

Unless you have a top 1% SDR on the phones (think: Will Falkenborg 🌭), the SDR function doesn’t work for ACV below $75-100k. And that ACV number is only going up! Here’s a breakdown of the SDR math: BACKGROUND: Five years ago, it felt like most high-growth companies were onboarding as many SDRs as they possibly could. It was purely a hiring and enablement puzzle. Today, that approach is WAY LESS common. Here is why: 1. Lower interest rates led to decreased valuation multiples and the markets (both private and public) are pushing companies to be more efficient/profitable earlier 2. Nearly every category is more competitive than it was a few years ago – meaning more people fighting for the same budget (both direct and indirect) 3. It’s become 10x easier to spin up GTM plays – therefore most companies are running the exact same plays to source pipeline – email automation, video, power dialers, intent data, etc. There isn’t much arbitrage here. HERE'S A REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE: I recently talked to a sales leader at a well-funded 600 person SaaS company. They sell to upper MM / Enterprise accounts with >1k employees Even with a multiple person “growth” team focused on SDR and AE enablement and productivity (think: research automation, account scoring, a variety of triggers and signals), the SDRs are only booking 8 meetings / month. According to Winning by Design, the avg win rate for SaaS companies is 17%. If we assume this company flips 50% of those meetings to opps, that means each rep would source ~8 deals a year. Now, if you have an ACV that is $100k - that math adds up all day. $800k/year per SDR. Great. Go Hire more. But what if your ACV is only $15k? That's ~$120k/year per SDR. Include average attainment, ramp times, performance management, the management/ops/enablement overhead to get them there, there is a LOT LESS margin for error and this falls below most ARR/FTE targets. TAKEAWAY: For the SDR function to be a no-brainer growth strategy in 2024, you need either truly enterprise deals OR a GTM execution that is elite in one of the key variables... Off the charts in booking meetings, flipping meetings to opps, nurturing old meetings to create nurture or revival opps every month, or producing a consistent  win rate that is a positive outlier. Companies with smaller ACVs will continue to see pressure on the SDR function. Hire accordingly.

Last week I had dinner with a VP of Sales who's company just invested $50,000 in a fully automated AI-SDR program. Here's how it went (and why I think these AI SDR companies are in trouble): At first, it was great! The AI SDR bot booked an extra 20 meetings a month. They were VERY excited, of course. And then by month three... It completely stopped working. 0 meetings. This isn't some rookie sales leader either. He is well-respected and operationally sound. An early adopter of all sales tech, he grew his previous company from $2M-100m in less than 5 years. He thought his new company was the SWEET SPOT spot for using an AI SDR. They have a big TAM, a narrow set of titles to target, and a compelling value prop that means whoever company gets to the DM first typically wins. So why did the AI SDR work so well and then drop off a cliff? The hypothesis is that: 1. They started to run out of ideal contacts to target – the AI SDR was doing 30-50x more activity than a human SDR 2. Positive response were dropping after the initial campaign – then the AI started adding more contacts and accounts to make up for it 3. Extremely detailed campaigns using a variety of inputs were useful but as those inputs got weaker with targeting slightly less ideal fits, the results plummeted. There are only so many HVAs (high value activities) to automate So when it stopped working, this VP started asking hard questions... "How much did this hurt our prospects' perception of our brand?" "What did it do to our email deliverability?" "How can we orchestrate wide enough without butting up against the human SDR’s targets?" The answers weren't pretty. TAKEAWAY: I am really excited about the future of AI in sales. However, I think AI SDRs will cause dramatic increases in activity and do more harm than good. Causing the core channels human SDRs are using to get even less effective. For me, that means the more traditional, highly researched, timely calling, and relationships based selling will continue to win. There are no silver bullets.

👀 ICYMI we just dropped the ultimate guide to building an outbound culture after interviewing world class sales leaders: Daisy Chung, Doug May, Mark Treacy, Jose Soares, Brian Michael, Maya Connet, Neal George, Carrie Bosworth, Steve Travaglini, Ellen Rataj, and Justin Geller. Here are the top 6 takeaways: 1. The whole company needs to be committed 2. Clear expectations come from leading from the front. Show your reps what successful outbound looks like 3. Embed outbound accountability into your operating culture including celebrating the wins 4. Operations support is key (not just metrics, but clear ROE) 5. Enablement needs to be constant. What works changes quickly 6. Building culture starts with building the right team - find people who are excited by the hunt Here's a sneak peak on building culture from Harness's SVP of Productivity, Doug May. Get the full guide in the comments!

Hey Salespeople, you need to figure out the estimated revenue of a company BEFORE you get on a sales call with them. Here's why and exactly how to calculate it: BACKGROUND: All sellers have heard some flavor of... “Act like a business consultant” “Deeply understand your prospect’s business” “You should be able to think about their business like in you are in their boardroom” Sure. It's good advice. I have told many reps the same thing. But, the problem is always the same... How? _______ PUTTING THIS IN CONTEXT: Every B2B company buys a product for one of three reasons: 1. Decrease costs 2. Increase revenue 3. Reduce risk Let’s assume you sell a product that helps them increase revenue. If you're on a sales call the prospect might open up about plans of growing 30% this year but are pacing to only 60% of that target. Without context (or a buyer who opens up), it will be hard to form a hypothesis as to the size of the potential revenue impact you can have. Which is a huge problem... Because your job as the seller is to help expand their thinking, connect the dots, and enable your budding Champion to make a compelling business case. _______ HERE IS ONE TACTICAL TRICK THAT HELPS: It’s easy to find how many employees a company has. Using benchmarks (shoutout to Kyle Poyar!), you can make a good estimate of what their revenue is. When I learned this in 2016-2017, it was pretty accurate to use roughly $150k/employee when selling to the mid-market. According to Kyle’s data, ARR per FTE (full time employee) is going up. This is mainly due to: - the market demanding more efficiency - focus on getting to profitability - higher interest rates and no more free money Using Kyle’s chart, you can make an informed estimate that shows credibility, higher level thinking, and the ability to get on the same side of the table as your buyer. There is no excuse for not having a strong hypothesis when going into a call.

Want to hear what life with Champify is like? Dimmo 🦖 is hosting a conversation with Peter Zendt - Enterprise Sales at Clari! Don't miss out - https://lnkd.in/eX5Ez6Cc We're so excited to be featured on episode 1!

Over the last 9 years growing a company from sub 10 people to 100s of employees, I’ve been lucky to work with dozens of great sales leaders. From peers, to multiple VP-Sales, multiple CROs, and even great board members and advisors, I’ve seen multiple different strategies when it comes to building a high-functioning sales organization. One of the most important components to all of these different playbooks I’ve seen (and helped build) is an emphasis on Account Planning. I am excited to catch up with my friend and ex-colleague Todd Busler at Champify to share these learnings next week! Check out the link in the comments to register for the event!