James Hanzimanolis’ Post

Bigger #sales teams aren't better sales teams. Quickly-scaling companies need to quickly change directions--new offerings, new markets, new tactics. Big sales teams don't do this well. If you want to grow quickly, the answer is better reps-- not more reps. Executives, that means you need to: - hire better salespeople - pay them more - invest in enablement and administrative/operations support

There is no point in retaining low performers in sales. Removing the bottom 20% is a relief and will increase focus on supporting high value work and performance. This standard will impact quota attainment, just by eliminating lower productivity and low value work.

The composition of roles and technologies used in sales organizations has changed over the past 24 years quite a bit... With change always comes a host of questions. Here are some common ones I am hearing from other leaders: Are SDRs relevant anymore? Should AEs be full-cycle? Is AI going to kill sales roles? While this answer could be a cop-out, my answer to most questions like this would be: "Maybe." There isn't a one-size-fits-all process for any company and GTM fit for each company can be hypervariable. That said, there are certainly prevailing themes. Many of those themes make a lot of sense when you consider best practices trends, the conditions of the economy at the time, the tech stack at the time, and the constant quest of smart sales leaders to differentiate with modified selling motions. Below is a simple timeline looking at how much things have changed in the past 24 years and possible reasons why. https://ibb.co/pJN89kM What are your thoughts on the sales processes of tomorrow? Will you revert to a legacy-proven model? Will you try to innovate? Will you wait and see? Let me know in the comments!

6 sales leaders at companies >$25m in ARR told me this week they need to dramatically improve their AE/SDR outbound pipeline creation. Leaders overcomplicate what it takes to build a strong outbound sales culture. A quote from my recent convo with Brian Michael, ex CRO at Snapdocs and VP-Sales at Medallia sums it up perfectly: “Building an outbound culture doesn’t happen without focus, clear expectations, consistency, enforcement, accountability, and simple KPIs. Inexperienced leaders see a key metric decreasing and then start to over-complicate things for their team.” In order to do this well, the best leaders I speak with do 3 things well: 1) Invest time and resources in front-line manager enablement and skill development 2) Value and fight for the best ops and enablement resources 3) Simplify processes by focusing on LESS initiatives, but at an extremely HIGH quality bar I am 100% aligned. That’s why our recent product release focuses on: 1) Living within reps existing workflows – every new tool/UI/process increases complexity and decreases the chance of adoption, adherence, and high quality output 2) Manger first approach -- giving them the insights to support, coach, and enable their teams is a more leveraged use of time and resources TAKEAWAY The best sales leaders know where to invest their time and energy They understand that adherence to process and constant skill development has massive impacts Simple and consistent -- not easy More inspiration and details below

Sales ramps are one of the most overlooked fundamental building blocks in a GTM organization. Everyone sets ramps for their teams. Fewer measure actual ramping performance in a particularly useful way. If they did, they may find some interesting opportunities. 1. "Reps are ramping slower than we expected." I've heard this one a few times in QBRs - may have said it too 😉 The problem is, by the time you're talking about this in a QBR you've already delayed acting. Ramp performance vs. plan is something you should track in real time because small deviations from the plan - spread across multiple ramping reps - can have significant impacts on your quota deployment timeline. 2. "Ramping is going great. Our reps are closing deals much faster than we anticipated." While this may not happen as often, it's just as important that you know it's happening. This may spur you to pull hiring up, put more quota on the street faster, and put yourself in a position to blow past your target. Or it may nudge you to look at the cost of commissions closely and understand if you're overspending because of consistent over attainment. Or... it may make you look at both! 3. "We're not planning to do a lot of hiring this year, so ramp performance isn't a priority." That sounds great, except for attrition, promotions, and role changes. All of these happen regardless of your hiring velocity, and in most cases, these moves trigger some type of ramp activity. Ramping is too fundamental to ever disregard. #sales #revops

Your top sales reps, despite how they wish to be treated, do not come from a royal blood line. They aren't kings and queens. They do not have magic pills that they slip to prospects turning them into paying customers. Are they talented in front of the customer? Probably. Do they have a specific set of processes that they can articulate and repeat? Most definitely. Replicating the successful go to market motions of top reps should be the number one priority of all sales leaders. As a sales leader, if you are flying blind with how the top reps do what they do, your 1:1's with the "other" reps are nothing more than hypothesis sessions. You also lose respect from the rest of the team as they know that you don't know what the top reps know. You know??! When sales leaders cower in the face of top reps for fear of upsetting them or losing them, we settle for mediocrity across the board. You can't drive repeatable and predictable success when you allow top reps to conceal and hide the black box. #outsidesales

VP of a $80M org and I agreed that the biggest spoof of the current sales process is the idea that you can create urgency in a deal The narrative from a lot of sales leaders to their team is to create urgency to drive a deal to close You can’t create urgency in an org you don’t have influence in You can, however, discover urgency and properly forecast the events to take place Timelines, benchmarks, initiatives, expectations and personal obligations within your conversations It’s either there and you damn good job at discovering it, creating a plan with it and then executing on it Or it’s not there and you put a pin in it till it aligns better #sales

CEOs and CROs - if your topline isn't growing, it might be your reps, but not the reason you think. 🤔 They might be afraid to bring in deals. Yep. Afraid to sell. It's not a #sales confidence thing. It may be an ops confidence thing. Reps may hesitate to close deals because operations can't deliver. Fear has been known to paralyze people - fears of: - Overpromising and underdelivering - Damaging customer relationships - Tarnishing their personal brand Creating a silent productivity killer. Reps may subconsciously pump the brakes, leading to: - Slower sales cycles - Smaller deal sizes - Missed quotas - Missed revenue targets. It's not a matter of involving ops in the deal process. (That's a good idea though) It's a matter of ops executing. When reps trust the post-sale experience, they sell with confidence. Question: Is your ops team ready to scale up and come through on the next deal? If not, might want to button that up with ops before the next push to close deals to make the quarter. Tag a sales rep or ops professional on your team who needs to see this. #confidence #saas #innovation PS If you enjoyed this post, please hit the like, share, and follow me for daily posts on #operationsexcellence, #healthcare, and golden retrievers.

There are complicated products & then there are complex products. Complicated products are usually the fault of the vendor. They did not do enough user research or pivoted to solve a very different problem. Selling complicated products is hard! Usually only the founder and the first few sales reps can sell it. No one else can hit quota. Enablement is a lost cause. Complex products solve an inherently complex problem, e.g. Databricks. You can sell complex products with efficiency, but it requires excellence. You gotta hire curious, smart reps. You have to invest in world-class enablement. Your SE bar has to be high. The job of a sales leader is to simplify the complex and complicated. That requires first asking the question: "Am I selling a complex or complicated product?" Your answer will clarify what moves will help you create simplicity. These were my notes (& commentary) from a conversation with the amazing Brian de Lemos

The entire world of field sales remains overwhelmingly ungoverned. Ungoverned ----> lacking strategy & insight which limits scalability & predictability SVPs of sales who spout off: "hope is not a strategy" do nothing but espouse "hope is our only strategy" due to lack of insight and visibility. The truth of the matter is there is such little oversight and visibility into what outside reps are doing on a daily basis that hope is their only course of action. Maybe if the sales leaders cross fingers on both hands, things will work out. #outsidesales