Alison Farber

Opinion: every AE should be sending this note out prior to a discovery call - most miss this Let’s say you’ve got a call on the books with a Director of Marketing and they’ve decided to bring a couple more folks including their Sr Dir CX and head of IT. Take 30-sec and send those folks a quick note a few days before the discovery. It could sound as simple as this: “Hi Devon - see that you’ll be joining Linda and I on our call this Thursday @ 2. Looking forward to it. So I can make the most out of your valuable time, what would be 2 areas you’re looking to level up as it relates to driving a better experience for your customers on digital channels? P.S. read your post last week on the new product Z launch. Exciting times! ………………………….. Uncover what’s top of mind before you even speak with them. Multithread early and often in your deal cycles. Come in warm on your discovery calls. It’ll help guide the conversation. P.S. the SDR could also send this note out prior to the discovery pretty good intel to share with the AE you’ve booked the call for

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As an organization, you are in one of these four states with your sales and marketing. 1) You are not getting enough leads, and you don’t know how to get more leads. 2) You know how to generate leads but can’t consistently manage the lead volume and convert them to sales. 3) You can generate and close leads but do not have the time and horsepower to scale for more. 4) You have the time and are putting in the effort, but you are not generating or closing enough to reach your goals. If you are in category one or four, you lack effective market message fit.   Simply put, you don’t know how to effectively tell your customers the problem you solve for them in a compelling way that makes them feel foolish not to buy from you.   Often, companies can tell people what they do or sell but do not explain why what they do is important (what is the problem they solve for their customers.)   If you are in category two or three, you lack a process for your sales organization.   Simply put, you do not have a clearly documented sales process supported by a sales tech stack that allows you to add force to your process and remove friction.    Often, companies are using disconnected tools or poorly implemented tools, or they are not doing the work they should to get the sales at scale.   For instance, preparing for a meeting takes research. ◉ I Google the prospect ◉ Review their website ◉ Try to find their customers ◉ Look at reviews ◉ Review their LinkedIn: look at their experience and if we have common connections ◉ Profile them with Humanic AI ◉ Review their other social accounts for potential common interests ◉ Set an agenda for the call This is all just part of the sales process supported by a CRM with playbooks and integrated tech to make this easier for Roadmap to do. Our sales call recap is done by AI, ensuring the step occurs and saves us time.   This improves our process and speed, improves our close rate, and allows us to scale (do more in less time).   By the way, at Roadmap, we were in category three in 2023, so: ◉ We added AI to our process ◉ Supported all our sellers with enhanced processes (Playbooks, Sequences, Templates) ◉ Training, training, training! ◉ Product standardization ◉ Resourced Lead Gen (Budget and People) Now in 2024, we have added a dedicated BD resource Michelle Corry as we have proven scale.   Take stock of where you are and solve accordingly.

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If “Where’s my commission?!” was a dollar, we’d all be millionaires. But why live in that world when there’s Everstage? 🤖 Automate your commission calculations. 🎯 Track your earnings in real-time. 💸 Boost motivation when reps know exactly what they're making. Fewer questions, more closed deals. Let your team focus on what matters – selling. DM me to know more. If you are in Denver, check out our GTM Fall Social 24' event. - https://bit.ly/3BqzP0E #SalesTech #CompensationClarity #Everstage #SalesMotivation

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Can enterprise deals close in lightning speed? When you invest early in relationships, in building trust, yes absolutely. We just had a significant project close in less than a week. Call with the CMO outlining needs last Wednesday afternoon, signed contract last night. Abnormal? Sure. Repeatable? You bet. Invest in relationships. Build trust early and often. In reality, I've been investing in this project for years. It's with a CMO I've known for a very long time, has been to several of our CMO breakfasts and events, and is less than three months into a new role. The relationship and trust we've built over the years checked many of the early buying journey boxes we'd otherwise have to go through over time (weeks? months?) if the relationship started cold. This isn't unique to a services sale either. The buyer who loved your software at a past company but couldn't buy for any of a myriad reasons could buy quickly at their new gig. TL:DR: Play the long game.

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NEW: Have you ever audited your sales process? 💡 A thorough audit can reveal hidden gaps and inefficiencies, significantly improving sales outcomes. https://lttr.ai/ATvqx #SalesProcess #InspireConversation

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I've been around intent data for the better part of a decade (developing and selling it at G2 and using it ever since). There are two factors I'm hearing from sales leaders that are currently driving intent discussions: 1) People are looking for more efficient ways to prospect because spray and pray doesn't work and conversion rates continue to drop 2) New players are popping up claiming they can do more / better (ZoomInfo, RB2B, etc.) Here's what we are currently experimenting with: > Social "Intent" < We track who likes/comments on our posts, who follows our company, and who is engaged with content that resonates with our value prop. The benefit to this method is that its personal. We can reach out and get generally good responses because they clearly know who we are and we can send customized executive outreach. The hard part about this is twofold: 1) its very manual - though we've used a combination of process, systems, and outsourcing to help 2) there's a reason why I put the word "Intent" in quotes. As with any signal, not everyone is a qualified prospect. > Website visitors < We've tried all the reveal products. They work (ish). It can mix up spouses who both work from home - one product showed my mom was on our website, when it was actually my dad. True story, 👋 mom. So the good news is you now can get person level data making the outreach more cut and dry. However, we've seen limited success in response rates. Our hypothesis is that many people on our site are simply reading a blog or poking around. They may not be an ICP fit or not ready to buy. The outreach cant hurt but it hasn't been as fruitful as first hoped. Couple that with the reminder that good reveal products show ~20% of your visitors, great ones maybe 30-40%. That means that a majority of your visitors aren't being shown, no matter what provider you are using. > 2nd and 3rd Party < Tools like G2 and 6Sense have shown success. But its important to make sure we are placing their value in the right place. These platforms are great for top of the funnel educational outreach. I'd use these tools in conjunction with ads, target account outreach, and social engagement to "strike while the iron is hot." The good news is intent is getting more dialed in. The bad news is there is no silver bullet. IMO the only way to actually see success is to marry these intent data inputs into a larger model that includes other 1st party data which scores the signals and then kickstarts campaigns (automated or not) towards high-intent accounts. Unfortunately, the signals, systems, and plays that need to be set up to make this work effectively are not trivial. So get a good Rev Ops pro, good intent data, and a good strategy and you should be all set :)

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