Predictable Revenue: Turn Your Business Into A Sales Machine With The $100 Million Best Practices Of Salesforce.com

by Aaron Ross

can grow a business through values like purpose, happy employees and customers, vision and fulfillment. They work, as proven by companies like Zappos!

Unique Genius helps you discover your purpose and turn it into a business you love. CEOFlow helps you turn your employees into mini-CEOs.

misconceptions in modern, effective sales: that adding salespeople is what grows revenue.

It’s common for 80-95% of our clients’ sales pipeline to come from this outbound process, driving the bulk (or all) of their growth.

Predictable Lead Generation, the most important thing for creating predictable revenue. A Sales Development Team that bridges the chasm between marketing and sales. Consistent Sales Systems, because without consistency you have no predictability.

“Hot Coals” of stress, missed results, and uncertainty:

shift from organic growth “A” (based on getting customers through founders relationships and hustling or organic internet marketing) to proactive growth “C”, which is based on investing in programs that generate predictable growth.

take companies who want to grow fast, mostly through adding new customers (rather than more mature companies who drive much of their growth through their customer base).

In high-productivity sales organizations, salespeople do not cause customer acquisition growth, they fulfill it.

sales is more and more like account management, and the focus of new customer acquisition responsibility growth falls more squarely on lead generation executives with titles like (VP Demand Generation, VP Pipeline Growth, VP Lead Generation, VP Sales Development).

better your lead generation is, the less dependent you are on the quality of your salespeople and sales process.

Better lead generation = more margin for sales error.

Sales VP and/or CEO divides the revenue target by the expected quota of each salesperson to determine the number of salespeople needed to hit the target.

It takes longer than expected to hire the new salespeople, and salespeople miss their targets after ramping MUCH more slowly than planned.

you don't have any repeatable lead generation programs yet, you're already behind in getting ready for your goals in the coming 6-12 months.

“Marketing through teaching” via regular webinars, white papers, email newsletters and live events, to establish yourself as the trusted expert

in your space (takes lots of time to build predictable momentum).

Cold Calling 2.0: By far the most predictable and controllable source of creating new pipeline, but it takes focus and expertise to do it well. Luckily, you are holding the guide to the process in your hands right now.

Building an excited partner ecosystem (very high value, very long time-to-results).

PR: It’s great when, once in awhile, it generates...

“Our ideal contact is a VP Sales who is new to their role (less

than 90 days in), who is looking to make things happen. They are process-oriented, report to the CEO or division president, and love data and reports. Their challenges include not being able to give accurate reports to their CEO because of problems with their sales system or the data in it…”

On any given day, the rep should send 50-100 targeted mass emails with a goal of having 5-10 responses per day (assuming about a 10% response rate).

Vertical (retail, finance, high tech, etc) Revenue Geography / Territory Employee count Business model (B2B, B2C, agency) Last Contact Activity Date

Last Account Activity Date Contact Title (CEO, Director of Marketing, etc.) Virtually anything else you are tracking

are a single email that came from a salesperson. They should be text-based, not fancy HTML. State simply and clearly why you are reaching out. Make the email easy to read and respond to on a blackberry or smartphone. Offer credibility (e.g., examples of customers). Ask just one simple-to-answer question (such as for a referral).

Send the messages either before 9am or after 5pm, and avoid Mondays and Fridays. (Sundays are okay.)

“The Seven Day Weekend” by Ricardo Semler, visit Worldblue.com to learn more about democratically run companies, or read CEOFlow: Turn Your Employees Into Mini-CEOs.

You get one head to hire… should it be a salesperson, or an account management person? Almost always the answer is sales. Ignore account management and ongoing customer support at your own peril. We now have a world of “Frictionless Karma.”

Hold the hands of your first 50 customers; give them lots of love.

There's no process or magic to this: call them, visit them, talk to them! Ask them what they need, if they have any improvements or ideas to suggest. Ask their advice. Then do something about it.

Five of the most important metrics in lead generation and sales development: New leads created per month. Number of qualified sales opportunities created per month. And the total dollar amount of new qualified pipeline generated this month (the best indicator of future revenue). Percentage conversion rate of leads to qualified opportunities. Total bookings or revenue(broken out by “New Business,” “Add-On Business,” or “Renewal Business.”) Win rates. What percentage of new pipeline resulted in won deals?

The Four Core Sales Functions (Or “Themes”) Here are four basic sales functions or themes (I say “themes” because each of these functions can be sub-divided even further as your organization gets bigger): “Inbound” Lead Qualification: Commonly called Market Response Reps, they qualify marketing leads coming inbound through the website or 800-number. The sources of these leads are marketing programs, search engine marketing, or organic word-of-mouth. “Outbound” Prospecting/Cold Calling 2.0: Commonly called Sales Development Reps or new business development reps, this function prospects into lists of target accounts to develop new sales opportunities from cold or inactive accounts. This is a team dedicated to

proactive business development. Highly efficient outbound reps and teams do NOT close deals, but create and qualify new sales opportunities and then pass them to Account Executives to close. “Account Executives” or “Sales”: These are quota-carrying reps who close deals. They can be either inside or out in the field. As a best practice, even when a company has an Account Management/Customer Success function, Account Executives should stay in touch with new customers they close past the close until the new customer is deployed and launched. Account Management/Customer Success: Client deployment and success, ongoing client management, and renewals. In today's world of “frictionless karma,” someone needs to be dedicated to making customers successful—and that is NOT the salesperson!

You can have a much more specific system with more levels. In the following example, with a larger organization and more roles, each role helps prepare the person to succeed in the next step:

Marketing intern or Sales Operations contractor Inside Sales Development, Qualify Inbound Leads Inside Sales Development, Outbound Prospecting

Inside Sales Closing, Small/Medium Businesses Inside Sales Closing, Small Field Deals Field Sales Closing, Mid-Market Accounts Fie...

In addition, they are the ones who: Listen much more than they talk. Are problem-solvers. Understand their customers’ industry/business/needs (key to both building trust with customers as well as understanding how to help solve their problems). Believe in their product and company. Demonstrate unquestionable integrity. Can get things done in their own company (via internal networks).

Pros: Reduced risk in hiring (there are still time and opportunity costs) Salespeople are highly incented to close business Cons: If your sales cycles are more than a month or two long, commission-only salespeople will begin starving before they can realistically close enough business. They are more likely to fall out before you can see whether or not they will really work out. The company will attract more inexperienced salespeople that can't get better jobs. Commission-only increases the motivation to "do wrong" to close a sale. You do not want desperate salespeople representing your company. They will increase your liability, decrease your customer success and satisfaction, and wreck your culture and morale. Erratic compensation and lack of reliable income means your salespeople have more financial problems, ironically distracting them from work goals.

The Best and Cheapest Investment In Your People… ...is consistent, regular training and coaching (especially new hires).

What Works A program with an ongoing, regular format. Includes exercises/role-playing and useful feedback. Is designed effectively, to make it worth your reps' time. Follow through on everything: maintain the schedule, check progress, keep it fresh and don't let things slip.

6 Responsibilities Of A Manager

Choose people carefully Set expectations and vision Remove obstacles Inspire your people Work for your people Improve it next time

What The World's Greatest Managers Do Differently, outlines 12 key measures for employees: Do I know what is expected of me at work? Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right? At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day? In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for good work? Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person? Is there someone at work who encourages my development? At work, do my opinions seem to count? Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel like my work is important? Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work? Do I have a best friend at work? In the last six months, have I talked with someone about my progress? At work, have I had opportunities to learn and grow?

How To Design Self-Managing Teams And Processes

change. Start by asking these two questions: How would the team operate if the manager disappeared tomorrow? What would have to happen for the team not to just continue operating at its current level, but actually to improve its results?

key responsibilities of a VP Sales:

Goal setting and achievement Personal involvement in big deals Culture Compensation—designing, calculating, reporting Talent—structuring roles, hiring, firing Coaching Analysis and reporting Bu...

“Important 20%” and “Other 80%.” In the 80% column, how can you first eliminate as much as possible? Work through the responsibilities this way: What can you Eliminate? What can be Automated? What can you Outsource? Finally, Delegate or Distribute what is left.

three components: A fixed base salary, A variable commission based on how many qualified (and audited/confirmed) opportunities that person generated in a month, and A variable commission based on how much revenue had been sourced by that person.