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by
Mark Roberge
Read between
November 6 - December 25, 2018
The whole idea of innovation is that it gives you a competitive breathing space—a period when you have something unique and special that puts you ahead of competitors. In the good old days, a decent innovation could look forward to a year or two of advantage in the marketplace before the competition could catch up. Not so today: you're lucky if you have a couple of months at the most. As a result, many companies are questioning their reliance on innovation as a growth strategy. It's for this reason that an increasing number of leading companies have a new mantra—organic growth. As Jeffrey
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Mark is an MIT-trained engineer who joined a three-person start-up called HubSpot. Let me spend a moment relishing Mark's lack of qualification for the job, which was to build “scalable, predictable revenue growth” or, in other words, sales.
You cannot succeed in today's B2B sales world unless you embody many of the disciplines that are part of good engineering training: numeracy, logic, and analytical ability, for example.
Thanks to our CMO and my “SMarketing” partner, Mike Volpe. The demand generation innovations executed by Mike and his team were the main driver behind our accelerated revenue success.
Introduction “Scalable, predictable revenue growth.” I jotted these four words down on a notepad. It was 11 p.m. on a Thursday night. I had just signed the paperwork to join a three-person marketing software start-up called HubSpot. I had met the cofounders, Dharmesh Shah and Brian Halligan, while we were students together at MIT. They were smart guys with a big mission: help companies transform their marketing from outbound to inbound. My job was to build the sales team.
I picked up the notepad again and continued writing: “Hire the same successful salesperson every time.” (The Sales Hiring Formula) “Train every salesperson in the same way.” (The Sales Training Formula) “Hold our salespeople accountable to the same sales process.” (The Sales Management Formula) “Provide our salespeople with the same quality and quantity of leads every month.” (The Demand Generation Formula) These four components represented my formula for sales acceleration. If I could execute on these four elements, I believed I would achieve my mission of “scalable, predictable revenue
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In this book, I refer to these predictable frameworks as the Sales Hiring Formula, the Sales Training Formula, the Sales Management Formula, and the Demand Generation Formula.
In Part II, I outline the Sales Training Formula. You will learn why the “ride-along” training strategy, in which a new hire shadows a top performer for a month, is dangerous.
The Sales Acceleration Formula completely alters this paradigm. In today's digital world, in which every action is logged and masses of data sit at our fingertips, building a sales team no longer needs to be an art form. There is a process. Sales can be predictable. A formula does exist.
The Sales Hiring Formula 1 Uncovering the Characteristics of a Successful Salesperson World-class sales hiring is the most important driver of sales success.
Over the years, I have hired hundreds of salespeople for the HubSpot sales team. I have advised many companies on their own hiring process. After reflecting on these efforts, I found some very bad news. The ideal sales hiring formula is different for every company.
I realized that every salesperson has her unique strengths. Some are great consultative sellers. Some crush their sales activity goals. Some deliver exceptional presentations. Some are amazing networkers. Some just know how to make their customers feel like family.
Unfortunately, high-activity salespeople coming from an established company with a no-brainer value proposition were not equipped with the skills to succeed in our context, even if they had been the top dog in their last role.
I was ready to engineer my company's sales hiring formula. I simply went back to the Interview Scorecards for the top performers and asked myself the following questions: Which characteristics do these top performers have in common? Are these characteristics predictors of success here at HubSpot? Once I identified them, I increased the weight of these characteristics. Which characteristics do not seem to matter? Which characteristics do not predict success? I needed to decrease the weight of these characteristics or eliminate them altogether. What am I missing? I had to think beyond the
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Figure 1.1 shows the results of the first model. Figure 1.1 Correlation of Sales Characteristics to HubSpot Sales Success (Results of the First Regression Analysis).
“Statistics suggest salespeople who are intelligent and helpful, rather than aggressive and high-pressure, are most successful with today's empowered buyer.”
To Recap World-class sales hiring is the biggest driver of sales success. The ideal sales hiring formula is different for every company, but the process to engineer the formula is the same. Statistics suggest salespeople who are intelligent and helpful, rather than aggressive and high-pressure, are most successful with today's empowered buyer. 2
There were five traits that correlated most significantly with sales success. Coachability Curiosity Prior success Intelligence Work ethic
One of my favorite ways to start the class is to ask the students, “What makes a great salesperson great?” The most popular answers are consistent across venues and audiences: “aggressive,” “convincing,” “great presenter,” “money-hungry.” I don't think anyone has ever given me the answer I am looking for. Great salespeople are naturally curious. They ask great questions, listen intently, and probe into points of interest.
The second test of curiosity occurs during the role-play. Let's use the same role-play that I set up in the previous section on coachability. Ring Ring. [Marketing Manager] “Hi, this is Mark.” [Candidate] “Hi, Mark. This is Jess at HubSpot. Did I catch you at a bad time?” [Marketing Manager] “I have one minute.” [Candidate] “Great. I am not sure how much you know about HubSpot. We have an all-in-one marketing platform that helps companies get found online and convert visitors into leads and customers using your website. We have worked with Company X and Y in your industry. I am calling to see
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Does the candidate lead with great questions? Or does the candidate “show up and throw up,” as we say in the industry? Does the candidate ask about the specific areas the prospect cares about? Or does the candidate bore the prospect with her company's elevator pitch? Curiosity: the ability to understand a potential customer's context through effective questioning and listening.
To Recap Every buyer context should have a unique sales hiring formula. For HubSpot's buyer context, there were five criteria that correlated most strongly with sales success. These criteria are probably components of your ideal hiring formula, especially if you are operating in a rapidly evolving market. The five criteria are: Coachability: The ability to absorb and apply coaching. Curiosity: The ability to understand a potential customer's context through effective questioning and listening. Prior success: A history of top performance or remarkable achievement. Intelligence: The ability to
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“Don't hire a recruiting agency. Don't build a corporate recruiting team. Build a recruiting agency within your corporation.”
Alignment between the prospect's current buyer context and our buyer context. Are they currently selling to large enterprises or SMBs? Are they selling a commodity or a complex product? Is their sales process more relationship-oriented or transactional? These factors help me assess the learning curve for potential candidates. If these aspects do not match my buyer context, that is not a showstopper. I am just looking for some low-hanging fruit.
Here is an example of a typical email I would send. In this example, the person I am trying to reach is an employed salesperson at Yahoo! and recent Boston College graduate. Email Subject: Yahoo!/Boston College Email Body: John, Congrats on all your success! I run the sales team over here at HubSpot. Our current team can't keep up with the inbound lead flow so we are expanding the team. Your background is similar to those of our current top performers. Are there any folks in your network who are in the job market and have a background similar to yours? Best, Mark Roberge SVP of Global Sales
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To Recap our key takeaways in this chapter Great salespeople never need to apply for a job. Finding great salespeople requires a passive recruiting strategy. Don't hire a recruiting agency. Don't build a corporate recruiting team. Build a recruiting agency within your corporation. Searches on LinkedIn and the forced referral are great sources for quality passive sales talent.
To Recap my perspectives When faced with the first sales hire decision, many founders put the most weight on senior leadership experience and industry domain knowledge. Don't fall into this trap. The most critical value from your first sales hire comes not from the first customers or revenue she generates, but from her ability to accelerate the company toward product/market fit.
Defining the Three Elements of the Sales Methodology: The Buyer Journey, Sales Process, and Qualifying Matrix There are three aspects of a well-designed sales methodology: the buyer journey, the sales process, and the qualifying matrix. These three elements represent the “best-practice blueprint” around which a successful training program should be modeled.
The buyer journey represents the general steps through which a company progresses as it purchases a product.
An early example of the HubSpot buying journey is outlined in Figure 5.1. Figure 5.1 An Early Example of the HubSpot Buying Journey
The sales process supports the customer along his buying journey. For example, if a potential customer requests more information about the company's product, the salesperson should email the relevant information to the requestor. In addition, the salesperson should call the potential customer to find out more about his questions. The exercise of calling and emailing a potential customer is often referred to as “prospecting” and is a common stage in the sales process.
When setting up the sales process stages, it is best if the stages are aligned with the buying journey. Alignment with the buying journey increases the likelihood that the salesperson will be perceived as helpful through the process, as the next steps in the process between the buyer and salesperson are in sync.
The qualifying matrix defines the information needed from a potential buyer in order to understand whether we can help the prospective buyer and whether the buyer wants help. The information is gathered at various stages of the sales process. It is rarely gathered in the same order across different deals.
A very common qualifying matrix that has been used for many decades is BANT. BANT stands for “Budget, Authority, Need, and Timing.”
To Recap Every top-performing salesperson succeeds in her own unique way. Heavy reliance on ride-alongs during the training process jeopardizes a new hire's ability to shine using her unique strengths. A “ride-along” sales training strategy is neither scalable nor predictable. Defining the sales methodology enables the sales training formula to be scalable and predictable. The three elements of the sales methodology are the buyer journey, the sales process, and the qualifying matrix. Exams and certifications add predictability to the sales training formula. They also provide the platform to
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In the first few years of HubSpot, we targeted marketing professionals. Therefore, my sales training goal was to teach our new sales hires what it was like to be a marketer. New sales hires did not spend their first few weeks in sales training, memorizing scripts and discussing objections. Instead, our new sales hires spent their first few weeks at HubSpot developing their own website, writing their own blog, and creating their own social media presence. By the completion of training, our new sales hires would often rank at the top of Google search results for dozens of keywords. They built
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Sales hires felt the pain of a marketer because they lived through it. By the time new hires made their first prospecting calls, they knew more about inbound marketing, blogging, and social media than 90 percent of the marketers on whom they were calling. They could genuinely understand these marketers. They could genuinely advise them. They could genuinely help them.
In the early interactions with skeptical buyers, our salespeople would state, “Listen. Most people are skeptical when they hear about inbound marketing for the first time. I was skeptical too. I just joined the company six months ago. Like you, I do not consider myself to be a technical person. I used to sell insurance before coming here. I knew nothing about blogging, SEO, or social media. But this stuff works! Look at this blog I developed in training. It literally took me a few days of effort. Do a Google search for ‘best Italian food in Boston.’ That is my website right there. The first
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That is modern selling. Modern selling feels less like a seller/buyer relationship and more like a doctor/patient relationship.
Here are some additional tactics with which salespeople can experiment. “Social media presents an opportunity for all salespeople to be perceived as trusted advisors by their buyers. Salespeople should take some time normally spent prospecting and reallocate it to social media participation. The rewards are greater.” Find the people on Twitter that your prospects follow. They may be journalists. They may be thought leaders. They may be executives at companies that complement your offering. Retweet their posts. Many of them will start to follow you. Send them a direct message and introduce
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You may be wondering, “Which sales metrics are best to track?”
This chart illustrates a basic funnel of leads created, leads worked, demos delivered, and customers closed in the prior month.
To Recap Effective sales coaching by sales managers is the most important lever to drive sales productivity. A common sales management mistake is to overwhelm the salesperson with coaching too many skills simultaneously. Pick one skill and focus. Use metrics to diagnose which skill development area will have the biggest impact on a salesperson's performance. Customize the coaching plan to that skill area. Execute metrics-driven sales coaching.
“The sales compensation plan is one of the most effective tools for the CEO and VP of sales to drive business strategy.”
Plan 1: The Hunting Plan The first compensation plan we ever had at HubSpot was very oriented toward “hunting” new customers. It was the right plan for the time. We had 100 customers. We were at an annual run rate of barely $300K. We needed to acquire customers quickly so that we could accelerate our path toward product/market fit and gain a deeper understanding of what could make our business model sustainable! The first plan paid each salesperson $2 upfront for every $1 of monthly recurring revenue they brought on. For example, if a salesperson closed a customer on a $500 per month
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Plan 2: The Customer Success Plan
Plan 3: The Customer Commitment Plan
“Evaluate a sales compensation design through the lens of three factors: Simple. Aligned. Immediate.”
To Recap The sales compensation plan is one of the most effective tools for the CEO and VP of sales to use to drive business strategy. There is no perfect sales compensation plan. The appropriate sales compensation plan depends on the stage of the business. Evaluate a sales compensation design through the lens of three factors: Simple. Aligned. Immediate. Sales contests are an effective tool to drive short-term behaviors and build team culture within the sales organization.
To Recap Focus on leadership skills, rather than general sales management skills, when developing future managers internally. Develop your leadership bench by using a formal leadership curriculum for your salespeople who earn the opportunity. Before formal promotion, let qualified leadership candidates hire, train, and manage one new salesperson while still carrying their individual quota responsibilities. Avoid the common pitfalls of new managers: exhibiting weak time management around coaching, acting as a glorified salesperson, and giving up on new hires too early.
