10 Key Takeaways from TOPO Sales Summit 2016

10 Key Takeaways from TOPO Sales Summit 2016

2016

Learn how the world’s best sales leaders drive exceptional growth.

01. Account-Based Everything (ABE)02. Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)03. Sophisticated Buyer04. Demand Management

(not Sales Development)05. Unconsidered Needs06. Leverage LinkedIn07. Retention Management08. Product Feedback Loop09. Tech Stack10. Value Chain Selling

Agenda

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[Ebook] Key Takeaways from TOPO Sales Summit 2016

Sales and marketing teams are moving towards an Account-Based Everything (ABE) model to target the high-value accounts that will convert at a higher rate and actually drive growth.

01. Account-Based Everything (ABE)

Identify your key personas based on your customer data. Map your CRM to your personas and route all leads into these different persona profiles. Sharing persona details with the rest of the organization is key to ensuring that all efforts, from sales to marketing, product to support, are aligned to your persona’s profile.

According to Jason Seeba, Chief Marketing Technologist at BloomReach, you should be treating every prospect like they’re your only prospect in the entire world. Encourage your SDRs to let their imagination run wild as they think of innovative ways to grab the attention of their prospects (ex: send out bestselling books to top accounts with handwritten notes inside.)

Prioritize by Fit-to-Persona


Personalization is Key

Marketing and sales teams should be aligned on account definitions, lead handoff and treatment. Have your Account Executives and SDRs meet regularly to align on key accounts they are targeting and refine their strategy.

Team Alignment


Identifying the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is critical for focusing your marketing and sales efforts. The ICP will define which accounts are the highest priority for the organization and avoid wasted time on accounts that simply aren’t a good fit.

02. Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

The Ideal Customer Profile can be created from three data sets:


1. Internal data (ie. historical closed-won data by account type)

2. Qualitative data (ie. sales rep feedback)

3. External data (ie. predictive data/analytics)

Detail the top priorities of each target buyer and develop your value props so that they are aligned. Your email copy and phone scripts should speak to to the buyer’s individual traits and pain points.

Create 30-second value props that are aligned with buyer-centric messaging and language that resonates with the buyer’s challenges. Place an emphasis on their pain points rather than discussing product features. Avoid using jargon and marketing terms that seem disingenuous and fabricated.

Create Buyer-Centric Messaging


30-Second Value Props

Customer stories should be short descriptions that illustrate how you address a specific pain that will resonate with the buyer. Effective use case stories are more personal than case studies because they have a protagonist. Each of your sales reps should be able to recite three to four customer stories by memory.

Share Relevant Use Case Stories


With the growth of new technology and communication channels, buyers are receiving more emails and phone calls from vendors than ever before. A Q&A session with MongoDB CMO, Meagen Eisenberg, revealed some useful best practices for sales reps who want to sell to the sophisticated buyer.

3. Sophisticated Buyer

While qualifying questions help the SDR working the account, they can feel more like annoying homework for the buyer. According to Meagen, “It’s exhausting explaining to a vendor everything about our goals and how your business works.

I just want to hear how your solution works and how it’s helped other businesses like mine. It’s a waste of my time telling you what I’m working on.” Try to minimize your use of qualifying questions and ask them only when absolutely necessary.

Go Easy on the Qualifying Questions


Meagen emphasized that if it’s obvious a vendor has done their homework before contacting her, then she’s much more likely to take a meeting. Spend more time thoughtfully crafting your outreach to demonstrate you actually understand your prospect’s challenges, specificindustry, competitors and so on.

Do Your Homework


“It’s great when they just have thirty minutes to sell me their product instead of interrogating me...off the bat I don’t have to do all of the talking,” said Meagen.

While attaching files can block you from certain email filters, Meagen expressed that sharing thought leadership content is helpful. “I appreciate thoughtful information that educates me in the space rather than a product brief,” said Meagen.

Include Content


Sometimes, changing your mindset can make a world of difference. Scott Keane, Google’s Director of Global Demand Management, emphasized that focusing on demand management instead of sales development could help you shift into a mindset that puts the buyer first. Here are a few bits of wisdom from Scott Keane:

4. Demand Management (not Sales Development)

Ask relevant stakeholders within your organization to agree on the different definitions you have of the lead’s lifecycle stages. Understand the goals and intentions of each stakeholder as you build out definitions since some may work more to the advantage of some than others.

Agree with Stakeholders on Definitions and Expectations


Before launching a new approach and process, it’s important to determine the priorities of the organization’s leadership team and then demonstrate to them that your priorities are the same. This ensures that everyone is aligned and all efforts are focused in the right direction.

Ensure Your Top Priorities Are Shared by Top Leaders

Hold monthly meetings to review process, metrics and SLAs between your sales and marketing teams. Conduct an audit once a quarter to reassess processes and definitions of milestones. Standardizing the metrics you use will offer more reliable insights into the success of your sales process.

Establish an Ongoing Cadence for Feedback


Help your customers understand what problems they should be thinking about or paying attention to. These are what Box’s Chief Storyteller, Doug Landis, calls “unconsidered needs”. Combine your customers’ unconsidered needs with your solution’s strengths to help them connect the dots.

5. Unconsidered Needs

There are three types of unconsidered needs:


1. Undervalued Needs: Quickly upcoming needs that your customers/prospects don't fully appreciate.

2. Unmet Needs: Needs that yourcustomers/prospects don'trealize they have because they've created a workaround or assume it’s a nuisance that can't be fixed.

3. Unknown Needs: Needs that customers/prospects don’t even know exist.

It’s important to paint a contrasting picture for your prospective customers - a message that tells them what the problem is and then what the future would look like if they could fix it successfully using your solution.

Create Contrast


Before asking your prospect to answer a list of questions in a cold email, give your prospect some insight into their space. Give first before asking or taking.

Offer Insight

With millions of business leaders using LinkedIn as their professional network, LinkedIn offers a goldmine of opportunity for sales representatives. TOPO’s Senior Analyst of Sales Practice, Robert Koehler, shared ways to leverage LinkedIn wisely.

6. Leverage LinkedIn

Devise an enticing headline that will resonate with your target audience. Combine your job title with a pitch that positions your value proposition. For example, “Sales Analyst: Helping sales leaders sell better.”

Headline


In your Summary section, address the challenges and goals of your buyers that you have established from your ICP research. LinkedIn is no longer just an online resume; it’s an opportunity to establish yourself as a problem solver and thought leader.

Summary

It never hurts to ask a connection for an introduction. Be sure to mention why you are asking for an intro and make it easy for them by sending them a note stating why you want to reach out and that you’re asking them to forward the message on.

Referral Request


When doing research on aprospect, their groups andrecommendations reveal a lot of great information that could help personalize your approach when you reach out. Look for clues and insights into their interests, challenges, the way that they think and what they value.

Groups and Recommendations

Meeting acceptance improves drastically when you connect with a prospect with commonalities like school, connections, company history, etc. Be ready with high-value messaging once you contact based on commonality.

Commonalities


Venture partners Glenn Solomon from GGV Capital and Brett Rochkind from General Atlantic weighed in on the importance of customer retention.

7. Retention Management

“Renewing customers and keeping them happy is critical. I’ve seen models that place that responsibility on the sales team and others on the customer success team. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.”

7. Retention Management

Glenn Solomon

“Retention management not only impacts the valuation and revenue model, but also references. Implementation is key because it’s your first opportunity to make an impression.”Brett Rochkind

According to Jariaj Sounderrajan, Head of Global Sales Ops at Twilio, creating a product feedback loop that involves the sales team can be a great opportunity to collect valuable qualitative data.

8. Product Feedback Loop

While the product marketing team engages with dozens of customers, the sales team engages with thousands of prospects. The customer insights product marketing teams pull are highly valuable, but the product feedback that can be captured from sales conversations can be also be beneficial.

Product Marketing


Since the sales team is engaged in so many conversations with cold prospects, noting those “Aha!” moments, or discovery points that get the prospects excited about the product are really valuable insights.

Aha! Moments

Jairaj suggested automating a form popup after every initial prospect interaction where the sales rep can insert valuable product feedback. Sales reps can note what features resonated most with the prospect, or features that the product was lacking according to the prospect.

Collect the Data


Building a scalable sales machine that meets the growing demands of customers can only be achieved through great technology. TOPO’s Chief Analyst and Co-Founder, Craig Rosenberg, outlined the things that you should consider when evaluating your sales technology stack.

9. Tech Stack

Individual sales reps use applications to manage prospects and opportunities throughout the sales process. The technology you use should simultaneously help your reps deliver better experiences to buyers and improve sales cycles. These tools could focus on data intelligence, deal management or sales touches.

Sales Productivity

9. Tech Stack

These are applications and tools that the sales leadership team uses to manage their team. They are mostly comprised of print technologies that cover cycles of planning, tracking and analyzing selling efforts.

Sales Management

These applications enable your sales team to manage opportunities, contacts, leads, accounts and activities within the context of the sales process. They enable better visibility, more effective reps and better management.

CRM

9. Tech Stack

TOPO’s Senior Analyst, David Hershenson, outlined the outbound prospecting playbook to minimize the headache between a standard set of prospecting steps.

10. Outbound Prospecting Framework


Step 1: Prospect Data Identify contacts that align to key buyer personas and collect contact info and source contact info (phone/email) or find an alternate path to contact (LinkedIn/social media).

Step 2: Pre-Call ResearchUse the 3x3 rule: Find 3 pieces of information you can use to sell to prospects in 3 minutes.

Step 3: Multi-Touch Campaign Maintain a volume of at least 8-12 touches per contact. Utilize multiple touch channels (email, dials, voicemail, LinkedIn, etc.).


Step 4: Live Call Execution Successful sales reps createa call plan and agenda thatdirect the conversationwith the prospect to achieve a very specific outcome, as well as a concrete follow up strategy and next steps.

Step 5: NurturePlace unresponsive prospects in a 8-10 touch nurture campaign with high-value content designed to educate. Always include a call-to-action centered around discussing the content, not your offer.

Step 6: Time Management 83.4% of SDRs fail to consistently hit quota due to poor time management skills. Create aggressive activity goals daily, schedule and protect critical activities on your calendar and end each day by preparing your agenda for tomorrow.

When it comes to connecting with your prospects, there is no channel

more personal than the phone.

Find out how your reps can reach twice the volume of leads and personalize touches with Talkdesk’s

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2016

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10 Key Takeaways from TOPO Sales Summit 2016

Sales

Transcript of 10 Key Takeaways from TOPO Sales Summit 2016