Every successful fast-growing B2B SaaS company has to have a large TAM (Total Addressable Market). But there is more to the best of SaaS – based on what I’ve seen of the best companies where I’ve been on the executive teams including Veeam and Acronis: Exceptional Customer Experience (CX) –…  Read More >

Business managers/executives are hired for the primary reason to make good decisions.  But making good and smart decisions is very complex. Additionally, many business decisions can affect a lot of important things in the organization including people (and their families).  Good decision-making requires more than just critical thinking skills (analyzing…  Read More >

Several times a year you must do a quick checkup and get a gauge on whether you need to rethink your Execution or troubleshoot your SaaS Sales Strategy. This is primarily about the “New Business” sales rather than Customer Success and existing business renewals or upsells & cross-sells – and…  Read More >

A couple of years ago I presented at the annual Inside Sales – Sales Acceleration Summit about “The Science of Sales” (InsideSales.com posted the presentation on Slideshare). What I used to call the The Magic Sales Formula is the “SaaS Sales Formula”:   Here are my notes on the formula:  …  Read More >

In a prior article, I wrote about what companies should include in a Strategic Plan which focuses on the Corporate Strategy. Of course, the right sequence requires the executives to craft their Corporate Strategy first (i.e. should be planned and finalized first before any other business functions craft their strategy)…  Read More >

CHAMP Sales Methodology It’s been 10+ years since I developed the CHAMP Selling System & the CHAMP sales methodology (and the CH.A.M.P.) qualification criteria that many SaaS sales leaders use.   The CHAMP Selling System – Intro Slides   What’s Different about the CHAMP Selling System First of all, CHAMP…  Read More >

If you aiming to build a “sales machine” that generates repeatable, predictable, scalable and sustainable revenue and growth, you need to first systematize your sales – i.e. you have to develop a System for yourself. Such system, just like coaches develop for their professional sports teams, in turn comprises several sub-systems and…  Read More >

The Blueprint for Scaling Your Sales I want to share a blueprint for how to think about scaling.  Scaling means that you are looking for “disproportionate growth results”.  This post is not meant to be tactical and it doesn’t cover any techniques but is primarily a general blueprint for going…  Read More >

I believe that your people are your biggest asset.  And on a Sales Team your people – sales professionals – can be engaged or disengaged based both on your company’s and your Sales Team’s own culture.  I care personally about building a positive and high-performance corporate culture and Sales Culture…  Read More >

The book “Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell” by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle was one of the best books on management and leadership that I’ve read in the past decade. Bill Campbell was the coach to some of the best CEOs in high tech…  Read More >

John Wooden who is one of the greatest sports coaches of all time said “Don’t mistake activity and achievement“. And Lou Gerstner, a former CEO of IBM who turned IBM’s fortunes around, similarly instructed – “Don’t confuse activity with results“.  Being busy and making an effort doesn’t mean you’re actually…  Read More >

Hitting a sales number is a complex thing to do – not complicated but complex – because there are so many variables and moving parts.  There is no “one size fits all” and not a magic bullet and it is “contextual” to each company and it’s own issues.  But here is…  Read More >

The other day I read an article from Michelle Vazzana at Vantage Point about “How to get more sellers to quota” and I wanted to summarize and add a few things. The focus is about coaching to activities because it is the seller’s activities that drive performance (i.e. hit Sales…  Read More >

I recently read a great book called “Sales Differentiation: 19 Powerful Strategies to Win More Deals at the Prices You Want” by Lee Salz which is a unique book because it focuses on Differentiation by the Sales team rather than the typical differentiating messaging done by marketing.  The overarching point…  Read More >

Pipeline Prioritization is a critical process for a Sales Manager to coach their reps – see “Sales Coaching on Pipeline Management and Sales Forecasting“. Here is what Sales Manager should coach reps to start by looking at these key factors in their pipeline: Opp Age or Duration in Stages =…  Read More >

The term (or a portmanteau?) that we all hear a lot in sales management is “A-Player” and you typically hear it in “you should only hire A-Players”.  But what does that mean – what is the definition of an “A-Player” in sales? Here is a great definition – see this…  Read More >

We all know that Sales Coaching is a critical job of any sales manager, whether a front-line manager (FLM) or a senior sales executive. Most FLMs know that Pipeline is one of the top 2 things in Sales and will need to focus their coaching on Pipeline Management but also…  Read More >

Hiring sales talent is the top priority and probably the most urgent skill for a CRO / VP of Sales (or a CEO who is hiring their sales executive).  However, most companies’ sales hiring process is not done well – I’ve seen this often. Here are a couple of tips…  Read More >

A VP of Sales must operationalize a process for all the Sales Managers to conduct assessments of the Opps in the Pipeline during an Opp Review meeting and check for “Red Flags”.  Otherwise you get a lot of “UFOs” (i.e. “Unlikely & Failing Opportunities”) that you just don’t want or…  Read More >

As a VP of Sales, you know your reps don’t have unlimited time to work their live deals.  You must coach them to prioritize their Opps in the pipeline to ensure that they are on track to hitting its goals.  By analyzing the Pipeline and focusing on the highest probability…  Read More >

Finding good salespeople is hard but it is much harder if you don’t have a process to make your hiring systematic and scientific. While some of the hiring can be an art, a lot of it can also be a science too.   Key Steps: First create a good Sales Org…  Read More >

I was recently asked what a new Sales Leader should do during their first three months (i.e. the first quarter) at their job.  And just the other day, I saw a link from SBI posting a video where Matt Sharrers (the CEO of SBI) asked Eric Vermillion (a former CRO of BlueCat)…  Read More >

  According to Private Equity International, PE firms are looking to boost portfolio company valuations while operational issues are becoming increasingly more complex. Source: https://www.privateequityinternational.com/record-demand-operating-partners-gps-seek-boost-portfolio-company-value-survey/ “Operating partner roles are the fastest-growing positions in private equity…” Here is value creation in 5 charts: https://www.peievents.com/en/event/operating-partners-technology-forum/value-creation-in-5-charts/      

What is the top Value Creation Area for PE Operating Partners? See the chart below – the single biggest area is: “Sales, marketing, and revenue growth”. Growing revenue will lead to EBITDA improvements and Multiple Expansion which both drive real value for PE portfolio companies.   Source: PEI – Private…  Read More >

As a Sales Leader you have to create a culture of accountability – everyone across the organization has to be accountable for their own performance and results. What is Accountability?  “It is a force that provides rewards or consequences for actions. A leader imposes the consequences for failing to meet…  Read More >

I know every other VP of Sales or a front-line sales manager (FLM) struggles with forecasting accuracy so I thought to share what has worked really well for me with very high level of accuracy.  It’s the Commit Process.  This is part of the way to build up your rep…  Read More >

As a CRO, I need to have the right process to forecast deals effectively. The problem is that without a data-driven or analytical approach to forecasting, most companies’ sales teams are not able to forecast effectively.  It’s can be simply called “speculation” to run a forecasting in a qualitative manner…  Read More >

  The CHAMP Sales System Qualification Criteria   Here is a summary of the CHAMP Qualification Criteria and you can find some example questions below.     The best way to align with your Buyer – is to ask them questions and actively listen with the goal of being helpful…  Read More >

I recently spoke to a few executives of a software company who were wondering how to transform a “farmer” team to a “hunter” team. Sometimes it seems that this is impossible.  But that’s a generalized statement and it’s contextual to the people on the team. The key is to meet…  Read More >

Every B2B SaaS company must be able to communicate to every employee on the Revenue Team (sales or marketing or customer success) the following: Who – who is the ideal type of buyer – or what is called the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)? Your targeted Ideal Company Profile (size, type,…  Read More >

For a CRO or VP of Sales to be truly great, they must first be great at recruiting and building winning sales teams.  And that starts with first becoming a great evaluator of talent. If you’re not there yet, you should learn how to identify talent when others totally can’t…  Read More >

“Select for traits, train for skills” – Chris Lytle, The Accidental Sales Manager   Recruiting talent (and building high-performing teams) is the #1 priority for a CEO, CRO or a VP of Sales for any B2B SaaS company. Previously, I wrote about the importance of and how to make your…  Read More >

Today too many SaaS companies have fallen into a trap of designing their sales processes to optimize for their own sales and marketing teams rather than for their buyers.  They approach buyers as just another transaction and focus on checking off a couple of checkboxes but this doesn’t match the way…  Read More >

[Draft] You may have heard the author of “The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: A new paradigm for sustainable success” book. I think every C-level executive including every VP of Sales and CRO have had people on our team that we knew were talented but we also knew they needed…  Read More >

I notice in many B2B SaaS companies there is a wrong organizational design starting with too many “player/coaching” issues which is function of what is known as a “Scope of Control“.  Read on… and if this is feeling like it’s just academic or theoretical then I really recommend you to…  Read More >

The other day there was a post on LinkedIn about how some AEs (Account Execs / sellers) want to be promoted to sales managers.  I posted a comment that it is necessary for any executive to help illuminate for all AEs out there that they are misconstruing what management is…  Read More >

Many companies don’t hire well for sales rep roles or even at executive level such as for a CRO or for a VP of Sales role.  They focus too much on teachables rather than on unteachables.  That’s one of the many mistakes to avoid. Dan Ross, the SVP of Commercial…  Read More >

Here is a comprehensive list I’ve used to develop my sales teams:   Prospecting Outbound Calling Skills Email Prospecting Inbound Lead Prospecting Capitalizing on peak selling time and knowing the peak times Understands key prospecting insights Prospecting into inbound leads Developing Multi-touch & Multi-channel prospecting cadence Effective LinkedIn Prospecting Consultative…  Read More >

Several years ago, Jason Lemkin at SaaStr wrote the post “What a Great VP Sales Actually Does. Where The Magic Is. And When to Hire One.” Recruiting – 20% of the time must be invested here the most important thing to do well for a Sales Leader is recruiting great…  Read More >

Some CROs / VPs of Sales (typically with lack of experience) tell their teams that to have 3x in the Pipeline (in terms of $ value) or 3x of the quota target / sales bookings goal. But this is a mistake. It’s not only a generalized way of looking at…  Read More >

When should sales managers focus on inspecting Opps during the Pipeline Review – higher up in the funnel (i.e. early) or later? Most sales managers engage later in the process when there is some problem with an Opportunity but by that point it’s too late. It’s natural to focus there…  Read More >

If you could only choose one for your company, would you hire the a) top sales management or b) top salespeople? This questions puzzles a lot of folks.  And the answer I hear most often is that having better sales reps is of a higher value to a company than…  Read More >