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![#7: How My [2nd] VPS Doubled Sales in 90 Days
Hint: It Wasn’t New Prospects or Customers.
1. Immediately upgraded the team to proven closers. The first week.
2. Got the most out of the team he inherited – And got rid of the ones
that weren’t working.
1 + 2 alone doubled our Revenue Per Lead.
3. He didn’t even attempt to do it alone.
4. He ended pipeline as a metric – And any real credit for It.
5. He embraced competition.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/df15startupsummitlemkinross-151120190944-lva1-app6892/75/DF15-Startup-Summit-Building-a-Killer-Sales-Team-13-2048.jpg)
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DF15 Startup Summit: Building a Killer Sales Team
The document outlines the top 10 learnings for building a successful sales team, emphasizing the importance of hiring skilled sales representatives, understanding market patterns, and focusing on customer retention. Key strategies include going upmarket quickly, maintaining high revenue per lead, and the significance of strong leadership and team dynamics. The authors, Jason Lemkin and Aaron Ross, highlight that investing in a cohesive and effective sales team is crucial for sustainable growth.
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DF15 Startup Summit: Building a Killer Sales Team
- 1. Building a KillerSales Team: Top 10 Learnings Do This. And You’ll Grow Even Faster Jason Lemkin Managing Director, Storm Ventures @jasonlk Aaron Ross Author, Predictable Revenue @motoceo
- 2.
- 3. All About AaronRoss • Author, Predictable Revenue • CRO, PredictableRevenue.com & its Carburetor Pipeline Automation Software • Dad of 7-going-on-9+ (Instagram.com/RossZoo)
- 4. All About JasonM. Lemkin • Co-Founder/CEO EchoSign, acquired by Adobe for nine figures • Grew business from $0-$100m+ ARR in ‘13 at EchoSign + Adobe • Managing Director at Storm Ventures: First/Early Investor in Enterprise start-ups, including Marketo, MobileIron, Talkdesk, EchoSign, GuideSpark, Metacloud, Algolia, etc. • SaaStr founder community – 1m+ views a month on web + Quora
- 5. #1 A/B Testis Key. Hire 2-3 AEs & SDRs. Not 1. • A/B Test Helps You Learn • Any Sales Rep That Performs is Cheap • 1 Rep Performing = Repeatable. • 2+ Reps Performing = Repeating.
- 6. #2: VPS Hire:Not Too Early – And Not Too Late You have to sell it yourself first. And then hire 2+ reps. … But once you have 2 that perform … get your VP! You You + 2 Reps Hire VP Sales
- 7. #3: Don’t HireEarly Reps U Wouldn’t Buy From Later – It Takes a Village • Later, you’ll need many types of reps. Eventually. • But in the early days – leads are so precious. • You’ll never be comfortable to handing them off to someone you don’t trust. Someone you wouldn’t buy from.
- 8. #4: Make SureU See the Pattern Early Enough. The Pattern is Set EARLY - $500k ARR • Once it’s repeating – be confident. • You’ll have an “organic” type of core customer. • So from $1m - $10m ARR – just double down on what seems to be working. • Deal sizes, etc. will go up. But pattern will stay same. • It will keep working. It will.
- 9. #5: If YouCan – Go Upmarket Faster. Nothing is an Anomaly • If you can get 1 enterprise customer – you can get 10. • If you have 1 customer in an industry – you can get 10. • The outliers aren’t anomalies. They are the future. Corollary: Go Upmarket as Soon As You Can. More $$$, Same Work.
- 10. #6: Invest InGetting To A Mini-Brand Brands are highly defensible. Proxy for whom to trust. + Huge air cover.
- 11. #6: Never AllowRevenue Per Lead to Drop • PR. Marketing. Upgrade the team. More customer success. • Competition doesn’t really matter for RPL – if you have a great team and a relative competitive advantage. • Deal sizes should only go up. • You should only get better at closing. Revenue Per Lead Should Never Drop. That’s Your Fault.
- 12. Never Allow RevenuePer Lead to Drop • Leads doubled in Year of Hell • Yes, we grew. But, Revenue Per Lead declined • Whose fault?
- 13. #7: How My[2nd] VPS Doubled Sales in 90 Days Hint: It Wasn’t New Prospects or Customers. 1. Immediately upgraded the team to proven closers. The first week. 2. Got the most out of the team he inherited – And got rid of the ones that weren’t working. 1 + 2 alone doubled our Revenue Per Lead. 3. He didn’t even attempt to do it alone. 4. He ended pipeline as a metric – And any real credit for It. 5. He embraced competition.
- 14. #8: Too MuchTime on Prospects v. Existing Sales Is Just the Start of a 5-7 Year Journey. Visit all your top customers. Not just prospects.
- 15. #8 - TooMuch Time on Prospects v. Existing • Get off your Mac… • And on a Jet… • Visit ALL your best customers. And ALL your Top 20% of revenue customers. ALL of them.
- 16. #8 - TooMuch Time on Prospects v. Existing • Happy customers will churn – if you don’t visit. • Unhappy customers will stay – if you visit. • Year 3 is when you lose them. Hard to see in early days.
- 17. #9 – NotFiring a Bad VPS in 1 Sales Cycle • You should know subjectively In Just a Few Months – Just 50% of the way through your average sales cycle • Numbers should increase in 1 sales cycle – with keen focus on Revenue Per Lead • First few hires should be clear upgrades – and made quickly + seemingly effortlessly
- 18. #9 – ItGets SO Much Better at Initial Scale • No matter how bad you are at X, or inexperienced at Y… You will learn in SaaS. • Everyone Great will get ever better. • You will get even better. Guaranteed. • You will become a great SaaS CEO.
- 19. #10 – ItGet SO Much Better at Initial Scale
- 20. So #10 –Not Doubling The Plan. J • Once the team was (finally) great – We exceeded the plan. Every quarter, every year. Always. But… • I should have challenged us to do even better than 120% of plan. How? ….
- 21. Imagine a World… (1/3) • Image a world where capital doesn’t matter. • Image a world where you can hire whomever you want. • Imagine a world where ROI can be measured in 36 months (for the incremental customer). • Then… What Could You Do?
- 22. Imagine a World… (2/3) • For Sales, who would you hire, and when, if you could hire as many people as you wanted? • For Marketing, where would you spend if the ROI could be ‘any’ ROI? What brand marketing would you do? What new programs would you develop? • For Product, what new areas would you enter? What new products would you build? • For Engineering, what would another 10, 20, 50 engineers do for you? What would you rebuild? Improve? How many more features could you push out? What could you do that is simply, super cool for your customers?
- 23. Imagine a World… Why it Works (3/3) • The mediocre ones just spend, spend, spend in this exercise. And in the real world. • But the great ones – Only spend on what they think works. • The great ones do things; things that are, on balance, always accretive. • So as CEO … Just find a way here. To this world. That’s your job.
- 24. When It’s Good– It’s Really Good • Great teams have low turnover – They want to stay together • Great teams feed on themselves • Great teams energize the rest of the company • Spend 20% Of Your Time Recruiting!
- 25. Comin’ Feb ‘16: FromImpossible To Inevitable: How Hyper-Growth Companies Create Predictable Revenue Nail A Niche Create predictable Pipeline Make Sales Scalable Double Your Dealsize Do The Time Embrace Employee Ownership Define Your Destiny
- 26. • bit.ly/FromImpossible or search“Amazon Lemkin Ross” • Email us the receipt, get a never-seen sample now: [email protected] Comin’ Feb ‘16: From Impossible To Inevitable: How Hyper-Growth Companies Create Predictable Revenue
- 27. Q & A AaronRoss Author, Predictable Revenue @motoceo Jason Lemkin Managing Director, Storm Ventures @jasonlk | SaaStr.com