painful sales truths

- sales hacker STL april 2015 -

aaron ‘air’ ross / @motoceo

#1 award-winning

bestseller

called

“The Sales Bible Of

Silicon Valley”

the “hot coals”

www.PredictableRevenue.com/triple

aaron ross

$100m @ salesforce.com

father of 5+2

20-30 hour workweek

• crushed both $1m & $100m+ sales goals

• created $1b predictable sales machines

• developed amazing talent

with these ideas, companies have…

painful truth:

when salespeople fail, it’s your fault, not theirs

1

1. sales team churn of >10%?

2. regularly missed sales goals?

what’s it take to scale a team?

how much is it the people vs. your systems?

2painful truth:

“getting more leads” isn’t your main problem

_______ provides professional consulting services to

develop and support online business solutions. From

startup to Fortune 500 companies, _________ assists

clients to maximize their return on investment in the

Cloud by providing implementation, development, and

value-added software solutions.

speaking to everyone = no one can hear

confusion => “no!”

but they say:

“later”

“maybe”

“i don’t know”

“send me more information”

what do customers want?

people don’t care what you do...

they care about what you can do for them

improve your messaging TODAY

• “how do you help customers?”

• “so what?”

• “what’s so great about that?” (WSGAT)

“nail your niche” to get rich

1. popular point of pain (need, not want)

2. tangible results

3. believable solution

4. identifiable targets

5. unique genius

painful truth:

you have to assume “build it and they’ll come” is a fairy tale

3

• even with a perfect sales process or big sales

team, if your leadgen is crummy, you’ll struggle

• with great leads, you can get everything else

wrong & still do well

• details on the 3 types of leads

leadgen is your “big lever”

3 types of leads

seeds: turn your funnel into an hourglass

example customer success triggers

- contract data

- support interactions

- billing / payment history

- product and feature usage

- marketing engagement

- survey feedback

- sponsor changes

-

three SaaS customer success metrics

15%

0%

$2M

#1 customer success tip

invest bigger, faster!

“customer success is 5x sales”

- co-author jason lemkin

nets: example marketing funnel

Some favorite marketing tactics

• vp marketing needs a “Lead Commit”

• #1 metric: “Pipeline Velocity Rate”

• make it personal

free details:

PredictableRevenue.com/triple

ps – you sound like everyone else

is your “marketing personality” more like:

• spock

• a clown

• a windbag

combine DATA + HUMANITY

“make it personal” A/B test

spears: example outbound funnel

PredictableRevenue.com/acquia

outbound pros & cons

• pro: can drive very predictable, fast growth

• pro: get into bigger companies

• pro: source bigger deals (3x-10x inbound)

• pro: perfect complement to inbound marketing

• con: not for everyone

sales email fails

1. too long

2. confusing

3. flexible truth

4. boring

5. vague calls to action

sales email fails

chant this mantra:

“simple to understand,

easy to answer”

what outsourcing isn’t

outsourcing - reality

for smaller companies…

a replacement

for fast growth companies…

an accelerator

a complement

outsourcing CAN work (done right)

aka

Carb.io

painful truth:

your pipeline is an illusion 4

• lots of opportunity

• momentum

• may help you beat goals

what’s great about a busy pipeline?

• busyness feels productive (even if it isn’t)

• avoid reality

• customers get worse service

what’s wrong with a busy pipeline?

it’s another reason to specialize

specialization = focus

challenge:

brutal honesty can be hard

how often do you hear a clear “no”?

• “later”

• “maybe”

• “we’re going to consider it” / “let me get back to you”

• “yes”

• “can you send me more materials”

• people want approval

• embarrassment of not knowing

• the truth can lead to failure, burst bubbles

& rejection

why people can fear truth

the problem

• without a (brutally) honest pipeline, you

have a lot of maybe

• uncertainty => anxiety / desperation

the problem part 2

• anxiety / desperation =>

• people cling to anything

with an imagined heartbeat

• happens in love too

practice getting todifficult truths!

your job (as rep or manager)

1) find out the TRUTH / “why”

2) help them move on or out

assuming “no”

• “yes” means “yes”

• assume anything else (“later / maybe /

consider it”) means “no / not interested”

• Can you find out why?

– not a fit / they don’t see the value / truly not the

right time / don’t have the right person…?

make truth easier

1. no guilt

– by managers to reps

– by reps to prospects

2. lower hurdles to honesty with ‘easy outs’

3. ask hard questions – in friendly ways

– non-threatening, curious

– challenging them => defensiveness

helpful, not challenging

* do you have buy-in yet from the CEO?

* where are you in your decision?

vs.

* what would it take to get this done by month-

end?

curious, not challenging

* is this a priority?

vs.

* what else is more important right now?

* on a scale of 1-10, how important is it to get

done, or done by ____?

investigative, not challenging

* who’s the decision maker?

vs.

* who else is typically involved in deciding &

budgeting something like this?

give them easy outs (friendly challenge)

• aka “break up emails”

• “i’ll assume this isn’t the right time [of interest |

a priority | a good fit], unless I hear

otherwise…”

hard questions

• just do it & ask when you need to

– better to “blurt” than do nothing

• don’t turn it into a big deal

– Desperation vs. Information

– like asking for directions, or about the weather

learn to see truth

(especially

painful truth) as

delicious

the best part about the painful truth

(whether in love or money)

• you know one way or the other,

• can move outta denial &

• see clearly what needs to happen next

sales challenges:

how much is it the people vs. you?

1. what’s really causing high sales team attrition, missed goals?

2. nail a niche to get rich

3. specialize your people

4. seeds: more customer success investment

5. nets: marketing needs a Lead Commit

6. spears: product companies who have any $20k+ customers should be doing outbound

7. practice getting to the painful truth

So – in rough order...

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Aaron Rossaaron@predictablerevenue.com