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5 SDR Metrics You Should Know

Trish Bertuzzi — Thu, 22 May 2014 06:35:00 GMT

At long last, we are publishing our 2014 SDR Metrics & Compensation Report. I want to thank the 222 technology companies that participated. In this report, we compiled 37 pages of data, insight & trends.

For those of you who don’t have the time or energy to read the full report (and I hope you find both at some point), I thought I’d share a few snippets with you.

1. SDR specialization hits 40% adoption! Companies are splitting inbound & outbound roles.

We expect role specialization to continue along the adoption lifecycle following an earlier shift on the ‘closing’ side of the house – specialization into hunters and farmers. (Page 9)
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2. For SDRs, Sales experience prior to hire has dropped to 1.8 yrs. An all-time low.

Three times as many companies require ‘Less than 1 year’s sales experience’ in 2014 as did in 2010. (Page 13)
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3. SDR months at full productivity dropped to 22 months. Tenure is flat, ramp is rising!

Months at full productivity is tenure minus ramp time. Companies hiring the least experienced reps had significantly fewer months at full productivity. (Page 16)
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4. Dialing technology works! Delivering a 22-34% bump in connects per day.

Up sharply from 2012, 27% of respondents reported adopting a dialing technology/service. (Page 28)
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5. SDRs making 6.1 attempts per inbound prospect. But 30% more for outbound (7.8).

We found that, on average, SDRs make 7.3 attempts per prospect. This is up from 5.6 attempts in 2012. (Page 30)
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You can download the full report below. I hope you'll take a look and come back to share your thoughts.

About Trish Bertuzzi

Trish writes about emerging inside sales trends. She is author of
Hiring an Inside Sales Manager and Inside Sales Oboarding.

Connect on Twitter and Google+.

Only 9% of Job Posts Attract Top Sales Talent

Matt Bertuzzi — Thu, 08 May 2014 06:30:00 GMT

For the last few months, I've been running a little experiment.

A pool of Inside Sales Rep volunteers & I have been sending sales job posts to one another. Each person would rate the posts with a simple thumbs up or thumbs down against this question, "Do you find this position and company interesting?"

The team reviewed posts for sales positions at 97 different companies.

And the results weren't pretty.

Less than 22% were deemed 'interesting' by at least one rep. Only 9% received two or more thumbs up.

Said another way, 91% of the job descriptions were so buzzword, boilerplate, and boring as not to warrant a second look. I've pulled together some of the highlights with comments from the reps themselves. Take a look below:

Got an interesting job post? Please share it in the comments.

We'd all love to learn what is working for you.

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About Matt Bertuzzi

Matt writes about inside sales metrics & trends. He is co-author of The Outbound Index.

Connect on Twitter and Google+.

Motivate and Retain Your Sales Reps

Trish Bertuzzi — Thu, 17 Apr 2014 06:37:00 GMT

Late last year, Steve Richard and I had an idea for new research. This would be the third collaboration between The Bridge Group and VorsightBP (after Sales Speaks and Mythbusting Millennials).

Our intent was to survey sales reps, front-line managers, and directors to understand the current state of sales management. By asking similar questions and capturing the variations between their perspectives, we knew there was a story to be told.

As a measuring stick, we decided to include a Net Promoter Score question in the individual sales rep variant.

What we found shocked us.

Finding #1: Our sales reps are not happy.

In terms of favorability, the NPS for our profession is somewhere between the Airlines and the Credit Card companies. (Details within the ebook.)

Finding #2: We identified 4 areas that separate Promoter from Detractor reps.

We’ve come to think of these as the Four Pillars -- career path, coaching, compensation & professional development. These are the questions your reps are asking themselves. You, as a manager, need to be ready to respond.

Finding #3: Reps whose managers (and companies) are addressing 'the four pillars' are 5-6 times more likely to be Promoters.

Here's a sample of 622 reps. Notice the trend: better at the four pillars, a higher percentage of promoters.

If I could net it out for you...

This project revealed a disturbing question: Are we a generation of Managers or Leaders? The distance between these two accounts for much of the gap between Promoters and Detractors.

Now is the time to address this and I hope you'll take a look at the ebook and add your comments. Let’s help each other move our industry and profession up and to the right!

About Trish Bertuzzi

Trish writes about emerging inside sales trends. She is author of
Hiring an Inside Sales Manager and Inside Sales Oboarding.

Connect on Twitter and Google+.

A Sales Interview is a Sales Call

Matt Bertuzzi — Thu, 20 Mar 2014 06:47:00 GMT

Every so often, someone I don't know will message me on LinkedIn asking for advice on interviewing for a sales position.

The questions are generally ‘What should I expect?’ ‘What might they ask?’ ‘What are they looking to hear?’ Much less frequently, they’ll ask ‘What can I do to stand out?’

Over the past year or so I've been working and reworking a response to that last one. I thought I'd share it here and get the community's feedback. Here goes:

A Sales Interview is a Sales Call

1) You’re an A-player? Show it.

When it comes time to interview, everyone is a Top 10% sales rep. Short of seeing your W2, the hiring manager has no way to confirm. Don't just tell them how great you are, show them. Are you at the top of a leaderboard, a whiteboard, big screen, or dashboard in your CRM? Take your phone and grab a photo. Won an award? Take a photo of that, too.

Print out these pics or send them over to the hiring manager. Seeing is believing.

2) You’re a born prospector? Confirm it.

Giving sales candidates assessments is common. What is uncommon is for a candidate to hand over an assessment they've already taken. If you're interviewing for an outbound prospecting role, hand the hiring manager proof that you're wired for success in that position. As an example, I recently took a sales talent questionnaire from SalesGenomix (see my profile below).

Do some research, find an appropriate assessment, take it and share the results. Everyone says they're a great fit. Bring 3rd party validation.

3) You know how to prospect and/or sell? Prove it.

It's difficult for hiring managers to get a read on 'how' you sell. "Tell me about a time..." behavior-based questions are trying to get at this. Prove you know how to sell. Prepare a 5-slide / 5-minute overview of a recent win (when you created a new opportunity or closed a deal). There are two things at play here.

First, can you present? Can you tell a clear & compelling story in five minutes?
Second, how did you execute? Can you set the stage, introduce the characters, outline your actions, reveal the turning point, and analyze what worked in the situation?

You can deliver this over the phone or in person. But make sure this isn't a monologue. Paint the picture, engage the audience, and (above all) don't forget to close. Show, don’t tell.

So that’s it.

If you want the job, you need to execute an effective sales call. Being reactive is what everyone is doing.

Hiring Managers, what have you had candidates do to rise above the fold?

About Matt Bertuzzi

Matt writes about inside sales metrics & trends. He is co-author of The Outbound Index.

Connect on Twitter and Google+.

BDR Compensation Calculator

Matt Bertuzzi — Wed, 05 Mar 2014 06:28:00 GMT

We are neck deep writing the 2014 edition of our BDR/SDR metrics and compensation report. This year we had 200+ valid responses and roughly 160 of those shared compensation data. A huge thank you to all who participated!

Since 2007, we've reported BDR compensation as a national average. Every year, you've asked for more specifics (how about our region, our price point, our hiring profile, etc.).

Well, I finally have something to share.

This year, we isolated 6 variables that impact compensation. The result is our new BDR Compensation Calculator. See a sample 'output' below.

A few quick notes:

The full BDR/SDR report will be out in April (2012 report here)
Compensation data for roles based in US
This version doesn't factor in caps or cliffs
I've tightened the calculations to +/- 5%, but no tool is perfect

I've included help text within the tool. I also shot a quick video walkthrough. I hope you find it useful.

About Matt Bertuzzi

Matt writes about inside sales metrics & trends. He is co-author of The Outbound Index.

Connect on Twitter and Google+.

Teaching Sales

Matt Bertuzzi — Wed, 12 Feb 2014 06:40:00 GMT

My friend and sales trainer extraordinaire, John Barrows, has a great line:

There are over 4000 Colleges and Universities in the US. You can take Sales courses in fewer than 100. You can major in Sales in just 15.

Wow. There’s an obvious problem here.

Companies need a pipeline of sales candidates; while many Universities are producing graduates who’ve never seen the word ‘sales’ on the curriculum. Full disclosure: my degree in 19^th century Russian literature left me unprepared for Day 1 at my first sales job.

Moving towards a solution

I recently met David McFarlane with the Entrepreneurship Center at UMass Boston. David has 25+ years in B2B with time as VP, Alliances, COO and most recently co-founder and CEO. He now serves as Director and Entrepreneur in Residence for the EC.

We had a good chat about ‘the state of sales education’ and David shared two ways that UMass Boston is addressing the problem.

1) Practical sales courses

UMass Boston offers a course on Entrepreneurship Sales and Marketing. David described it as ‘soup-to-nuts’ coursework for B2B. They take sales from the academic to the practical by including role play, live execution, and courses written and delivered by B2B Sales & Marketing practitioners.

2) Live selling experience

This bit is extremely interesting. UMass Boston has built a Market Development Center where students work on calling programs for local B2B technology companies. I think of it as the joining of an internship and pay-for-performance appointment setting. Students are trained on the tools, process & methodology for outbound calling campaigns: targeting new segments, bringing new products to market, account profiling, etc. Companies get immediate pipeline and a pool of future candidates. Not a bad deal!

The big idea here is that a different type of university graduate is possible.

One who is both familiar with key B2B concepts (inbound marketing, using CRM, persona-based messaging, outbound calling, power dialers, pipeline & forecasting) and has experience executing them hands-on.

Now comes your part

If you're local to Massachusetts, reach out to David to see what the Entrepreneurship Center can do for you. You can contact him here or on LinkedIn.

If you’re outside the Bay State, perhaps your local College or University has a similar program. The Sales Education Foundation put together a ‘top sales schools’ list that should be helpful.

Final thought

There is opportunity here for all of us to participate. If you have the time, and inclination, there’s no reason you can’t guest lecture at your alma mater or a local college. The more B2B executives who spend time in the classroom, the better for the future of our profession.

Take Pete Gracey, President of AG Salesworks. Outside his normal job, he teaches Intro to CRM and Tactical Sales & Marketing at UMass Amherst. Those students are learning from one of the best!

How about you? Are you finding ‘sales program’ graduates? Have you reached out to schools in your area? Please let us know in the comments.

About Matt Bertuzzi

Matt writes about inside sales metrics & trends. He is co-author of The Outbound Index.

Connect on Twitter and Google+.

I Hate the Double Tap in Sales

Trish Bertuzzi — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 06:41:00 GMT

Better, faster, cheaper – you can only have two.

I’ve decided to touch a third rail of the current selling spirit: the ‘double tap’ -- the process of leaving a voicemail immediately followed by an email.

I’m a little afraid of getting flamed on this one, but hey, what the heck.

Let me give you the scenario.

A sales rep is prospecting you and actually picks up the phone to reach out. Maybe you ignore them or maybe you’re away from your desk. They leave a voicemail, referencing that they’re also sending an email.

So, what happens next?

Scenario 1: In all likelihood, you check email before voicemail. Unless they’ve written a message that really grabs your attention, you delete it. You finally get around to checking your voicemail and delete that message without really listening to it. After all, based on their email, your impression is that you’re not interested.

Scenario 2: You get an email from your phone system notifying you of the new voicemail. You still read the (text) email first and then delete both as above.

Scenario 3: You listen to the voicemail first. Once again, unless it is compelling, you delete it. You notice the follow-up email and delete it as well.

Your brain is wired this way.

Two things are happening here. First, deleting feels good. There is a pleasure spike when shrinking the inbox, or to-do list. Second, similar back-to-back actions don’t require active thought. If this email isn’t interesting, neither will this voicemail be – and vice versa.

In all three scenarios, you’ve been interrupted twice in a very short span of time. Two 'efficient' touches for the seller (good), two interruptions for you (bad), and too easy to ignore (ugly).

Now, Sellers may argue their messages really are compelling. OK, I believe you! But I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts that your ‘double tap’ messages are less researched, less targeted, and less memorable than any standalone ones. This is a case of 1 + 1 = .5.

Where does this leave us?

Look, I am not saying that you should never double tap. Reaching a prospect requires increasingly more attempts. However, there is a difference between using your touches to tell a story in a meaningful way and using your touches to harass.

Give your messages some breathing room, bring content into the mix, try social outreach, use video. Get creative!

So dear reader, what say you? If you are an Executive who receives sales calls, take the quick poll below. (Remember; answer how you would react, not how you want your sales teams to execute.)

(Photo credit: troismarteaux)

About Trish Bertuzzi

Trish writes about emerging inside sales trends. She is author of
Hiring an Inside Sales Manager and Inside Sales Oboarding.

Connect on Twitter and Google+.

Are You Looking at the Wrong End of the Donkey?

Trish Bertuzzi — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 06:40:00 GMT

If you have your finger on the pulse of Inside Sales, you know that breaking the ‘prospecting’ and ‘closing’ functions into two roles has crossed the chasm. Role specialization is here to stay.

One of the big benefits is that specialized teams are responsible for a very clear piece of the sales process. You can measure effectiveness, add or subtract headcount, and course correct as needed.

Sadly, it’s not all joy in Whoville.

I’m noticing a concerning trend. More and more often, when revenue goals are missed, companies look at their Sales Development teams and assume that is where the problem lies.

In some instances, it certainly is. But I’d hazard a guess that at least half the time, the problem lies further down the sales funnel – right at the feet of either the Sales Reps or, potentially, the sales process itself.

Let me give you an example.

I was recently working with an amazing client. They are one of my faves -- high growth, cool technology, great management team, solid sales and marketing infrastructure -- they have it going on! The problem: when they think about increasing revenue, they take a magnifying glass to their SDR team and rarely stop to inspect what is going on post lead handoff.

Working with one of the founders, we collected data on opportunities marked as “Closed: Lost.” Bear in mind, these were real opportunities (i.e. SDRs passed a lead that fit their Ideal Customer Profile and the Sales Rep conducted an initial call with the prospect).

Looking at several hundred opportunities, here is what we found.

Where we focused (and where you should too)

1) No response / went dark
At nearly 20% of losses, this is a significant.

How many times are reps reaching out? Over what time period? What media?
Are their messages giving compelling reasons for prospects to reach back out? Or are they ‘just checking-in’ and ‘touching base’?
Are they asking the tough questions up-front? Or are polite prospects killing them with yes’s and then never emerging again?

Net net: Drill into whether the sales is team going through the motions or asking the hard questions, early enough in the sales process, to truly qualify the opportunity.

2) No budget
This is a tough objection to overcome, but it is a chronically overused loss reason.

Are we DQing and losing early? Or wasting cycles working with prospects who don’t have access to untagged budget?
How good a job are we doing at helping champions sell us internally?

Net net: There is always untagged budget. You just have to find the person who has access and sell to them.

3) Other (including blank and unknown)
This tends to be dumping ground for ‘I screwed up’ or ‘I don’t care enough to figure this out.’ Now might be the time to review the back-end of your sales process.

Are reps leveraging a Manager to help them win the tough deals?
Are they engaged with all the buyers in their funnel or are they only focusing on the ones they think they will win easily?

Net net: As a Manager, knowing the answers to the above questions could make your number for you!

Moral of the story.

When things go awry, we tend to focus on the top of the funnel. After all, that is where so much of the science of sales is focused. We do ourselves a disservice if we don’t take a hard look at the middle and bottom of funnel processes, too.

The donkey has two ends. We need to make sure we are looking at the right one.

(Photo credit: Donkey Sanctuary Press Images)

About Trish Bertuzzi

Trish writes about emerging inside sales trends. She is author of
Hiring an Inside Sales Manager and Inside Sales Oboarding.

Connect on Twitter and Google+.

Our Best of: Top Posts & Inside Sales Resources

Matt Bertuzzi — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 06:50:00 GMT

Continuing our annual tradition, I've rounded up the very best of our writing and thinking from the past 12 months. So with a big thank you to our readers, new and old, here's the best of what we shared in 2013.

3 Thoughts On Stopping Sales Rep Turnover

Matt Bertuzzi — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 06:34:00 GMT

A couple of emails hit my inbox last week back-to-back.

The first was from Glassdoor, Best Places to Work 2014, announcing their 6th annual employee choice awards. The second was from Craig Ferrara of AG Salesworks, 7 Things I Want My Inside Sales Team To Know For 2014.

Now, I love Glassdoor. It's the best way to get the inside dish on the Pros and Cons of working at a given company. So I wondered, what if I grabbed a bunch of those reviews and compared them to Craig’s list?

Experiment time!

Here is the process I used:

Logged into Glassdoor and picked out the B2B tech companies from the Top 50
Drilled into Sales reviews only (inside, AEs, SDRs, etc.)
Exported the most recent 100 reviews

I got busy parsing and found something pretty interesting.

Craig pretty much nailed it

I doth my cap, Mr. Ferrara.

From those 100 sales reviews, I identified 3 themes that came up over and over again. I want to overlay Craig’s advice with a few actual quotes from those reps.

1) Craig says: I will always try to make it fun

Humor - I laugh more here than I've ever laughed in any job. Period.
Collaboration and teamwork are some of the things that sets _______ apart and make coming to work every day exciting.
The tenured and long-timers that are still around are incredible. They're not only the best in the company, they're the best in the industry.

2) Craig says: I will encourage professional & personal growth

Incredibly talented employees from diverse backgrounds - we all have much to learn from each other both inside and outside the office.
_______ won’t give you a map when you're hired...but if you succeed in the role you're given and prove yourself and earn trust, they'll actually allow you to create your own path.
Management takes a genuine interest in helping employees transform their careers and learn new skills.

3) Craig says: I will always try to make myself available

Bi-weekly All Hands Call (with CEO) is impressive and unheard of based on other companies I've been a part of.
Sr management does an excellent job of communicating, It's consistent, across all management levels.
The first week I was here the CEO introduced himself personally to me. Management's door is ALWAYS open.

Definitely take a look at the full 7 things post over at AG Salesworks. I took a quick look at tech companies with extremely low reviews. Take my word for it, not pretty stuff. Here's a sample of the good, bad & ugly.

What do you think? Have any thoughts to add on stopping sales rep turnover?

Here’s to a successful 2014. Good selling!

About Matt Bertuzzi

Matt writes about inside sales metrics & trends. He is co-author of The Outbound Index.

Connect on Twitter and Googe+.

This Is How I Work [Series]

Trish Bertuzzi — Mon, 23 Dec 2013 07:06:00 GMT

Last week, I was challenged to write about 'how I work.' Inspired by LifeHacker, Anthony Iannarino moved the idea into the sales field.

The progression has gone: Anthony, Charlie Green, Dave Brock, Dave Stein, Jill Konrath, to me.

Here's the inside scoop on my work life:

Location: Fort Meadow Lake, Hudson, Massachusetts

Current devices: Dell Inspiron, Samsung Galaxy 4, iPad 2

Apps/software/tools can’t I live without?

I LOVE technology get ready!

Must Haves for Work – use them all day, every day:

ConnectAndSell
Evernote
HootSuite
HubSpot
InsideSales.com
InsideView
LinkedIn (feel free to join our Inside Sales Expert group!)
Postwire
Salesforce.com
TimeTrade (why anyone would set meetings any other way is beyond me)
Yesware

Apps I love in my personal life:

Evernote (great for work and personal)
Shazam (have a Sonos and Pandora is always playing great music I need to know about)
Vivino (share great wine finds with friends)
Waze (great GPS with traffic avoidance)

What’s my workspace like?

I and my team work out of home offices. People get so annoyed because I don’t like to do video calls. My standard response, "I'm sitting here in cat hair covered fleece.” Here's the source: Jake.

In the winter, I work at my desk which has a great view of the lake. In the summer I work on the porch, which has an even better view.

What’s my best time-saving shortcut/life hack?

Set email to receive once an hour. It is amazing what you can do in one hour of uninterrupted time. Email is a distraction, people!

What everyday thing am I better at than anyone else?

Switching gears. At any point in time we have 15 active clients. I have my finger on the pulse of every project and can switch from one to the next with no problem.

What’s your favorite to-do list manager?

Paper. How weird is that? This is the only thing I do not use an app for.

What do I listen to while I work?

I found this great 'French Riviera' radio station called ABC Lounge. I stream it all day long. Cool vibe.

What am I currently reading?

Smart Sales Manager, Josiane Feigon. On my second read through.

Agile Selling, Jill Konrath’s soon to be released book. Can you say awesome!?

The Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon. Who doesn’t love a historical romance combined with time travel?

What’s my sleep routine like?

In bed by 10pm. Read for ½ hour. Nighty night.

What’s the best advice I’ve ever received?

"You know what to do, so just do what you know." When I first started this business 16 years ago, we hit a sales slump. My friend Kristin Lembo said this to me and it just resonated. I went back to my office and got on the phone and the rest is history!

Fill in the Blank:

I’d love to see A Sales Guy - Jim Keenan answer these questions. Hopefully, he’ll take me up on this to keep the ball rolling.

And ... hopefully you enjoyed the inside scoop on how I really work.

About Trish Bertuzzi

Trish writes about emerging inside sales trends. She is author of
Hiring an Inside Sales Manager and Inside Sales Oboarding.

Connect on Twitter and Googe+.

Hiring More Women in Technology Sales

Trish Bertuzzi — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 06:44:00 GMT

I was speaking with a prospect the other day and the subject of recruiting women in sales came up. This company is extremely impressive: high-growth, exciting market, great location, amazing sales culture - the works.

However, they hadn’t made much progress in balancing the gender of their sales force. In fact, their current ratio was roughly 7:1 (male to female).

This blew me away as this company had so much going for them. If they were struggling to find women for their sales organization, what does that mean for our industry?

So I did some research and came up with a few ideas.

Recruiting sales women

Make job descriptions gender neutral
Watch your pronouns, "AE isn’t afraid to have his performance measured against others" or “Candidate must take ownership of his territory.”
Lay off the war words
Hunt, kill, crush – these words tend not to appeal to female candidates. “The VP Sales is looking for other sales animals.” (Some might argue that ‘ninja’ & ‘rockstar’ are male-centric too.)
Balance the 'perks'
Kegerators-on-demand, competitive darts, flag football, etc. might not be balanced benefits. Compare that to the great job Forrester does here:

Interviewing sales women

Scope realistic job ‘requirements’
Hiring managers often write job requirements aspirationally – meaning listing stretch goals. Men, more often than women, will apply for jobs that ‘require’ skills they haven’t yet mastered. From Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, ‘An internal report at Hewlett-Packard revealed that women only apply for open jobs if they think they meet 100 percent of the criteria listed. Men apply if they think they meet 60 percent of the requirements.’

Remember: you want a good negotiator
Again, from Lean In, ‘There is little downside when men negotiate for themselves. People expect men to advocate on their own behalf, point out their contributions, and be recognized and rewarded for them. For men, there is truly no harm in asking. But since women are expected to be concerned with others, when they advocate for themselves or point to their own value, both men and women react unfavorably.’ Note that last sentence. Interesting, no?

You want assertiveness too
Similarly, assertiveness has been found to help men and hurt women. So if an interviewer finds a female candidate ‘overconfident’ or ‘too aggressive,’ ask them to reflect 'If this candidate were a man, would I feel the same way?’ At Dreamforce, Marc Benioff shared a story around this very issue (link jumps you to the relevant moment).

To road test these theories, I interviewed a Sales Manager at Yesware, a Boston-based high-growth SaaS company. Zoe Silverman runs Sales Operations and has been responsible for hiring the current Inside Sales team of 6 (4 of which are women).

Here is what she had to say:

We saw so many companies falling into the trap of only hiring men. It is an easy cycle to fall into and since we had the luxury of starting from scratch we got to make a conscious decision to build a diverse sales culture. We did not create a single hiring profile based on college major or personal interests, but rather went for commonalities like ‘dedication to success,’ ‘passion for a consultative selling approach,’ ‘desire to work for a startup,’ etc.

I think part of our success in hiring women was that their first interaction was with me so they knew Yesware had women playing a significant role in building the sales team. Having said that, I did have few awkward experiences when interviewing men who were dismissive and short and spent most of their time trying to get to the next person. They obviously did not make the cut.

So, how about you?

Has the gender balance of your sales team ever come up? Are you succeeding or struggling to recruit women?

I'd love to hear if (and how) your organization is addressing this challenge. And hey… if you are a woman in sales, share what attracts you to a company and help the entire community! Thanks in advance.

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About Trish Bertuzzi

Trish writes about emerging inside sales trends. She is author of
Hiring an Inside Sales Manager and Inside Sales Oboarding.

Connect on Twitter and Googe+.

40% of Reps Will Miss 2013 Quota And I Feel Fine

Matt Bertuzzi — Thu, 05 Dec 2013 06:32:00 GMT

Like many of you, I attended Dreamforce last month. As is often the case, some of the most interesting conversations happen in the hallways between sessions.

During one of those conversations, I got pulled into a debate between two VPs of Inside Sales.

The question under consideration

If 40% of the reps on a sales team miss quota, who is at fault?

VP #1 argued that the team wasn't properly led - essentially failure was on the sales leader’s shoulders. VP #2 countered that it was more likely territories were uneven and many reps were assigned unrealistic quotas - failure was on the shoulders of the sales planning organization. Having made their cases, they looked at me to choose a side.

Being a bit of a quant and card-carrying deliberator, I said I needed to look at some data and mull it over. I promised to post my thoughts here.

Well, Ed & Kristin, here's my reaction

First, here are a few non-sales stats I dug up:

% of golfers not making the cut in a given PGA match: 45%
% of public companies generating earnings below consensus estimates: 41%
% of students enrolling at a four-year college who don't graduate (within 6 years): 43%

So perhaps if 40% of sales reps miss quota, there is no fault. Perhaps roughly 40% should miss.

Think of it this way.

If one out of five reps are hitting the number, then perhaps the Sales Leader is at fault or the territories are uneven. And if four out of five are hitting quota, perhaps the target is too soft and the planning organization is at fault. For me, 40% missing goal in a given year feels about right.

Towards a benchmark

The folks over at CSO Insights have done excellent work in sharing that, for years, the percentage of reps achieving quota has been roughly 60%. Jim Dickie was kind enough to share a preliminary CSO Insights number for all of 2013. We are right there at 57% making quota.

I’m working on a tool that will allow sales leaders to measure the health of their sales team. Until it's ready, here is a chart representing data from roughly 3 dozen companies who’ve shared their rep performance with me. It represents nearly a thousand inside sales reps and the distribution of performance vs. quota.

Final thoughts

In my view, the percentage of reps hitting quota doesn’t separate high-performance from lame sales teams. As you can see from the chart above, there is a distribution of rep performance. Many reps who 'miss quota' are still at 90%+. On balance, overachievers make up for those who miss and the team goal is still achieved.

I’m not endorsing failure for reps, teams, companies, and/or our entire profession. But I am saying: If 40% (or even 50%) of your team won’t hit quota in 2013 and you still hit your team number, you’ve done your job well.

I know I haven’t really settled Kristin and Ed’s debate. But I hope I’ve made my point that lonely metrics (metrics in isolation) aren't incredibly meaningful.

Am I way off-base?

This is the part where you get tell me how wrong I am. I honestly want to know what others think. So please, have at it.

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Connect with Matt on Twitter and Google+

Take the 2014 Sales Development Survey

Matt Bertuzzi — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 06:25:00 GMT

Today, we launch our 2014 research on the Sales Development / Lead Generation function -- focused on teams generating pipeline (ADRs, BDRs, MDRs, SDRs).

This is our fifth round of research, which we’ve conducted roughly every 18 months or so, since 2007. The key themes we hope to learn and share include:

Rep Profiles: experience, tenure, ramp, career path
Compensation: pay levels, pay on what, comparisons between roles
Quotas: make up, average quotas, % attainment
Activity & Results: expectations, actuals, impact of groups

We worked hard to make this year’s survey easier and it should only take 4-8 minutes to complete.

For those of you who manage a business/lead/sales development team, please take the 2014 Sales Development Survey. All answers will be aggregated anonymously. We’ll be sharing the results with you and the rest of the Inside Sales community in the coming months.

I want to say thank you for your continuing support of these research reports. I appreciate that so many of your take the time to share.

We couldn’t do it without you.

(Image credit: The Art Colony)

Pay No Attention To The 'All Powerful' Buyer

Matt Bertuzzi — Thu, 07 Nov 2013 06:37:00 GMT

For some time, I’ve had a thorn in my side about a particular ‘insight’ floating around the sales punditry.

I’ve grumbled when it was repeated on conference stages, scowled reading it on blogs, and I might have exclaimed ‘for {#$%s sake’ when I found in Dan Pink’s (otherwise) excellent To Sell is Human.

But earlier this week, I heard it from a young Inside Sales Rep as a ‘justification’ for not picking up the phone. That did it. I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!

Here’s what he said:

I don't believe in outbound calling. Maybe years ago, when sales reps had more info than prospects, it made sense.

Now, the buyer is educated and has all the power – better to wait for them to come to me.

This essentially a parroting of the information assymetry idea: that pre-web we lived in an era of tyrrany where sales ruled over buyers mercilessly.

I’ll even admit getting caught up in this line of thinking. I reasoned, “Wow, the internet really has changed things. Buyers have access to pricing, customer reviews, competitive comparisons, the works.”

But then I did something crazy.

I went and asked a few folks who had been in sales for 20+ years. Their response: What the hell are you talking about? It was, does & will take two to tango.

Here’s why.

BACK THEN: Buyers had plently of information that Sellers didn’t

In the prehistoric age (pre-2003), Buyers had figuratively tons of information that Sellers couldn’t access (company financial performance, org charts, new strategic priorities, leadership changes, technologies in use, on and on and on).

To get this information, sellers had to ask the buyers to share it. To my mind, that era of Sales domination never existed.

NOW: The magic weapon that Buyers are using – Sellers can use too

Yes, Buyers can access a litany of information about my products, my company, my competitors, my magic quadrant, etc.

But I can use that same exact tool - the internet - to learn about them. In under 15 minutes, here's what I can do:

Listen to their last earnings call
Read strategic guidance on their stock price
Find quotes from their CIO and CMO
Gather the technologies in use at their company
Learn what types of roles they are hiring for and where they are expanding
Read reviews of their comp & culture from dozens of current + former employees
See what emails they open, pages/video/presentations they view
Capture the titles, tenure, role & contact information of just about anyone in their organization

Seems pretty symmetrical to me.

Net net: the more things change...

I’m not suggesting that exactly what worked 20 years will work today. But to any Reps hesitant to pick up the phone, I offer this:

Stop worrying about who has “all the power.”
Your buyers want to build better businesses, go help them do that.
Find the right information to start a conversation.
Context matters.
She who sets the vision, bends the sale in her direction.
Sell for competitive advantage.
Your competition has access to the same tools you do - so remember Audaces fortuna iuvat.

Think I’m totally off base? Let me know in the comments below.

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Connect with Matt on Twitter and Google+

4 Outbound Prospecting Metrics You Should Know [New Research]

Matt Bertuzzi — Tue, 24 Sep 2013 06:30:00 GMT

I am unbelievably excited to release Issue #2 of the Outbound Index.

My partner in crime Pete Gracey & I have spent the last few weeks cranking away on our set of transactional CRM data to bring you an answer to the eternal question:

If my Outbound Prospectors target 1000 accounts this quarter, how many opportunities will they put into the Sales Organization's pipeline?

For the entire story, download the full report. But briefly, I want to highlight four items that jumped out at me.

4 Outbound Metrics You Should Know

1) Year over year, the state of Outbound Prospecting has improved dramatically – up 35%.

(page 15) Tweet this stat –or- Share on LinkedIn

2) Prospects are picking up the phone! Reach Rate is up 36% from 2012 lows.

(page 17) Tweet this stat –or- Share on LinkedIn

3) Calling the C-suite? YOU SHOULD BE! Year-over-year, CxO reach rate is up 40%.

(page 26) Tweet this stat –or- Share on LinkedIn

4) Outbound Index 'bull' & 'bear' technologies. Bull: Sales & Mark. Bear: ERP/CRM.

(page 22) Tweet this stat –or- Share on LinkedIn

The point of all this isn’t to throw numbers at you, but to get you thinking about how to measure, benchmark, and manage your own Outbound efforts.

Pete & I look forward to your feedback and to helping you create your own Outbound Index. So have at it!

[Click for full size image]

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Connect with Matt on Twitter and Google+

Making Room For Sales Coaching [Free Download]

Gail Milton — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 06:23:00 GMT

The trending topic these days is sales coaching.

At the recent AA-ISP Leadership Summit, Steve Richard, Art Sobczak, and Gary Milwit all led sessions that highlighted its importance.

We all nod our heads at coaching’s significance. We certainly talk about doing it. But talk, as they say, is cheap.

The unkind reality is that sales leaders, senior managers, and individual contributors alike rarely give coaching the attention it deserves.

According to our most recent Inside Sales research, only 14% of respondents tracked coaching time. And for those who do track, nearly 3 out of 4 are falling short of the gold standard of 3-5 hours per rep / month.

So What Gets In the Way?

There are 3 primary roadblocks to coaching:

Senior Leadership hasn’t made coaching & rep development a Top 4 priority for sales managers
Individual Sale Reps have limited 1-on-1 time with their manager, and often hijack coaching to talk about other issues (eg specific deals)
Way too much time is spent preparing pipeline reporting -- aka pushing forecast -- to give management what it needs to ‘run the business.’ (This is my pet peeve! It drives me crazy when I see Sales Leaders running reports and migrating data out of CRM and into Excel.)

I suspect many of you are nodding your heads. So we are right back where we started.

We all know we need to set time aside for coaching, but what can we do to make it happen?

Break the Habit: A 30-Day Challenge

Since 2009, Google's Matt Cutts has been embarking on 30-day challenges.

The idea is actually pretty simple. Think about something you've always wanted to add to your life and try it for the next 30 days. It turns out, 30 days is just about the right amount of time.
--Matt Cutts

Still not convinced? Check out his TED talk Try something new for 30 days. It really works! I propose we take Matt's 30-day approach to make coaching a priority.

To set you on your way, I’ve developed a Desk-to-5C Guide to launch your coaching habit ('5C' for 5 reps actively being coached).

Make or Break Moments

Going Desk-to-5C is a process. The entire Sales Organization can help make it happen.

Senior Management

Determine what it will take to reduce time spent on manual reporting and commit to building it out within the existing CRM
Consistently ask First-Line Managers where coaching fits in their tasks list
Keep the Manager to Rep ratio at a manageable 1 to 7

First-Line Managers

Take an honest look at your calendar. Do you really have to attend all those meetings? Pick 2 (low value-add) meetings a week and turn them into coaching sessions.

Sales Reps

Welcome the mentoring time and be willing to try new ideas. The recipe for improvement is experiment, try, fail, and then master.

Leverage Technology

TeamVisibility allows you to see, hear, and coach your reps on your time (more on time-shifted coaching)
Salesforce Work.com provides a framework for monitoring progress on goals that are created during the coaching process

At this point I suspect you are still nodding your heads, but will you take the next step?

Download the Desk-to-5C Guide to get started. And please let me know how it goes!

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Connect with Gail Milton
on LinkedIn and Twitter

Please Take Our 'Sales Culture' Survey

Matt Bertuzzi — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 06:21:00 GMT

Calling all Sales Reps and Sales Leaders!

I'm very excited to let you know that, together with our friends at Vorsight, we are conducting a research project around Sales Culture in 2013.

We've just posted a survey that takes 2-3 minutes to complete and I'd truly appreciate your participation. As a thank you, we'll be randomly drawing five $100 Amazon gift cards throughout the process.

Participation is open to any:

Individual Sales Rep (those that carry quota as well as those that develop pipeline)
Sales Leader (Manager, Director, etc.)

The report will be published later this fall and we'll make it available to all who participate. Please take the short survey. Also, if you wouldn't mind spreading to others in the Sales world, I would greatly appreciate it.

(Image credit: The Art Colony)

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Connect with Matt on Twitter and Google+

Twitter for Sales Reps: Big Hat - No Cattle

Trish Bertuzzi — Wed, 04 Sep 2013 06:37:00 GMT

"Big hat and no cattle” (or “all hat and no cattle")
(US, idiomatic) Full of big talk but lacking action, power, or substance;
Apr. 25, 1981 Globe & Mail ‘One of the major raps against him was that he was all hat and no cattle. That is, he had a lot of style but not much substance.’

Warning: If you are someone who makes their living in/around/by ‘social,’ I’m not writing this particular post for you. I am writing for the thousands of sales reps who are being advised to use Twitter to engage with prospects and establish 'thought leadership.' Read on and make up your own mind.

I love Twitter. I love the brevity. I love seeing what my friends & colleagues are chatting about. I love getting RTs and favorites and all those things that make me feel so popular and interesting. And then damn Twitter had to give me analytics and allow me to see exactly how engaged my ‘followers’ are with what I’m sharing.

Net net: my bubble was burst!

At the time of this writing I have ~5K followers. Not a huge number, but not inconsequential. When Twitter released analytics, I took a peek at the data to see what was what. After all, I’m making an investment in curating the best of what I see/read/find and want to know the return.

I discovered that while Twitter feels great around activity, it’s less so around engagement. Put more simply -- people may view and RT your stuff, but rarely do they (or anyone else) actually click through and read what you are sharing. Bummer.

A concrete example using twitter analytics

Here's what this is telling me for this particular tweet:

It was Favorite’d 3 times (activity)
It was RT’d 2 times (activity)
It had 3x my normal reach (activity)
-and-
Only 8 people actually clicked on the link (engagement)

So by simple math we have: 4870 followers + 2 RTs (assume followers of 1.5K each) = total audience of 7,870. 8 clicks / 7,870 = engagement rate of .1%. Yikes!

That knocked me for a little loop, but not enough to make me abandon ship. So….

We decided to take a deeper dive into the data.

So I asked Matt to do some digging. He selected 25 twitter accounts to analyze. (Big names in the Sales game with follower counts ranging from 2K to 20K.) He ran an analysis (5 tweets per test subject) and uncovered the following.

The average per-tweet “engagement” rate is roughly .1-.3% regardless of follower count. These are basically the same rates as display/banner ads.

So where does this take us?

Well, if you are salesperson who wants to become a ‘thought leader’ to your prospects by sharing valuable content and great information, you might want to invest your time elsewhere.

Think a Postwire portal. Think LinkedIn updates. Think personal nurture emails. Think sniper rifle as opposed to shot gunning it out there and hoping it gets seen and absorbed. Your average Twitter user sees at most 10-maybe-15% of their total stream. It’s hard to 'engage' with what you don’t see.

That being said...

Twitter can have huge benefits for sales reps.

Here are just a few that come to my mind (in order of likelihood):

You will have fun and share with your community
You will discover and engage with smart people
You will learn a ton. (Please be one of the few that actually click through and read some of the content. It can be quite good!)
You will uncover prospects that aren’t in your territory. Share that information internally.
You will uncover prospects that are in your territory and talking about topics that make them relevant for you. Bingo – you just got lucky!

Net net

I still love Twitter and will continue to participate, but my advice for sales reps is to do your own analysis.

Calculate your level of activity and your level of engagement. In other words, take a break from all that thought “sharing” to turn around and see if anyone is actually following you in a meaningful way.

Based on the data, decide where and how to invest your social time. Thanks for reading.

Have you dug into your twitter analytics? Has it changed the way you share?

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Connect with Trish on
Twitter and Google+

Does Grit Matter in Sales? [an experiment]

Matt Bertuzzi — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 06:04:00 GMT

A few weeks back, I sat on a panel at the Sales 2.0 Boston conference.

The conversation turned to sales hiring. It made me think about something I'd recently read about -- specifically, Angela Duckworth (from University of Pennsylvania) and her research on grit.

Dr. Duckworth defines grit as "sticking with things over the very long term until you master them." She writes that "the gritty individual approaches achievement as a marathon; his or her advantage is stamina."

I mentioned this research and offered to work with any Sales Leader in the audience to score their reps on the grit scale and look for correlation with their best performers.

Happily, Pete Gracey, COO of AG Salesworks (and my partner in The Outbound Index), offered to help.

The setup

We designed a 90-second survey (based on the Grit Scale) which Pete shared with his team of 30+ outbound prospectors.

We then calculated grit scores on Duckworth’s 1-5 scale – the maximum score was 5 (extremely gritty) and the lowest score was 1 (not at all gritty).

Next, we collected the previous month’s sales results. Here’s a snippet of what we found:

In eyeballing the results, it looked like higher grit score did correlate to better performance.

Lest we be accused of junk science, we decided to take a deeper dive [boring details mostly withheld].

Does grit predict better sales results?

Now I believe that most successful B2B professionals are pretty darn gritty. And sales reps are a very gritty lot indeed.

But I wondered; would there be a statistically significant finding that the higher the grit score the better the quota performance?

Short answer: Yup.

Longer answer: We were able to explain 49% of the variance in quota achievement by a linear relationship with grit score. These results were statistically significant (p ≤ .001).

Net net: That grit matters in sales isn’t shocking. But the fact that Pete & I were able to demonstrate correlation to performance (with just a 90-second survey) is. Note: I am looking to test with a few other teams.

[For data nerds ONLY] Otherwise skip to ‘Final thoughts’

For comparison’s sake I wanted to test a bit of conventional wisdom. There is a ton of advice on how critical it is to get at past performance when interviewing inside sales reps.

I didn’t have any data on rep performance at their last sales job, so I decided to use the previous quarter’s results instead. If any kind of past performance should predict future results, it would have to be this – right?

If the conventional wisdom were true, we would predict that the ‘A-players’ from the previous quarter would be the ‘A-players’ last month. And...

Short answer: They were.

Longer answer: Through regression we were able to explain 33% of the variance in quota achievement by a linear relationship with previous quarter’s results. These results were statistically significant (p ≤ .001).

Net net: Past performance seems, in fact, to be correlated with future performance. The conventional wisdom about former A-players seems to be true. The huge caveat here is: if the past performance isn’t directly translatable, you’ll probably notice diminishing returns.

Final thoughts

The notion that grit matters in sales makes sense. Sales is about adapting to a constantly changing economy, market & buyer. It is also about buoyancy and the ability to wipe the blood off your lip and carry on.

Here's my takeaway from this little experiment: I think there should be a place in your hiring process for factoring in grit.

I’ll give the final word to Pete Gracey:

In our world, talent is king. Our business is people and a hiring mistake has long-term implications.

Grit is an attribute that matters to us and now that we’ve correlated it to success in tele-qualification, every candidate is going to have this handy little test slapped down in front of them before we extend any offer.

Pete’s in. How about you?

(Note: You can learn your grit score here. And if you want to rate your reps on the grit scale, I’m more than happy to share the tool I used. Just shoot me an email at mbertuzzi [at] bridgegroupinc.com.)

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Connect with Matt on Twitter and Google+

Why Most Demos Are Useless

Trish Bertuzzi — Wed, 10 Jul 2013 06:38:00 GMT

The following is a guest post by Peter Cohen, Managing Partner of SaaS Marketing Strategy Advisors.
----

When you're selling B2B solutions, at some point in the sales process you're likely to end up doing a demo.

Too bad. Most demos are useless.

They usually don't help the prospective customer make a good choice. They just confuse and bore them.

And they don't help the vendor make the sale, either. That's especially true for software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions.

A demo isn't a sprint

When most vendors prepare a demo for a prospect, they treat it like it's the speed round on a game show.

The Account Rep or Sales Engineer - all wired up and ready to go - look at the demo as a sprint. How many features can they show in whatever amount of time the prospect has allocated?

The demo they put together is all about the features... and as many of them as possible.

Lost in this approach is one fundamental notion:

The customer doesn't care about features. They care about solving their problems.

Even the label, "demo," is all wrong. Demo means "we'll demonstrate our product to you."

Instead, it should be called something like "solve," as in "we'll show you how to solve your problems using our solution."

For SaaS, feature fixation is especially pointless

For SaaS companies, in particular, demonstrating one feature after another is especially pointless.

For one thing, many SaaS companies will add new features regularly over the life of the subscription. Whatever you demo today will be out of date in a few weeks or months anyway.

Besides that, customers are buying more than a set of features. With SaaS, they're buying support, reliability, performance, integration, and security as well.

Prospects are making their purchase decision based on whether they think you understand their problems and you have the knowledge, resources and commitment to solve them.

They're buying into a relationship, not a set of features.

Build trust, solve problems

Demos don't have to be useless... but you need to show prospects more than feature, feature, feature.

You need to talk about your experience in their industry, about other customers you've worked with and their results, about the entire scope of your solution.

In short, you need to solve their particular problems, address their particular concerns, and help their business.

Stories beat features every time

I'm not saying you can avoid showing the product. If you're selling an enterprise solution, you'll invariably get pulled into shoot-outs and bake-offs.

I've been through lots of these, sitting on both sides of the table. Most of the time, every provider does a good job ticking through the complete list of tasks that the customer has specified.

In fact, after 3 or 4 of these demos - "We can do this. We can do that, We can do this too." - all of them look the same. The prospective customer can't tell one solution from another based on the features.

Here's what sets the winner apart:

They provide context. They explain how the solution helps the business, how it solves problems, why it will make the customer more successful.

The winner doesn't do it with features alone. They win with the story that goes with them.

(Image credit: thomasbonte)

Most Popular Posts of 2013 (through Q2)

Trish Bertuzzi — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 06:28:00 GMT

Here we are -- already two quarters into 2013.

I thought I'd share four of our most popular posts from 2013 for this Fourth of July holiday week.

1. Outbound Prospecting: by the numbers [New research]

If your Outbound Prospectors target 1000 accounts this quarter, how many opportunities will they put into your Sales organization's pipeline? Ask me that questions three months ago and I would have said, "It depends." Today, I'm confident with a response of 32. Last December, Pete Gracey from AG Salesworks approached me with a crazy idea. His pitch was roughly, I have 35+ BDRs prospecting for three dozen technologies and generating mountains of Salesforce.com data. Any interest in digging into it and seeing what we find? My reply: Let's do this.
(read more)

2. Inside Sales & the Exempt vs Non-exempt Mess

At least once a month, I have a conversation with a sales leader who is trying to understand the exempt v non-exempt status of their inside sales teams. I always tell them two things:

There is logic and then there is the law – and in this case they are mutually exclusive
This is a decision you have to make internally in partnership with HR and legal counsel

If you are not aware of this ridiculous and outdated standard let me share some background. The question deals with the federal Fair Labor Standards Act in conjunction (and often conflict) with state labor laws.
(read more)

3. LinkedIn Fundamentals for Sales Reps

I'm sure you've noticed that over the last 6 weeks LinkedIn has been rolling out new profiles for all users. In light of the major refresh, I thought it a great time to address the most frequently asked question I hear on Social Prospecting™: What separates the most effective Sales Reps on LinkedIn from the rest? So together with Lynn Hidy from UpYourTelesales, we set out to deliver an answer. We found that that the best social prospectors:
(read more)

4. ABCs of Hiring Recent Grads for Sales

The other day, I was talking to a friend who leads a team of sales development reps (outbound prospectors).

She was mentioning how tight the market is for reps with 1-2 years of experience. To paraphrase her predicament: I need reps who are senior enough that they can & will do the job. But who are junior enough to unlearn bad habits before they calcify. I asked, “Have you looked at hiring recent grads?” As it just so happens, we are in the thick of career fair season for many colleges & universities. She asked if I had any tips. My reply: nope. So over the last few days I’ve been giving it some thought and wanted to share what I’ve come up with.
(read more)

Enjoy and have a great holiday weekend!

CEO's Response to 'A Letter of Resignation'

Trish Bertuzzi — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 06:25:00 GMT

I recently read a fictionalized letter of resignation from a SVP, Sales (to a CEO) over on the Sales Benchmark Index blog. It is worth a full read, but here is a quick excerpt:

The reasons for my departure are as follows:

The revenue goal you have set for me is not based in reality. It is unfair to set my goals based some high level Gartner numbers. For three years, I have submitted a proposal to set the number correctly and it has been rejected. Give the new guy a chance.

You have 16 items on my priority list. No one can do 16 things well. Each of these has been labeled mission critical. As a result, I have become a bad husband and father. Don’t ruin another man’s life. Not all opportunities are created equal. Pick a few things.

While entertaining, and in many instances probably quite true, it got me thinking. This head of sales had his point of view. But there are two sides to every coin, are there not?

What would a CEO response look like?

So here goes a (tongue-in-cheek) attempt at a reply:

Dear Bob,

I accept your letter of resignation as VP, WW Sales and appreciate the time you took to detail your reasons for departure. In the same vein, I thought I’d share some feedback on your performance.

I understand the revenue goal we set was a stretch. We decided to base it on historical performance, market potential and corporate goals. The numbers you proposed always seemed to ensure the goal of achieving your bonus – rather than our Board’s satisfaction with overall company performance. Also, I’ll make sure to let Gartner know that they should reach out to you for insights on properly sizing our market.

I apologize for your 16-item priority list. To my mind, 12 of those are basics that any head of sales should have brought to the table. In hiring your replacement, we’ll make sure to not repeat this error. As not only the CEO, but also the company’s founder, please tell me more about the demands of your role and your need for work-life balance. Would you suggest we offer marriage counseling and parenting classes as part of the incentive package?

You state that our products are commodities. I remember how hard you fought to maintain a face-to-face (read: high cost) field sales force. It appears that your hiring profile was out of alignment with the requirements of our market. And your repeated refrain was to request more headcount for road-warrior enterprise reps. No wonder I had the CFO monitor your hiring plans.

I know that you struggled to form a relationship with our CMO. Let me offer some coaching. Sales is about attunement. Perhaps a little more perspective taking and a little less storming and screaming “these leads aren’t ready to buy” would have improved matters. FYI, since your departure we’ve built an inside sales team and are observing an unfamiliar phenomenon: new pipeline from inbound leads.

Finally, I am sorry you found our culture too rigid. Having “military-like commands” that are demoralizing is not my aim. The lesson from the military I wish you had absorbed is “the sergeants run the army.” During your tenure, we had 80% attrition in front-line sales managers. I should have been more supportive of their needs and their success. I mistakenly thought that was your job. I’ve often heard the maxim, “People join companies, they leave bosses.” I now see the truth in it.

Bob, I wish you every success in your new venture. We have learned much from you and will work hard to build a better organization. And we will no longer tolerate a bad sales leader.

Godspeed!

-a CEO

So this was a fun exercise.

What would you have added to either letter? C’mon get snarky with me!

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Connect with Trish on
Twitter and Google+

Rethinking Sales Territories

Trish Bertuzzi — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 06:36:00 GMT

I consider myself a fairly traditional Sales Manager – in that I generally don’t think “new” equates to “better.”

In terms of Sales Territories, I've always believed in the need for defined territories. My reasoning being that they create focus and accountability. (That and the fact that they're a hedge against most in-fighting between reps).

But the times they are a’ changing and so is my thinking.

Although I’ve been dubbed the “Godmother of the Outbound Mafia” (thanks to Craig Rosenberg for the title), I do recognize that the ripple effects from inbound marketing and social prospecting need to be addressed.

Equitable territories are as simple as Rubik's cube.

Territories can be carved up based on potential, but not on interest. Market dynamics don't respect the neat lines we’ve drawn on a map. Although Marketing would love to ensure even lead distribution - it just doesn’t happen.

Rather than building in complexity to compensate for unfairness, I'm seeing companies begin to move away from traditional (line in the sand) sales territories.

I want to share 3 examples of companies that have rethought conventional wisdom.

Silverpop: Function & Segment

Silverpop has done something really interesting with their Demand Generation team. First, they've segmented them into inbound and outbound. Inbound Reps receive leads round-robin. Second, outbound reps are aligned by market segment: enterprise, mid-market and smb.

Bruce Field, VP Sales & Demand Generation of Silverpop provides more detail:

Attempting to fairly assign targeted performance goals and distribute inbound lead volume to Demand Generation teams can be problematic. A reliance on strict geographic territories usually leads to some individuals receiving low volumes with an inability to achieve goals despite skill and effort while others may achieve their goals too easily.

Utilizing a round robin approach has allowed us to create a truly level playing field and provides greater visibility onto our star performers.

HootSuite: Named & Pool

HootSuite has taken the no-geo territories philosophy all the way to their sales team. Inside Sales Reps are assigned 250 accounts across geographies. All other accounts are kept in a pool which can be prospected into by anyone. The ISRs can own a contact but not the account until an opportunity is created.

Darren Suomi, VP Sales of HootSuite provides more detail:

Geographical territories tend to be unfair in how they are cut up as they usually have a concentration of certain types of customers. (i.e. NY & CA typically do better for Technology and Media). Our strategy addresses that issue.

An added benefit is that if a rep has a particular expertise from past experience they have the freedom to explore it without having to be boxed in by a territory. We also believe that referrals are key to expanding business. If a rep gets a referral from a client they are free to run with it vs. having to pass it to another rep. There is sense that a rep needs to be on the ball and not miss out on an opportunity by ignoring non-named accounts. By knowing that other reps can go after accounts there is more urgency to get to them.

Net/net: As a new industry, the market dictates a lot of where we go so we are trying to be fluid and have the ability to adapt quickly vs. being slow moving and boxed into a certain way of doing things.

ConnectAndSell: Pool [squared]

ConnectAndSell has taken a truly iconoclastic approach. First, they have no Lead Gen team front-ending the sales process. All leads go directly to Sales.

Second, there are no territories. From an inbound perspective the leads are queued in a lead pool that the reps can pull from to build call lists. From an outbound perspective, prospect accounts are pooled and reps can reach out to any subset in which they have interest.

To me, this approach reads, “You don’t own a patch or a bunch of accounts. You own a revenue quota – good selling!”

Mark Godley, VP Market Development of ConnectAndSell provides more detail:

We were pretty nervous about throwing out conventional wisdom and designing an unorthodox market coverage strategy.

I’m happy to report that we now have an amazingly dynamic methodology in place that allows reps to pursue territory potential as they wish while also optimizing market coverage for our company. It has worked far beyond our expectations and bookings are up hugely as a result.

So there you have it.

For some time, I’ve been revisting the conventional thinking around territories.

Don’t get me wrong, no system is 100%. A critical success factor for each of these organizations is having a strong technology infrastructure to support, monitor and report on account ownership.

So maybe I'm no longer such a traditional Sales Manager. I’m attracted to the idea of thinking higher and bigger than the day-to-day. And where possible and necessary, coloring outside the lines.

So what do you think? I would love to hear from real practitioners about what you’re doing. If you run an inside sales team, how are you bending the old rules? Educate us. We are all part of the inside sales community!

PS – Many, many thanks to Bruce, Darren & Mark for sharing!

(Photo credit: Risk by Scott Hamlin)

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Connect with Trish on
Twitter and Google+

Simplifying the 'Round 1' Inside Sales Interview

Gail Milton — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 06:42:00 GMT

I've interviewed hundreds of inside sales candidates over the years. I’d like to think that I’ve developed a proven process for making the most of a round one interview.

I have been working and reworking a short outline that I picked up from Trish roughly 6 years ago.

Earlier this month, I put it to the ultimate test.

From Sales Leader to Parent/Coach

My daughter (not in sales) asked me for help preparing for a very important interview. She is getting her Masters at NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service studying health policy and management. The interview was for a position at Ernst & Young.

Panicked, I wondered if my trusty outline would translate. (Note: I know nothing about this field) Yet, realizing how important this opportunity was to my daughter, I wanted to design a mock interview that would be challenging and, most importantly, help her prepare.

Preparing a customized interview

Trusting in Daniel Pink’s notion that To Sell is Human, I pulled out my tried and true outline.

I did the usual preparation—looking at the job description, reviewing her resume, and learning as much as I could about the company.

When the day came, I felt pretty confident I could play the part of an EY recruiter.

Forty minutes later, the interview was complete. My daughter commented, “Wow! That was just like a real interview. I’m going to have to work on how to answer XYZ question. I wasn’t ready for that one. Thanks mom!”

Phew! I still have my daughter snowed. She thinks I'm smart!

Bringing the round one interview process to your business

There is no shortage of books, lists and articles on how to improve your interview process. The number of interview styles to choose from is daunting.

This initial phone interview is critical for separating the wheat from the chaff. As a hiring manager, time is a fixed and precious resource.

I want to share few of the questions I use. You can get my interview outline here (.PDF).

Current Position

What two or three things have you learned in this role?
If you stayed with your current company, what would be your next move?

Management / Peers

Thinking about previous roles, what did your best managers have in common?
Tell me about a time you were able to motivate your co-workers?

Personal Development

What have you done for your professional development in the last few months?
How do you feel about your progress (career-wise) to date?

Closing/ Wrap Up

Going home and talking about your interview today. How will you describe our company?
Thanks for your time today. Would you mind sending me an email recapping your impressions of our interview?

I hope you find this tool helpful.

And, if any of you have children graduating from college and/or searching for jobs, try it out on them.

You ‘ll find not only another opportunity to refine your interviewing skills, but a chance to learn more about your own children and perhaps mentor them in a new way.

P.S.—My daughter got the gig!