The 9 Sales Lessons I Learned Scaling My Own Company

Sales is often referred to as a unique blend of art and science. Now, more than ever, I’m seeing the science part of the equation get a lot of air-time (and rightfully so.)

This is especially true while investors, founders, and sales leaders increasingly value predictability and consistency when it comes to sustainable revenue growth.

In this article, I’ll walk through my personal take and favorite tactics learned from my experience scaling Stripe’s sales team from just a few reps to a 300+-person global revenue engine, and now at my own startup Accord - where we’ve built the GTM team from scratch. 

We’ll dig into the details of the how, when, and why of building a repeatable sales process, while working towards the holy grail of B2B sales – an efficient, consistent GTM motion.

When are you ready?

1. To build a repeatable process, start with unscalable tactics.

To earn the right to get started on a repeatable process, you first need to do the unscalable things. Whether you’re founder-led or already have your initial sales team, you should be quickly learning what does and doesn’t work in the market. 

This applies to everything from high-level segmentation and positioning, down to personas and messaging details. You can’t get to a repeatable process if you haven’t already refined your ICP and core use cases.

2. It seems obvious, but you need to have a product that actually delivers value.

It might seem simple, but many companies think they’re ready to scale sales before they even have a product that consistently delivers value. Where you don't want to be is in a situation where you figure out the process for a product that’s in development – only to discover the value proposition and/or underlying functionality needs to be changed. 

Churn is a real killer and a problem you don’t want to be solving while you think you’re in scale mode.

Sales Process, aka Buyer’s Journey! 

Once you have your baseline revenue equation (see below) for your repeatable sales process, you’re probably starting to think about how you can improve its efficiency. To effectively impact your equation I highly recommend using a buyer-first lens. 

Let’s break down the key stages of the sales process and a few of my favorite tactics that have helped during my time at Accord and Stripe:

3. Feature social proof on your website.

The more objective, “3rd party” signals you can provide buyers during the sales process, the better. This includes G2 reviews, relevant case studies, testimonials, press coverage, etc. Don’t just make them take your word for it.

Further, reconsider your referenceable customer logos. 

It isn’t just about calling out the biggest brand names, it’s about you being the right fit for your actual buyers. Prospects are trying to understand if you solve problems for companies like theirs, not how large of a customer you can sign.

4. Don’t forget pricing – at least a ballpark.

If you want to set the right expectations and increase quality lead flow during your sales process, you need to include pricing on your website. 

I’m not saying that having the exact rates are required (as with most things, there’s not a one-size-fits-all approach), but at least indicate a ballpark sense so your prospect knows you’re a viable option - or not!

5. Speaking of your website, does your "About Us" section tell a compelling story?

I’m willing to bet your About Us or Team page is likely a top 3 most viewed page on your website and, also, that it’s not optimized for your sales process. Make sure you’re telling the right, consistent story. 

People buy from people - not companies.

6. The most critical point in the sales process is right after the initial meeting – get it right.

Most B2B sales processes see the largest deal fall-off after initial meetings. That’s why this stage is your most important lever to increase Win Rates. I like to think about this stage as the key intermediary step between prospects feeling like you’ve earned their time from Research, and actually deciding to purchase. 

This is the time to learn more about their specific problems and clearly demonstrate that you can solve them with your product and expertise. 

Surprisingly, at this stage in the sales process, 70% of the buyer's journey is already complete before they even reach out. They’re already interested. Now help them understand why it makes sense to invest the time and resources to fully decide if you’re the best partner for them.

7. Get away from pitching, and toward solution selling.

The right philosophy here should be “pique curiosity & prove ROI” – not a feature, functionality, and demo brain dump!

Make sure you’re deeply understanding their problems, creating objective success criteria for a solution, and clear a path to value. Countless deals are lost because prospects fear the risk of a wrong discussion and change over the upside of a solution. 

That’s why the vast majority of qualified opportunities die from no-decisions, rather than to competitors. It’s definitely not due to your features and functionality - so focus less on those, and more on collaborative problem solving!

8. Don’t give a proposal until you know it can be signed right away.

If I were to share just one tip here, it would be a reminder to not make a basic (yet incredibly common mistake) I see across sellers. That's giving a formal proposal without first making sure it’s 110% a signable, right now, agreement. 

Check with your champion in-depth as you’ll never get that opportunity back.

Look at it this way – you’re giving something here. Hopefully, you have shared a lot of value in your interactions to have earned honest feedback and figure out how to get the deal across the line, together.

9. The simple equation I use to drive scalability.

There are endless data-driven inputs you can look at when it comes to sales processes. However, I’d recommend closely tracking these four key levers as you look to build and improve repeatability and efficiency:

Pipeline X Deal Velocity X ACV X Win Rate = Expected Revenue 

• Pipeline, new conversations: Top-of-funnel new deal to work. Whether you call them MQLs, SALs, PQLs or Opportunities.
• Deal Velocity, i.e. how long does it take to close a deal: Calculated as (Close Date) - (Opportunity Created Date).
• ACV, Average Contract Value: Calculated on a rolling basis (eg last 30, last 60, or last 90) you can also cohort them by Created Dates to align with changes in your sales process to get an understanding of how a change in your process affected ACV.
• Win Rate, % of opportunities closed-won: Closed Won Deals / Total Closed Deals.

Conclusion – get tight on your sales process early.

If you’re not used to such a methodical way of examining sales, and/or you’re starting from scratch, it can feel like an overwhelming feat to get your revenue engine going. This is especially true when you don’t have a ton of resources on the sales ops side of things, experienced managers, or multiple quarters of data to reflect. 

However, the exercise of your leadership team coming together to set your baseline equation, and tracking towards that goal week-to-week builds the muscle of repeatability and consistency.

Before you know it, you’ll have a much more mature GTM function, understand the inputs of your revenue engine much more, and be on the path towards scaling an efficient business.