'Break Free'

Reflections inspired by working with Founders (Tech/SaaS) where ..

• Sales are either wholly down to them or they are fully in every sale
• Sales teams yet to perform?
• Time is now where they need to ‘break free’ and see their sales team ‘stand up’ and be ready to scale

Remember: You want a sales organisation that operates without you. Achieves every month (the target you set), predicts accurately and is ready for fast growing scale.

Step 1: Clear Plan Communicated?

• Capture the plan. Write it up, deck and record*** YOU delivering it. (20 Mins Max.)
• GET everyone who you want to support or execute the plan to listen to this.?
• Ask everyone to listen, it is mandatory they all reply (written to you) with what they will do and how as a result of what they heard.?Plus any constructive commentary.
• Ask people to listen to it again and again. Repeating underlines importance.?
• Review the plan approx every 3 weeks and do check ins with people on their replies. (Purposefully not an every month thing, you need to review at different times for best thinking)
• You need everyone to understand what you want BUT mostly it needs to be IN their own plans (embedded deeply).?

***Put in easy central location. Record v2 when v1 is outdated. Delete the old versions. Communicate there is a v2 to listen to.?

Step 2: Executed Fundamentals.?

• Leads are everything. You must know (evidenced with proof) how to generate leads from cold OUTREACH. Consistency in pipeline additions i.e. establishing a run rate base from INBOUND and the ability to generate them from standing start. Ideally you will never have to do this again but you must know how to do it in event your marketing engine ‘stalls’. Also OUTREACH success is a great way to ‘tune’ the marketing performance.?
• ‘Can it’. Write down your sales process. Specifically steps that deliver a sale that have been followed over 10 times and lead to minimum of 2 sales (that resulted in right customer profile, case study ideally and deal size i.e. you need the recipe with ingredient list, weights/measures that any cook can follow). If you do not have this start now, record every prospect interaction you can and at every step. (Meetings, e-mails, linkedin etc.) If you have a demo and or a pitch deck used in the process these must be recorded i.e. a best practice way to demo or best practice way to pitch. These canned examples (think rich templates) can then be personalised to a sales scenario but always start with that canned ingredient.?
• Your ideal customer profile be specific. Who do you want to be customers? Need this ‘hunting list’ i.e. data that contains the highest number of ICP as possible. Better your DATA here the quicker you can start to win repeatably.?
• Value proposition - must be written down and if it cannot be or has not been written down ask yourself why??
• Consistency - Your Sales Cadence. You must establish a weekly meeting that repeats at same time with same agenda every week. It must be a quality meeting. How many leads? Where from? Check right ICP. Pipeline growth how much and how many opportunities. Check the quality and qualification. Pipeline advances - what opportunities moved forward? Why?. Forecast for the week, month, quarter. Every 2 weeks. What sales are lost? /Stalled? What can we do? What sales were won and why? What process was followed? Move to case study. This is a heart beat i.e. ‘pulse’ is key to ongoing healthy sales.
• Know your customer - you do so share that with your team. Or even better get the customers into the office to talk about what they like, what they use, how it benefits them. Every time you, customer success, marketing or anyone talks to a customer record it. You cannot keep going back to them and having the same conversation. Respect your customers time here only ask them for time you will use wisely.?
• Steady, Steady catchy ..if it’s worth doing once do it well.??

You can’t do this in 6 days. Think about it you don’t want to blow an opportunity but you need to get going. The above fundamentals do take time but once done they are done (you just need to refresh/revisit them every 4 months to check they are in date/version update.)?

Hiring -RIGHT PEOPLE. If you do not know how to recruit and interview for sales people get expert help!!! (Mistakes here are costly).?

Onboarding - RIGHT WAY Here you need all the above to be accessible to everyone joining your business. If you want a salesperson to do as well as you then give them the ‘manual’ and the recordings. If you want to build teams think production line. Get them to share what they learnt using the assets above BEFORE you start letting them run at your best prospects. Keep this up i.e. every new salesperson that joins. Of course they can ‘cut teeth’ on some smaller stuff to practise and try. You can use this path for more people as they join or in event of attrition.?

Compensation Plans - the RIGHT PAY in the right way. You must get this right.

RIGHT TECH - Slick tech stack for sales and sales operations. Ensure tools are used and when new things are added the old are removed.?

Danger Warnings - Self Correct

The Magnet:?

• You might find yourself being pulled back either by sales team or leaders needing you. Or you might want to get in it again for the energy, belief, confidence or because you can’t move out of micro management?
• Change and/or new. Remember doing it a different way might take iteration or indeed trying again.

Check your watch:?

• Ask your team for the time. (What do I mean? You should not be needed. Teach, Coach and Enable. You need a team to be able to check the watch and tell you the time. You cannot delegate to someone without being pretty clear and/or them having capability & desire. You need to make yourself redundant and fully not needed in sales process. Of course you will always want to connect to customers as part of your role but that is the goal. If you ever find yourself not knowing if someone can do it, then ask them to show you or share how they do it)
• Sometimes the ‘battery’ will need a change. (What do I mean? If the ‘battery’ slows the watch stops keeping time so well. Change the battery when it starts to fail or fails)?
• Old is not now. (What do I mean? Not everyone wowed by vintage. If it worked like that before you may need to share it a different way to have others follow… )?

Talk vs. Do?

• Crisper. Communicate in clear chunks. Remember not to talk about what you are thinking with everyone. You want your team to execute so only ask them to do something when you know it is the priority. I have seen many instances where a founder just shares what they are thinking or the next new thing everyday. Difficult to filter or know which ‘thinking’ needs to be acted on or distracting. If you need to think out loud talk to someone who is not going to be pulled away from something important OR use someone external to refine or kick your ideas around with.

In summary ‘Life Still Goes On’?

YOU* want to break free?

But life still goes on

YOU* can't get used to living without, living without

*YOU refers to Founder and/or CEO individual.?