SPLC: June 4th Meeting Recap

 "Pre-Sales Metrics: How to Measure, Inspect, and Improve Your Pre-Sales Operation"

The Seattle Pre-Sales Leadership Collective just wrapped up another great event bringing together pre-sales leaders from top tech companies such as SAP Concur, DocuSign, Procore, and Smartsheet.

Matt Darrow, founder of Vivun.co and pre-sales thought leader, led the in-depth workshop focusing on pre-sales operational metrics across four categories: Focus, Capacity, Efficiency, Compensation.

Matt walked the group through various pre-sales metrics, how the metrics can be calculated, and how the data can be used to drive change within an organization.

In discussing the topic as a group of pre-sales operators, we agreed that measurement and data is important to make decisions, justify resources (e.g. budget), and drive process improvements. For each of our respective organizations we shared the processes we measure, the metrics we track, and how we go about gathering data.

As we shared experiences, it was interesting to hear the differences and commonalities across the group. A few examples include:

Activity Tracking: the spectrum ranged from those who logged hours, to those who tracked discrete activities (e.g. demo, on-site meeting, etc.), to others who did not track activity at all.

Variable Compensation: many tied variable to attainment within a region, segment, and in some cases, vertical/industry. Some included under/over assignment to quota rollup (although the percentages varied). Others had full individual quotas or used MBOs.

Recognition / President’s Club: almost every team included their in President’s Club, but the criteria for eligibility and qualification varied widely:

• Individual metric floors (e.g. minimum Revenue contribution to be eligible)
• Multiple qualification metrics (e.g. revenue attachment, conversion rate, activities)
• Flat ratio of AE/Sales Reps qualified (e.g. if 10 AEs, then qualify 20% or the top 2 SE/SCs would qualify)

It’s fair to say every attendee walked away from the workshop with new ideas and actionable insights to bring back to their respective teams.

To access the full presentation by Matt Darrow and to continue the discussion online visit the Seattle Pre-sales Leadership LinkedIn Group. Updates regarding future events are also posted to the LI page.

Following the half-day workshop, the group had a fantastic dinner at The Metropolitan Grill. It was an incredible evening breaking bread with some of the best and brightest in pre-sales leadership.

A huge thank you to DocuSign, Vivun (Matt Darrow), and Loopio for sponsoring the June meeting.

And thank you to our organizing team Kevin Williamson, Matt Pelham, and Kevin Cooke.

What’s next…

We are targeting our next meeting for this Fall. The event page will be published once we finalize the host, agenda, and sponsors. Stay tuned!

We plan to organize three meetings per year where we will look to go deeper into specific topics pertinent to pre-sales leaders.

How to get involved...

We launched the Seattle Pre-Sales Leadership Collective with the goal of creating a community where pre-sales leaders have the resources and support they need to achieve their professional potential.

If you’d like to get involved or have questions about what we’re up to here at the Seattle Pre-Sales Collective, please reach out to me at [email protected] or via LinkedIn.