Trying to change behaviour when things are going well is much harder than when things are going badly. Ben Kiziltug - SaaS Growth Sales Talks

Orginally post on sales confidence blog

Ben Kiziltug Regional Sales Director, Stack Overflow EMEA

1. Not all money is created equal A pound from one client isn’t the same as a pound from another. Every customer will have a different lifetime revenue rate, renewal rate and future value to your business. ‘Just creating revenue’ isn’t a scalable strategy. Dive deep into your data to work out which clients bring the most value to your company. Work out which clients are worth spending more time on, compared to those who are not. You need to realise this pretty early on your business. Don’t waste time treating everybody the same.

2. Reverse engineer your success After crunching the data (or getting Stack Overflow’s data scientists to do it), Ben found that FTSE 100 companies provided the most value to the business. As a result, it became his mission to bring more of them on board. But how? Work out how you brought in the ones you have already, then replicate it. It will take a total realignment of your sales behaviour. It may also mean slightly altering your product. However, the future of your business depends on it.

3. Commission structure must align with your company goals When you change the way your company sells in order to achieve new goals, you need to change the commission structure to reflect this. Make sure your commission structure rewards the right behaviour. However, don’t use it to penalise the wrong behaviour. Use coaching and mentoring to do that.