B2B Inside Sales Do’s and Don’ts

I am coming up on 18 months as the Sales Advisor at True Ventures. As I reflect back on 1000’s of emails, 100’s of meetings and 10’s of portfolio company field trips, I wanted to share some thoughts that have shaped many of the discussions we have had together. With this blog post, I am submitting a list of “Do’s and Don’ts” that range in topics from inside sales, to compensation, to digital content marketing, to process and technology. I’ve noodled through all of these topics with many of you and will continue to do so even as my role shifts and I spend more time with Cloudera, Inc. as their VP of Field Operations.

I will continue as an Advisor to True Ventures and look forward to providing value in the form of best practices discussions and advice on all things sales and marketing.

Enjoy the read,
Lars

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Don’t start with a one-person inside sales team.

When you’re first looking to build an inside sales team for your company, it’s critically important that you hire in pairs. I’ve found that if you cannot benchmark your sales reps against each other, it becomes far more difficult to discern whether or not your sales team is executing optimally. If you hire two reps, you’re going to find out within the first several months if you’ve made a hiring mistake with either one. At that point, even if you are replacing the faltering rep, you don’t lose all momentum since there is still someone working within sales. If both reps work out, then you’ve just exponentially grown your pipeline and revenue generation has likely begun. And…BAM! You now understand the power of a good phone-based sales person that will add to the team as you decide how quickly you want to grow revenue.

Don’t make a VP-level executive your first sales hire.

For SaaS companies selling a low-cost product (~$1-$25K), my recommendation is to avoid making your first sales hire a VP-level sales executive. This may seem counterintuitive, but I find that when you’re first starting your sales team, it is far more critical to hire individual contributors who can generate activities rather than a VP-level sales executive.

When you boil it down, selling is all about activity; phone calls, emails, demos, conversations and connections are what truly move the needle, especially for a budding startup looking to gain momentum. Until you have four or five sales reps who are executing in this manner for you, it doesn’t make sense to introduce a VP of Sales.

Do implement and integrate marketing automation with your CRM.

A critical ingredient in the success of any company is the ability to integrate a customized CRM with a marketing automation tool. In my experience, the most successful companies tend to be the ones that take advantage of technology to supplement selling activities.

These two platforms, when integrated together with a defined lead-to-close process, will allow you to capture, manage, triage, cleanse, prioritize, de-duplicate, score, nurture and convert inbound inquires as well as targeted prospects into the day-to-day.

Do spend time designing a comp plan that will drive the right behavior.

When companies have a phone-based salesperson, they often want this individual to have the ability to manage leads, upsell existing customers, bring in renewals, and conduct all other inside sales and phone-based activities. Although this may seem like a means to improve efficiency and cut costs, having a single individual compensated on multiple activities can be detrimental. Instead, consider tier-ing your sales team and developing a comp plan to guide the right kind of behavior in one area. By putting a plan together that focuses on a single activity, you avoid your sales reps picking and choosing what compensated activity they are best at, and ignoring the rest.

Do create a plan for online digital content marketing.

It is critical for any company to develop a strategy around the digital marketing content that your company plans to create to explain your value proposition. More and more, prospects are doing extensive research online before they begin the buying cycle. Chances are, by the time they reach out to you, they already have a strong idea of what they want because of the digital content you’ve generated. In order to make sure your content is as effective as possible, make sure that your content is captivating and accessible. I personally am a huge fan of engaging digital content such as infographics and business videos rather than just written content (that said, a great research piece that educates and inspires goes a long way). Infographics and videos are easily digestible and therefore highly valuable.

In addition to making sure you have captivating content, it’s supremely important that your content is easily “found.” Because we know that future prospects are out there looking for solutions to solve their pain, if you are not “there” for these people to find you, you will lose the battle. Your digital content assets need to be out there so that these looky-loo’s can trip over them when they are doing their research. Companies who do this right can generate up to 50% or more of their pipeline without any proactive outbound effort. With that in mind, it’s a good idea to recycle content into various different mediums. For example, a well thought-out research article can easily become an eBook, several blog posts and possibly a webinar if you chop it up the right way.

Don’t ever give anything away without asking for something in return.

In my experience, when a prospect is asking you for something (such as a discount, a proof of concept/demo or perhaps more favorable terms), you are in a great position to request something in return. What I normally instruct my sales reps to ask for is “the date the deal will get done.” I realize that this is a penetrating question, but it unearths any objections your prospect may have to buying your product. More importantly, if your prospect is resistant to answering this question, you now have a better idea of whether or not this is a viable opportunity.

The best deal that you don’t close is the one you get out of early. Said another way….If you’re going to lose, lose early!

Don’t pit your inside and outside sales team members against each other.

Normally, companies will task the inside sales team with closing smaller deals, and allow outside sales to focus on larger deals. This can occasionally be counterproductive and can cause disharmony between the two sides when a deal is on the cusp of moving from “small” to “large” or vice versa; both sides are incented to shape the deal so it meets quota for themselves.

Instead, you might want to consider employing a “baton zone” strategy. A baton zone isolates a dollar range for deals within a company where sales are “double compensated.” If either inside or outside sales reps sell a deal within this range, both sides will receive quota relief, thereby reducing the friction between the two sides for deals in this grey area. By doing this, inside sales is no longer motivated to reduce the size of a deal so that they can meet their quotas.

Don’t believe that because your product is amazing, people will magically find it (and buy/download/use it) and love it.

A mistake I see a lot of technical Founders make is not placing enough emphasis on the sales side of their business. It is not realistic to assume that because your product is stellar, users will flock to you. Inbound and outbound selling efforts both require a great deal of emphasis on sales and marketing. Moreover, if your company is aiming for large enterprise deals, you will need to invest in the right people, process and technology to allow your team to qualify,  “shape,” negotiate and close a six- or seven-figure deal.

Do call your customers after you’ve sold to them.

Your sales people should always call their existing customers 3-6 months after they’ve sold them their solution. When talking to the customer, ask for three things: 1) How the solution is working for them, 2) Why they ended up buying your solution in the first place and 3) If they have any peer references who may be interested in buying your solution.

By asking the customer how the solution is working for them, you’ll solidify your relationship with them, and might even uncover some upsell opportunities. Just as importantly, by asking your customer why they bought your solution, you’ll receive anecdotal insight into what compelling event resulted in the purchase of your product; this is a great way to end up with crucial silver bullets and stories that can be used in new prospecting cycles. Finally, your sales rep should ask their customer for three people he/she knows in similar positions at other companies that could also be interested in his/her solution. After all, if they are receiving value from the solution, then they should be happy to make their colleagues successful as well. Also, the sales person should ask if they can use the reference’s name in the email to the referral and even copy them on the email. Many customers will offer to actually make the introduction. With one call, a sales person can accomplish three unbelievable goals and hopefully set in motion tons of new prospecting activities.

Do take the time to author a relevant structured sales process.

Your selling stages should always be numbered, named and defined. The definitions should include a series of milestones, deliverables or outcomes that guide your sales reps to a go or no-go decision at the end of every step. A really good structured sales process will get you there. It helps your salespeople forecast accurately and understand whether or not it’s a real deal. This will become the crux of your forecasting methodology. Stay tuned for a future blog post with more details on this process.