Joschua Katz

Should CRO’s even exist? Not if they’re going to be: - Super expensive glorified head of sales - With no marketing or CS experience - Compensated like an account executive  - No focus on ICP or aligning the entire GTM motion - No coordination with peers in cross-functions - No P&L fluency or ability to read a P&L  - Only focused on new business with no understanding of recurring impact - No knowledge of the bowtie or systems designed to deliver ongoing customer value - Have a short term view and only care about the quarter CROs should absolutely exist if they: - Can come from Marketing, CS, or RevOps not just Sales - Have foundational understanding and respect for other functions - Are compensated like all other executives - Are focused on driving tight alignment across the GTM motion - Are focused on collaborating across Sales, Marketing, CS leveraging data generated from RevOps - Are focused on a customer journey that begins when the prospect lands on the website and continues through at least 3 annual renewals - Have a deep knowledge of the bowtie  - Have built expertise as revenue architects - Have a long term view that balances short term urgency with long term enterprise value Revenue generation is a team sport. Recurring revenue is driven by recurring impact. If you’re leading the revenue function, you have to understand that and you have to be an expert at driving tight alignment across the customer journey to deliver that impact. This is the way.

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SDRs / AEs: Account Selection is king right now when prospecting. Use these 5 filters on Sales Nav (LinkedIn Sales Solutions) to uncover healthy & growing companies: 1. Buyer intent 2. Recent leadership hires  3. Recent funding (last 9 months is good) 4. Headcount growth in the last 6-months 5. Recent hiring in the org / persona segment you target 6. % distribution of personas that makeup the total employee headcount There are still companies out there who are growing and investing.. You just need to find them. Don't cast a wide net right now, you're likely wasting a ton of time. Instead, go deeper on fewer accounts.

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Top 5 key metrics I recommend CROs use for inside sales professionals: 1. Speed of response 2. Efficiency of progression through the process 3. Number of calls per day 4. Number of positive outcomes 5. Demo sets As a CRO leader, these are five metrics that I live by. 

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It should not be so hard to empower your sales teams. But, in 2023: 📉 53% of CROs struggled to increase sales velocity and rep productivity 📉 72% of salespeople spent time not selling 📉 28% of sales reps expected to attain quota This year, learn how to leverage the power of sales enablement 🚀 https://lnkd.in/eHDKVJ_J #salesenablement #change #saas

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Today’s show is a fricking masterclass in sales & hiring. Larry Shurtz has been a go-to-market OG for 3 decades. 👥 Salesforce: Led a 1,300 team to $2.1BN revenue 💰 Genesys Cloud: Record growth to $1.4BN ARR 📈 Confluent: Led them to record $600M ARR My 6 key takeaways 👇 1. Why Verticalization Requires More Than an AE Industry Nerd You can’t truly verticalize & deliver value to customers with only an AE. There cannot be a disconnect between them and the technical team. Every single person that touches the account has to be involved. 2. Those That Say They Do Not Have CS Is BS A lot of companies say they don’t need CS. Someone is playing that role under a different title. They are responsible for correcting architecture & aligning use cases. 3. What it Means If You Cannot Forecast Well You don’t truly understand your business. You’re not doing the right amount of diligence with customers & opportunities. We might not be asking the right questions & talking to the right people. 4. Why I Hate Panel Interviews When Hiring I prefer one-on-one interviews. The relationship between the leader and employee matters  It’s hard to get that out of a 5-person panel. 5. Why I Don’t Do Case Studies The real value is to understand their mindset & thought process. It gets to the what & the how. I could easily get that out of a 45 minute chat. 6. One Question I Ask Every Interview I would ask which culture did you prefer out of all their previous companies. The range of answers I’ve gotten have been shocking. Understanding their culture is important to value alignment. (links in comments) #founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup #seed #funding #hiring #sales #B2B

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hey RevOps - if you're a high-velocity SMB shop selling a large number of small deals, how should you grant quota credit to AEs? 🤔 Signature date? Payment date? Contract effective date? Like most things in RevOps, simple questions like this do not have simple answers. This question was posted in the RevOps Co-op Slack group recently and the community provided some 🔥 feedback like: 📍 Signature date seems to be the most popular choice, but always with a big caveat 📍 That caveat relates to the amount of churn or turnover when it comes to signed deals that don't pay - if the AEs are closing crumby customers that don't pay, then you want to use payment date instead 📍 If you have deals that get signed far in advance of the contract effective date / subscription start date, this adds additional risk to revenue - so may want to consider using the contract effective date instead 📍 Some folks do a mix; for example, 50% at signature, and 50% at payment (or some other metric, like 6 months after deal signature) 📍 In all cases, you want to make sure the structure is set up to drive the behavior you want to encourage without a huge delay between the work done and incentive provided Anything else you'd add to this list? #revops #revenueoperations #salesops #salesoperations #compensation #incentivemanagement

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Half the outbound prospecting tips I see on LI are RevOps tips in disguise. Things salespeople had to do to hit quota that RevOps should have, but didn't, do for them. Here are just two examples. 𝗧𝗲𝗿𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 There's no bigger waste of time than calling suboptimal prospects outside of your ICP and Personas. The first step here is a data science exercise. You take your ICP and Personas definition and run it against all available internal and external data. Then you map out the capacity of each rep to determine how many accounts they can handle. How long does it take to complete each step in the sales process? How many accounts can they do that with before they run out of time and skip steps? Then you take that number of accounts and use your data to identify the absolute best accounts for each rep. Does any of this sound like a "sales activity?" Is this really what you hired expensive salespeople to do? To fumble through something RevOps could do 10X better and 10X faster? 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 What salespeople should be doing is research on that carefully curated list of accounts and contacts. RevOps can give them a BIG headstart by aggregating data into a single place so that they can quickly see things like: - Contact Info - Website URL - LinkedIn URL - Firmographic Metrics - Technographic Metrics - Marketing Engagement - External Intent Signals As an AE, I spent 30% - 70% of my time on all this stuff. As AE #1 in a small startup this took up most of my time, as I had to start from zero. But even at Salesforce, working inside their well-oiled machine, I still had to do a lot of this on my own. Most companies will give reps thousands of accounts when they can only handle a couple hundred or so and expect them to do the data science instead of spending their time actually selling. Don't waste money on AEs. Set them up to use their time more effectively. If you want to read more, we wrote up an article on this a while back in 📰 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙍𝙚𝙫𝙊𝙥𝙨 𝙒𝙚𝙚𝙠𝙡𝙮 📰 https://bit.ly/43lFOxQ ✌️

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Hello SDRs - a good old hokeyism that I enjoy is "you can bring a horse to water, but you can't make him drink". What this saying is missing is how you choose to drink is up to you, but you need to drink. Own your process. Want to know more about the product/market, (yes i think this helps sdrs), go to your Sales engineering team. Want to learn more about top SDRs across all industries, find a mentor. So many of us are all to willing to help, as we've been in your shoes before. Lastly, own your persona learning. GPT tools make what use to be an exhausting and drawn out, possibly innacurate process, and turns it into minutes not hours. It's Wednesday, time to make the rest of the week awesome. #sdr #hokeyism

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10 Best Tools to streamline SDRs Sales Process. 1. Cognism:   ↳ A sales intelligence platform.  ↳ Offers a globally compliant database for company and contact searches.     2. Salesforce:   ↳ The CRM giant provides a suite of tools that ↳ Analyze sales data.  ↳ Manage the Sales pipeline.  ↳ Track customer interactions. 3. Outreach:   ↳ A sales engagement platform that helps SDRs to   ↳ Automate and prioritize their sales activities.    4. Chili Piper:   ↳An automated scheduling tool that helps SDRs   ↳Book meetings without the back-and-forth emails.    5. LinkedIn Sales Navigator:   ↳ A tool that uses LinkedIn’s vast network to help SDRs   ↳ Find and connect with potential leads.    6. Aircall:   ↳ A cloud-based call center and phone system that integrates with productivity and helpdesk tools.    7. Hunter:   ↳ It helps find verified email addresses quickly.    8. RocketReach:   ↳ Connect with prospects through emails and direct dials.  ↳ Boast a large and accurate database.    9. Snov.io:   ↳ Offers a free email verification tool to help SDRs   ↳ Spend less time finding leads and more on converting them.    10. HubSpot:   ↳ A top-level CRM that ↳ Connects data between teams and departments.  ↳ Offer various hubs for marketing, sales, and operations. Remember, These tools can help SDRs to be more efficient in their roles by  ↳ Providing valuable insights.  ↳ Automating repetitive tasks.  ↳ Facilitating better communication with prospects.  It’s important for SDRs to choose tools that integrate well with their existing tech stack and align with their sales strategies. P.S. Which Tool do you like the most and why? 🔔 Follow Zain Arif for Daily Sales Tips 📌 Book a 30 Minutes Sales Consultation with Munzai Solutions! Link in the Comment below 👇 #Sales #SalesTools #SDRs  

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Some of the best outbound SDRs I’ve seen excel by mastering discovery Here's how they do it: 1. Research: Dives deep into the buyer's business and prepare insightful questions before the meeting with the buyer 2. Inquire: Uses layered, open-ended questions to uncover the buyer's objectives and challenges 3. Qualify: Identifies buying motivators, decision criteria, and investment levels 4. Listen: Actively and curiously listen to understand the buyer's business 5. Relate: Shares relevant customer stories that resonate with the buyer's situation 6. Clarify: Leaves space to confirm, clarify, and solidify next steps within the scheduled time By following these steps, SDRs and AEs alike can truly connect with their buyers and drive meaningful conversations What would you add to this list? #askflamman #SDR #outbounddiscovery

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Sam Jacobs does a great job calling out CROs who are just glorified heads of sales. The inflated C-level title is why there is often friction with heads of marketing, and why in the CMO community a major red flag is reporting to a CRO and not the CEO or President. The modern CRO needs depth in sales, marketing, and CS - plus some finance, to successfully do their job. If you’re just giving a C-title to your head of sales, you have the wrong person for the job.

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Signal-based outreach is table stakes in every GTM org now And revenue leaders know it because it leads to a higher impact on revenue (predictably) But they need to execute using less inputs. Because both intent tools and reps eat budgets. So it’s really exciting that Immagnify’s technology will surface our customers 100X more buyer signal data points and score and prioritize them. On top of the in-house data and intent tools we also bundle (6sense, Clearbit, Bombora). Then Warmly automates the outreach across chat, LinkedIn, email to the signals that are the highest efficacy for your business (website intent, job changes, etc). More signals, automated. So reps can spend more time selling 🤝 Welcome to the team, Immagnify! (Learn more about the acquisition in the comments) 

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Ashi from Gong is fast (😮‍💨10k) But not as fast as Gong Engage users when they use Lavender. Access to your Gong calls in our personalization assistant ✅ Access to our coach & "Ashi fast" personalization in Gong ✅ Better 🤝 Faster 3.0 (and so much more) coming soon

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I did an informal poll on CSM vs Sales commission splits. I was pleasantly shocked to see that over 95% of companies do not have Sales take a commission on renewals unless it’s a particularly challenging one; the AE is there to help with it as a “bounty renewal”. in this case, the AE gets a % but is not taken from the CSM. Other interesting data points: "Commission on upsells and renewal made up 30% of the total compensation package. However, the exact commission % was determined by dividing the 30% by $$$ into the total ARR managed by the CSM." What metrics should this be based on? Most followed this model to Typically, companies that are earlier in their CS maturity will base this off a few leading indicators (adoption milestones, EBRs, etc.), and then move to comping on lagging indicators (retention, expansion, NRR, etc.) once their leading indicator activities have been proven. The following are examples of metrics you can use, not an exhaustive list: Leading: QBRs and/or EBRs (attained vs scheduled) Product adoption milestones (product dependent) Lagging: Net Revenue Retention (NRR) - this is likely the most common Retention Expansion Advocacy (hard to make this scale across large teams and mixed portfolios - this is better as a SPIFF or annual metric to Bonus on) From there, you can determine the weight of each metric on the bonus. I'll give an example using a bonus that is achieved by a renewal retention goal and an NRR goal. Criteria for 100% Bonus Attainment: 90% Renewal Retention (50% weight) 125% Net Revenue Retention (50% weight) "This keeps it pretty simple with two priorities. Retain and Expand Revenue. The Retention goal being assessed separately ensures CSMs don't have significant churn masked by massive upsells. In this example, if a CSM had 85% Retention and 115% NRR, they'd end up at 93.22% to goal for their overall commission/variable comp."

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Who would win this deal? Imagine this scenario: Sarah, Head of Sales @XYZ, wants to help her BDR team scale their cold calling efforts. On Monday, she reads 3 articles on Aircall's blog about cold calling best practices. However, she doesn't request a demo yet. The next day, Emily, a sales rep from Ringover (a direct competitor of Aircall)—𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐒𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐡 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝟑 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐀𝐢𝐫𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥'𝐬 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠—reaches out to Sarah and books a meeting with her. To make it even trickier, Ringover and Aircall offer solutions that are 95% the same. Who has the better chance to win this deal and why? 👉 Scenario 1: Sarah chooses Ringover because… 👉 Scenario 2: Sarah chooses Aircall because… I have my own answer but.. I'm curious about yours! Leave a comment below with your thoughts 😇

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An AE on my team just closed/won a 137k ARR deal (multi-year contract) 🤯 (steal her scripts for negotiating) 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁, 𝘁𝘄𝗼 𝗸𝗲𝘆 𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗽𝘀: - Getting on the same side of the table - Holding your ground 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟭. 𝗦𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 When negotiations start. It's important to approach it from the same side of the table vs having a battle. Here's what she said: "Hey Jill - Correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds like we're trying to find a path to partnership. Is that right?" This script diffuses the situation and allows you to do some additional discovery. Like understanding if you're the provider of choice, if price is the final step in their evaluation, etc. 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟮. 𝗛𝗼𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 Totally OK to make concessions like giving a discount. But sometimes buyer's ask for too much. When that happens... Here's the best script for holding firm: "I can respect some tough negotiation but we do have to recognize the value of the product" That script is great for letting the buyer know they've done a good job but you also have to hold firm at the current proposal. Works like a charm. What are your best negotiation tips? Let me know in the comments! 👉 Join 6,000+ sellers getting my (free) sales newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/gwQVvVBK

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You pay your Account Executives, Account Managers, SDRs, Customer Success, Marketing, and RevOps colleagues top dollar to optimise and maximise how they go to market. But they spend 72% of their time (on average), on tasks that are exactly the OPPOSITE of going to market. Sound familiar? Sales Intelligence used to be: 1) A vendor for contact data 2) A vendor for company data 3) A vendor for intent data 4) A vendor for spotting churn/renewal risk 5) A vendor for website tracking 6) A vendor for conversation intelligence Impact: 1) 72% of their time wasted in chasing after 90% of your TAM, that aren't currently even in market. 2) Finding out after notice has been given that your best customers have been shopping elsewhere. 3) 7 different vendors who don't talk to each other, operating in independent silos of inactionable data. Digital phonebooks & manually data mining across multiple vendors means that GTM specialists spend more time researching...not selling. It doesn't have to be that way... Imagine a world where: 1) Every seller can see what they need to personalise their outreach 2) Every seller can truly personalise at scale 3) Every seller can rely on AI to give them the pointers they need to be relevant AND personable 4) Every Account Manager can spot months & weeks in advance that their best customers are looking at other providers 5) Every RevOps person can standardise their data and insights into a consolidated view We're not in the 2021 economic boom, it has never been harder to convert conversations to dollars, especially in a time efficient way. You might be asking, is an alternative possible? Yes - #ZoomInfoCopilot. Launched to the world today after months of value creation & validation with our customers. The future is now, ready?

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A good CRO, or Commercial Leader, can indeed come from sales, marketing, or CS - the main thing is that this is a holistic role, not a gloried sales leader with a higher title. Great words of wisdom from Sam - thanks for sharing. #leadership

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Big news! Salesforce Life Sciences Cloud is now generally available: https://sforce.co/3RzJyY2 🔍 Faster, smarter patient matching for trials 📊 AI-enhanced profiles for personalized care 🤝 Seamless team collaboration in healthcare

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