We’ve heard from the Salesloft family this morning, with Kyle Porter and friends on the main stage sharing their gratitude for the people and processes that have gotten us to where we are today in the sales development community.
Next up on keynote, we have three of the industry’s top thought-leaders: TOPO’s Craig Rosenberg, Winning by Design’s Jacco van der Kooij, and j.barrows LLC’s John Barrows. These three sales development experts are here to contribute their opinions on the modern sales model, and how to navigate the waters with agility and proactivity.
First up: Craig Rosenberg. the top analyst in the sales development game.
Hello, Account Based Everything
This new-thing-yet-old-thing, called the account-based method, is now the most strategic and forward thinking way to run your business. That’s why we’re saying “Hello” to Account Based Everything. From marketing to sales development to sales, it’s all about account personalization and an agile, strategic process.
Marketing has made incredible advances. They got really good at getting lots of leads, and they drove a lot of traffic. But they forgot to figure out what was happening in the sales meeting. And sales didn’t know what was going on. They didn’t have a true target prospect list, or ideal customer profiles — and no, “everyone” is not your ideal customer.
That’s when the Account Based Everything (ABE) came into play. ABE is the coordination of personalized marketing, sales development, and sales efforts to drive engagement and conversion at a targeted set of accounts.
ABE has 5 defining characteristics:
- Targeted accounts
- Highly personalized
- Coordinated touches, channels, and experiences
- Always on (until accounts are removed from target list)
- Marketing, sales development, and sales alignment is crucial
But what are the things that we can do from a pipeline perspective with ABE? ABE impacts three critical revenue objectives: new customer acquisition, pipeline velocity, and account expansion. New customer acquisition helps acquire new, high value target customers, pipeline velocity accelerates velocity of existing opportunities at target accounts, and (the most important objective) account expansion drives expansion (through upsells and cross-sells) on existing accounts.
Account Based Everything is about personalization at scale. And that’s sales development.” -Craig Rosenberg
As we move deeper into the Account Based Sales Development model, we’re finding that the shift moves further down that line to a fully-customized outreach process. That’s because of the simple fact that the less accounts you’re working with, the more personalized they should be.
“We’re trying to understand the buyer relevance. When you have less accounts, hope is not a strategy. That’s how people have been selling for the last three years. But if we’re going to pull back on who we’re going after, then true old-school methods are back in style,” Craig tells us.
Deep Selling, the “new” sales development approach, is actually an old one. In an Account Based Sales Development model, sales must be able to start selling early in the buying cycle or even before a buying cycle even begins (No BANT). SDRs need to create personalized, buyer-centric sales processes. In fact, buyer-centric sales teams achieve 150% of quota. And discovery is required for delivering a buyer-centric sales process.
Here are some steps that we can take today to implement Account Based Everything into your sales process:
Check out more from Craig at TOPO, or check out his blog, The Funnelholic, and get all of the latest and greatest in Account Based Everything.
The New Way of Selling for a New Generation
Jacco van der Kooij, the number one trainer in sales development, and a SALES MANIAC, is here to talk to us about the new generation of sales. As the Head of Sales for an organization years ago, he saw the evolution of the sales landscape change.
As the field of sales has changed, so did it’s customers. Customers today want to be educated, not sold. They want to be asked questions, not pitched. They want a story, not a presentation. They want a way to do it themselves, not a demo. This means that the way we sell needs to change. We need 15 minute meetings instead of an hour; now instead of next week, and quick follow up instead of a long-span nurture process.
All of these changes are giving rise to a new generation of sales. Conventional B2B Sales is shifting to High Velocity B2B Sales. This generation is Inside Sales 2.0, a profitable way of running a business through process, tools, content, and skills.
We need to change the goal of an SDR to have a conversation with a customer. That is the real art of selling.” -Jacco van der Kooij
Modern SDRs need the skills to have these sincere conversations, and those skills are tiered to match the quality of their selling insights. From inbound and outbound processes, to the tools and content needed to achieve each level, an SDR needs a program of training to attain these skills.
The keys to training new generation ignition are as follows:
- Cloud Specific
- Once a week
- Real-life scenarios
- Internal trainers
- Peer-assisted & contributed
- Must pass a bar-level exam
- A reward system for level-up
Sales hacking is an extraordinary tactic, but it’s not a training strategy.” -Jacco van der Kooij
To hear more from Jacco, find his book Blueprints on Amazon.com, and follow his high energy on Twitter @IndoJacco.
Building Your Prospecting Engine
John Barrows, an inside sales legend, knows what it takes to build a prospecting engine.
To begin, we’re talking gambling. More specifically priming in the gambling game. In the movie Focus, Will Smith is a con-artist at a Super Bowl game in New Orleans, and he cons a man at the game into betting that his girlfriend could pick the same player number on the field as him. She picks the #55 player (who is actually a mark), and the man is in shock. They walk away with 1 million dollars… and Smith explains that he’s been priming the man with the number 55 all day long.
This is new-age selling. From social selling, to content sharing, to the sincere, deep, account-based model, we’re constantly priming our buyers to uncover their pain points and see our products as the solution. And you can be the best sales rep out there, with the conventional sales skills of an old-school rep, but if you can’t leverage today’s technology — you’re screwed.
Fear not, there’s a step-by-step process to take these new selling skills and turn them into action:
Step 1: Prioritize Your Accounts. The more nuanced you can get with your target accounts, the more prioritized they will be. Break your accounts down by category, quality/practice tier, and put these priorities into motion.
Step 2: Know Your Target. Most reps aren’t selling to the C-Suite. When’s the last time a CEO sat through the entire process? You need to know your target, and understand who you’re selling to in your process.
Screw the average sales rep. I want the sales rep thats eager to evolve and learn the steps to a targeted process.” -John Barrows
Step 3: Identify Your Triggers. There are two sides to social selling: building your own personal brand and listening to your triggers. Find your reason to move in, and take the plunge.
Step 4: Develop Your Message. Come up with messages around social selling triggers and figure out what value you bring to that equation. And the easiest way to come up with messaging is through case studies. Differentiate yourself from your competition through your customers.
Step 5: Set Up Your Systems. The timing of Salesloft’s rise of the Sales Development Cloud couldn’t be more perfect. Through data integrated, hyper-personalized apps, you can incorporate technology into your system.
Step 6: Plan Your Approach. Mapping out your process is the performance step. 83% of high performers have a defined strategy and make 4-8 attempts for 6 unique touches in 30 days.
Step 7: Drink Your Coffee. You have the tools and resources to get the job done, so you need to trust the process. Sit back, drink your coffee, scan through the information, and watch your process work.
If I want your business, I sell the right way. If I need your business, then I need a better pipeline strategy.” -John Barrows
Want to hear more from John? Check him out on jbarrows.com and learn more about sales training through his informative content and resources.
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Stay tuned — we’re live blogging the entire Rainmaker experience — right here from your one stop shop for all things sales development. Comment below with your thoughts on the keynotes, sessions, and events throughout the event!
