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Nobody Regrets Qualifying Out. But so few people do it enough. Andy Whyte has a few thoughts here on value, stakeholders & process. 👉 Here are 5 Insights from him on how to qualify more & better with Andy Whyte on our Europe’s B2B SaaS Sales Podcast (1st comment). 1️⃣ Focus on value instead of your pipeline. Very few sales people qualify “hard” enough. They focus primarily on if they can add a deal to their pipeline. Instead focus on if you, your company & your offering adds enough value. 2️⃣ Trust is built upon value & respect. Trust is hugely underdiscussed in sales. Lead with social proof from customer case studies. Have an open conversation, identify pains, rank them. Then implicate & quantify pains & how you can help solve them. 3️⃣ “Transfer pain” by being prepared. Don’t prepare your demo “talking about all your bells & whistles. Instead invest into preparing insights on why buyers take action. Then leverage those to share why other companies took action already. 4️⃣ MEDDICC is NOT a retrospective after-action review tool. Adding 7 fields to Salesforce will not make reps more successful. Because sales people hate admin work, but love actionable insights. Therefore use MEDDICC starting in your preparation before even the 1st call. 5️⃣MEDDICC is “like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) for qualification”. BJJ isn't the only 'framework' in MMA for “groundwork”. Champions have used Judo, Sambo, Wrestling among others. But simply no other framework has the quantity of Champions as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.. Thanks so much for your contribution to making qualification so much better! #podcast #startupsales #b2bsaassales #startup #salesplaybook #qualification

Cosuno is a success story from Germany. Michael started at Cosuno in November 2020 when they were 8 people. Today, the company employs almost 200, out of which 60 are in sales. How can you find and hire the right talent so quickly in the current "war for talent"? Michael shares a few answers to that question. 

Pricing is part science, part art. And huge for profitability. Jeffrey Tjiok worked with 25+ B2B Tech companies, many of them VC-backed unicorns. 👉 Here are 5 Insights from him on how to make pricing a game changer for you with Jeffrey Tjiok on our Europe’s B2B SaaS Sales Podcast (1st comment). 1️⃣ Master your pricing toolbox to defend value Many startups immediately rush into discounting. Instead find out WHY the offered price seems too high. Then offer value-add, low-cost items sequentially in the process. 2️⃣ Embrace long-term quid pro quo Ask what you get in return instead of giving in to incumbents “kicking tires”. Steer the discussion away from price towards focusing fully on value. Frame concessions with a clear (time) limit, e.g. 1st-year discounts. 3️⃣ “Everyone’s responsible for pricing” Pricing is one of the most cross-functional disciplines. Product marketing has to tell a compelling story around the offering. Sales needs clear pricing guidelines to close profitable, attractive deals. This requires close alignment of the company’s leadership (CRO x CFO x CMO). 4️⃣ Your pricing needs to follow your business objectives One of Jeffrey’s clients moved from volume- to revenue-focus and is now valued at $10B. You need to decide first if growth, profitability, retention or win rates are most important. As you scale quickly, getting pricing right is crucial to build a sustainable business. 5️⃣ Pricing can have a huge impact on profitability Many Silicon Valley companies follow a “reach first, rich second” model. If you’re a VC-backed, hypergrowth scaleup, that’s great.

Martin Giese is a B2B Startup Sales legend that interviewed many hypergrowth scaleups such as Personio, SAP Hybris, LeanIX & many more for "Fast Forward: Accelerating B2B sales for startups". 👉 Here are 3 Insights from him on how to scale 0-100(!) million ARR quickly on our Europe’s B2B SaaS Sales Podcast (1st comment) 1️⃣ Increase your prices with confidence Go to your pricing page and increase prices by 20%. You could charge (way) more without losing deals. Most startups don’t price aggressively enough. 2️⃣ Emphasise NRR - Net Revenue Retention Achieving negative churn starts with your mindset that closing a deal is only the start. How the revenue from your existing customers evolves is quintessential in SaaS. Aim for 100%, if you have >200% Martin would like to get involved, so write him. 3️⃣ Scaling 10->100M ARR is also a mindset Personio’s founder Hanno Renner decided to raise his 2019 VC round in the US. Because no VC in DACH had the track record & ambition to think this big. Why not hire 10x the people you do today if you believe it works? 4️⃣ You can’t afford to not fix your bottlenecks - like churn If churn is not under control, you will reach stagnation mode sooner or later. Fixing 1% of churn is equal to fix 10% of your sales performance. This also means getting the fundamentals & more right. 5️⃣ If in analysis-paralysis, validate hypotheses quickly You cannot afford NOT to take decisions regularly on an ongoing basis. If unsure, look for ways how to assess your past data “experiments”. Then define inexpensive, fast hypotheses to validate for the future.

Jan’s getting job offers for 3x the money he is making today - rejecting them all. Because he’s prioritising People, Product & Personal Development before money (now). 👉 Here are 3 Insights from him on our Europe’s B2B SaaS Sales Podcast (1st comment) 1️⃣ Write like you speak Jan validates his outreach with his growth manager, reading it on a mobile phone & more. Then being relentless about A/B testing if the system is running reasonably well. And never forget: Write like you speak, keep it natural, don’t overthink it. Have a “Player instead of Prisoner” mindset to put humans first. 2️⃣ Professionalise your sales stack Jan is using best of breed tools across the whole sales stack: - Salesloft for Sales Engagement top funnel - Lusha / Lead IQ for data gathering - Chili Piper for meeting scheduling - Gong / Unique for call reviews - Reachdesk for small gifts 3️⃣ Attract & retain top sales talent: People, Product, Personal Development Pleo raised 9-figures at a Unicorn valuation, growing 300 -> 700 people in 4 months. Especially at hypergrowth, Pleo is “values first” and emphasises that in hiring. In a company which is “going places”, in a space that is scaling quickly. Jan’s priority in life is learning from people he love’s working with. #podcast #startupsales #b2bsaassales #startup #salesplaybook #hypergrowth

“Run-rate selling” sucks. The constant pressure, pace & pain of potentially not hitting quota. Jamal Reimer went from missing quota to closing 8-figure deals repeatably. Here’s how: 👉 Here are 3 Insights on how to (>)10x the size of your biggest deal from having a true enterprise sales legend on our Europe’s B2B SaaS Sales Podcast: 1️⃣ Dig a well before you’re thirsty Provide tons of value to executives and key opinion leaders BEFORE you need their help. Jamal shared valuable industry insights with his management team proactively. The first time he needed the support of an executive, they were more than happy to help. 2️⃣ Run-rate selling is fundamental. Mega deals are game-changing. You’re never escape run-rate selling. As a company and individual early on. How much of your time you can invest into a mega deal depends on your account list. Jamal had 4 accounts at the time of closing a $53M deal. And 2 did not want to talk to him. 3️⃣ Embrace multi-threading in a multi-product setting with a major account plan Jamal’s account spreadsheets “were a kilometer long” to understand an organization. At this deal size, orchestrating the buyer journey is also hugely important internally. He managed his internal organisation in weekly meetings, but knew he did not want to go into management… …which is why he founded his own company now! 🤩 👉 Listen to the full episode in the 1st comment #podcast #startupsales #b2bsaassales #startup #salesplaybook #enterprisesales

Telling somebody "to be authentic" does not mean much at first. Because authenticity is relative to the person you are telling to be so. Martin and I unlock what it means in the context of selling. Because what we actually want to say is that some traits are important in sales (be honest, direct, speak about problems, say no to business that has no positive long term effects) and that those traits should come naturally to salespeople. What do you think?

Bisho Chamssuddin went “from molecular biology to sales”, thriving in face-to-face sales. He is OK with rejection & resilience, but not unrealistic goals for SDRs without getting external support. Here are 3 Insights on how to build a predictable demand generation process after getting a lot of sales coaching from our dialogue in our Europe’s B2B SaaS Sales Podcast: 1️⃣ Rejection requires resilience The rejection he experienced was “unreal” in terms of having 200+ “outreaches” per day. And getting rejected 180+ times of it. Every day. A key for him was to not take rejection personally & focus on improving the process. 2️⃣ Record & review your sales calls Both the sales manager and the rep should review their sales conversations. Then reconstruct these conversation in mock-up calls. Then “rinse & repeat”. At scale, not only for 1-2 mock-up calls. 3️⃣ Aim for people with an elite athlete mindset You need people who want to be the best at what they do. To improve 1% every day. To get feedback, implement quickly, and continue learning. This has 100% to do with getting the right coaching to build the right sales systems & 0% with product training. P.S. PM me if you want to get on Bisho’s weekly Wednesday SDR small group coaching call. #podcast #startupsales #b2bsaassales #startup #salesplaybook #salesrecruiting

Christian Fontius studied business, but learnt 0 about B2B Sales there. So he went “learning by doing” as StackFuel’s 1st business employee (shout out to Leo Marose) Here are 3 Insights on how he’s bringing innovation with AI to a traditional market (wind industry) from our dialogue in our Europe’s B2B SaaS Sales Podcast: 1️⃣ Sales is Service & Stories Detach from the outcome & embrace a service mindset. Give your buyer’s champion a nice story to tell internally. If this does not work out, don’t get frustrated, but ask “Can you help me understand better” 2️⃣ Rehearse your 30 second intro for cold calls When cold calling, you face a strong attention constraint. You therefore want to have a rock-solid, sharp intro pitch. Christian even uses bao (a Conversational Intelligence solution to iterate quickly here. 3️⃣ Be hyper-precise when framing the buyer journey. “This is how we run things. After this call, here’s what will happen next. We will run an initial collaboration for 10 wind turbines for a low 5-figure investment. When this works well, we roll-out the solution company-wide for a 6-figure investment. “BONUS”: Christian sees a misunderstanding in DACH about sales being about “only money” instead of solving customer problems. P.S. Turbit closed 2 deals on the day of the recording & is looking for a Senior Account Executive #podcast #startupsales #b2bsaassales #startup #salesplaybook #salesrecruiting

Patrice and Patrick talk about the single most important metric "pipeline velocity rate", how it is calculated and what you should do in case the number is off. Additionally, Patrice shares insights into his sales process. Listen in and learn!

Bruno started in enterprise sales back in 1995 - that is longer than most salespeople on this planet. He has seen how buying changed and what that means for sales organizations. That is why we are talking about older methodologies such as MEDDICC and how we should be using them today. 

Marvin Karis hat die Verkaufsstrukturen bei Echobot mitaufgebaut. Bisher haben alle 40+ Verkäufern “Full-Stack” gearbeitet (Lead Gen + Closing). Im Rahmen der Internationalisierung evaluiert Echobot nun den Split BDR/AE/x. Hier sind 3 Insights aus unserem Dialog im Europe’s B2B SaaS Sales Podcast: 1️⃣ Je besser Produkt & Strukturen, desto einfacher der Verkauf Der angehende Split BDR / Account Executive ist ermöglicht durch ein einfacher zu verkaufendes Produkt. Weiterhin hilft dem Team ein professionelles Stack sowie team-übergreifende Pods. 2️⃣ Hire for attitude, train for skill Echobot setzt auf Absolvent(inn)en von Universitäten und entwickelt diese dann proaktiv. Daher sind Soft Skills via Bewerbungsvideo wie Coachability & Offenheit hier wichtiger als Hard Skills wie Prospecting & Closing. Auch mit mittlerweile 120 Mitarbeitern sind Marvin & Team das Aufrechterhalten Startup-Spirits mit gemeinsamen Events, Perks & eigenen Formaten sehr wichtig. 3️⃣ Verschmelzung von Marketing & Verkauf Vertriebsmitarbeiter bauen selber ein starkes Brand auf, was Marketing befähigt. Marketing kann daraus bessere Landing Pages mit Custom Audiences bauen. Der Vertrieb funktioniert hier als Ohr, das Marketing als Sprachrohr. #podcast #startupsales #b2bsaassales #startup #salesplaybook #salesrecruiting