Naturally, in most cases, sales teams are mainly measured against revenue. This could come in many forms such as potential revenue such as leads, MQLs, SQLs, etc., or actual revenue from active and existing clients. I think there is one main KPI that is commonly overlooked, and that is the quality of the relationship with the client. This is a critical aspect that more often than not, is not measured. And I completely understand as it is incredibly difficult to do so. While a great and trustful relationship with a client will not always correlate with revenue in the immediate term, this is the key metric that will ensure long-term partnership and mutual accountability going forward. A great sales representative will forgo short-term gains in order to build a long-term partnership.

In my experience it's been less of a challenge enabling the sales/account team on 'hard skills'. Over time you can see to it that people become comfortable with demo'ing your platform, using your tech stack, understanding the financials. However, trying to coach someone in the art of 'customer storytelling', or doing deep 'discovery' is something every enablement team struggles with.

To effectively define the metrics for which you should hold sales accountable, I look at a few things: 1. Understand the "Sales Math" of the business across some core universally applicable SaaS Sales metrics 2. Compare the performance of the top 1/3 AE's against the bottom 1/3 AE's and look for which metrics contribute the most to high performance. 3. Go deep in those categories and correlate the activities top performers do differently to achieve these results. Quantify these activities to define supporting metrics which will lead to success. To break this down, let's understand the foundational "Sales Math." This is the equation to hit quota. The equation is fairly simple, but everyone's vernacular is different. It is actually extremely important to have very well defined steps in the equation to get consistency across your entire team. For example, we use opportunity stages with clear exit criteria for the buyer & seller to provide consistent insight into our Sales Math. So I would actually use a Stage 1 Opp Created - instead of Discovery Call, and Stage 3 Opp instead of Demo. For the purposes of this article, I'll use general sales terms that each business should be able to use as a starting point and customize from there. Here are the metrics that go into the Sales Math equation: * Activities to create a Discovery Call * # Discovery Calls per quarter * # Demos per quarter * Discovery Call to Demo conversion ratio * # Closed Won Deals per quarter * Demo to Closed Won conversion ratio * Average Deal Size * Average Deal Cycle These metrics will allow you to create the math to hit quota. If the current team's metrics do not consistently lead to the results you're looking for, then the Sales Math may be aspirational. If your team is executing against plan, then this may be your actual current metrics. Regardless, this is what you should feel confident telling AE's is the realistic, attainable and surpassable way to hit quota. For example, it could look like: $250k Quarterly Quota Average Deal Size of $84k 3 Deals to hit quota Close ratio of 33% 9 Demos needed per quarter 60% conversion ratio of Disco to Demo 15 Discovery Calls needed per quarter 50 Activities to create a Disco 750 Activities needed per quarter* *one note on activity. It's a metric I'll always track to understand a baseline level of effort, but I will often leave this out of the Sales Math when dealing with higher complexity sales and more senior AE's. Up to you if this should be in your Sales Math equation. Now take your Sales Math, and map your high performers against your low performers to look for which metrics have a high correlation with success. This exercise can be extremely surprising, so be open to what the data shows you, and hold your strong opinions loosely. Let's extrapolate this exercise across two different scenarios: Scenario 1 - Enterprise Here's how the exercise played out when running it against a more enterprise business (numbers are directional): 1. Activity, Discovery Calls and Demos were almost identical across high & low performers. This told me that pushing "more activity" was only going to have so much impact on performance. 2. The Closed Won conversion of top performers was 46% vs. 25% for the low performers. This was a huge gap, and had major implications on the Sales Math. 3. The Average Deal Size of top performers was $160k vs. $70k for low performers. This is also a huge gap compounded the success or struggles of each group when combined with the stat above. So the key metrics to optimize were Average Deal Size and Demo to Close Ratio. We wanted to maintain our activity levels, but really lean into increasing ADS and strategies to help with Deal Execution. Based on this knowledge of what would have the biggest impact in high performance vs. low performance, we added in some metrics & activities that would contribute to these results: * Updated our account prioritization to ensure a focus on the top deals & tracked activity against Priority 1 accounts * We blocked off time each week to prospect into our top accounts & scheduled strategy sessions to help get more meetings with these accounts * We tracked # of Discos with P1 accounts * # of Demo's with $100k+ Opportunities For Deal Execution * We tracked multi-threading in each account * Have we made an executive connection? * We created a cross-functional meeting to lean into competitive differentiation strategy * We set a threshold for accounts that needed a key deal review & updated our process to improve efficiency and make room for more accounts reviewed each week. Scenario 2 - Transactional Here's how the exercise played out when running it against a more transactional business (numbers are directional): 1. There were two camps of high performers. Those with extremely high activity, and those with higher disco to demo efficiency. Our most consistent top performer was a combination of both. Low performers fell into a similar pattern of either low activity or low conversion of discos to demos. 2. Deal size and win rate didn't have dramatic differences outside of 1 AE who closed the largest deal in segment history. This wasn't repeatable so we eliminated that result instead of putting too much time in hunting whales. 3. Average Deal Cycle for top performers was 39 days vs. 52 days for lower performers. Top AE's were closing deals faster, which allowed for more time to close more deals. From this data we defined additional metrics and activities to drive better results: * Upped the baseline activity volume expectations - there is a diminishing point of returns, but higher volume was almost always a component of success. We raised the bar, but also coached our highest volume AE's to lean more into their efficiency metrics instead of pushing to just do more. * Managers went deep on quality of discovery calls coming into the funnel * Title & Seniority level of Prospects - lower conversion was correlated with lower titles. * Was the company in our Ideal Customer Profile? Quality of company greatly impacted conversion * Why now? Did we offer someone a gift card or just bug them until their defense was worn down? Or was this call predicated on funding, a new hire, an inflection point in the business, intent or some other business catalyst? * Managers inspected quality of prospecting messages * Managers inspected quality of discovery calls * We rallied around creative promos to help the team close deals faster * We replicated decks top AE's were using to build value and establish trust faster In both Scenario 1 and 2 - we started with the baseline Sales Math, and through comparison of top performers vs. low performers we were able to lean into the 2 key metrics that had an outsized impact on performance. We then defined key activities and additional metrics which we could hold the team accountable to, that we knew would correlate towards greater success across the team. How easy was that? :)

One word: outcomes. Sales enablement should (and needs to be) tightly aligned to business objectives & desired outcomes of the business/sales organization. When you tie learning programs to tangible outcomes & KPIs, you get more accurate success measures. This translates to happy learners and happy business units: win-win.

I always recommend that candidates study the job description carefully. Take a look at the qualifications and skills/experience that the hiring manager wants. Do your best to come up with examples/stories to showcase those desirable skills/experiences in the interview. If you have time, it never hurts to connect with someone who is doing the role today and pick their brain on what they like, don't like, and do to succeed in the role. You should be able to find them on LinkedIn. This type of insight is invaluable as you will be learning from someone who is doing the job you want. If you're talking to a cross-functional partner that you're not as familiar with, get curious. For example, I really appreciate it when candidates take the time to ask me, "how can I make your life easier in this role? how can this role help contribute to your team?" This type of question is a launchpad and invitation to discuss future collaboration opportunities. Remember it's just as important for you to evaluate if this role or company is a right fit for you as it is for the hiring manager and company to evaluate if you are a right fit for them. So be sure to throw in one or two questions to help you evaluate your decision as well. 

I very much understand how this is difficult, especially if you have a distributed workforce and if budget constraints don't give you the ability to get folks into one place. I'll share a common approach that my peers from across the industry use (since I focus mostly on content) that can help set this up for success: * When: Try trying these real-world experience workshops during times when you do have some sort of gathering. Perhaps that's SKO or a bi-annual regional meetup. Work with leads to ensure this is expected programming when they gather in a centralized office. * How: Identify how some key skills (whether this is discovery, negotiation, driving urgency) and teach on strategies and frameworks. Then identify some moments in non-work environments when we use these. For example, when you do discovery, can you challenge them to approach an acquaintance, or even stranger, and give them the 3x Question exercise? * Next Steps: Follow up with their reflections and experiences in another session or post-session reinforcement training. Whether that's a module they can add their experience to, or gather some of the real-life scenarios straight from them and do a follow-up async training that would challenge other team members to try that 3x questions. You can even roll these out with managers with facilitation guides and do some kind of improv exercise session for their teams. Really, at the end of the day, you need them to practice with a framework in a controlled environment, take it out in an uncontrolled environment, and reinforce in a controlled environment.

I always recommend that the candidate does the requisite prep work for the interview they are heading into - if its a first call, the prep needs to be oriented around: 1. The company and why "I" am a great candidate (sense of history and performance and curiosity in the business) 2. Showing well - but not overdoing it - Wear a nice shirt, sit up straight, engage in Q&A - Deep product knowledge is not a plus here - instead, helping me understand how you plan on navigating your first 90 is helpful - but it doesn't need to be a strictly written out plan yet. If we are deep in rounds and the position is hotly contested - this is when you would want to do some real homework on how you plan to navigate your 30-60-90 - Figure out the names of your cross-funtional partners - go into Linkedin and shoulder tap some other reps and ask them about your interviewers - the best thing you can do is surprise me with something that is happening to me or has happened to me recently from one of my colleagues. At the end of the day, on those first calls - having a command of time management, curiousity, presence, are far more important that having a dedicated plan ... 

SDR leaders have a plethora of data to work with, but sometimes it is hard to know where to look. A good starting point is to map out your funnel and ensure you have a metric that measures both quantity and quality to determine which steps of the action are below expectations. Take cold calling as an example. In general, the key metric to evaluate the success of your cold calls is the number of cold calls required to book a demo or the percent of calls that result in a demo. Say you are seeing that it takes you 100 calls to book a demo, but you know your industry average is half that. You might be tempted to jump in and do some mock call scenarios, but what if the problem is not your team’s live cold call execution? Your training may not improve your team’s success rate. You must first map out the steps of successfully sourcing a demo from a cold call. 1. Place the call 2. Have the prospect answer 3. Have the prospect agree to a demo 4. Have the demo occur Each of these steps will have its own benchmark that you can compare your rate to. Say you see that you have a very low answer rate, but convert one in three answered calls to a demo. In this case, mock call training won’t effectively raise your demo booked rate. Instead, you may want to train your team on how to mark good numbers and avoid multiple calls to known bad numbers, how to call at effective times, or even look at better lead data options. When looking at any metric, make sure you are gauging both quantity (are you making enough cold calls) and quality (are those calls being answered and are those conversations turning into live deals).

During your Q4 working with sales leaders and operations your sales kick off should be the launch pad for your sales content and strategy for the year by supporting the company revenue goals and big bets for that year. What I have found to be very successful by conducting quarterly enablement reviews sales leaders and their direct reports. The framework for these meetings is to review the performance of enablement and allows time to review metrics and showcase data insights from those metrics. What is uncovered in these meetings will help you to develop new sales content and build a mutual strategy with your sales leaders. This is also time to present any new programs you want to get sales leaders buy in from prior to launch.

To effectively manage complex deal structures and negotiations, it boils down to a deep understanding of the customer's objectives and their timeline for achieving them, and most importantly which internal resources they will need to progress the opportunity. Once we've identified the "when," the next critical step is crafting a mutual close plan that outlines the roles of both internal and external stakeholders. However, it's imperative not to develop this plan in isolation. Every facet of our business must be in sync and fully committed to executing this mapped-out strategy. Without explicit agreement and a shared commitment to the timeline, progress can feel like an uphill battle. If it becomes apparent that the customer is not fully aligned with our mutual plan, it's a clear sign that there's a misalignment somewhere in the buying cycle. In such cases, I advocate for taking a step back, seeking realignment, and securing a renewed commitment from the business before moving forward. We understand that priorities shift, personnel changes occur, and budgets may be reassigned. Thus, it's essential to maintain a rigorous qualification process at every stage, ensuring a clear outcome and timeline. While this approach may seem deliberate, it ultimately accelerates the process in the latter stages of the sales cycle. By diligently bringing in the right people at the right time, we maximize our chances of success and create a smoother path to closing the deal.