The biggest reality of sales is that you are as good as your current quarter. No matter how well you may have done in the previous quarter, the meter comes back to zero at the beginning of the new quarter/new year. I have been in sales for more than 2 decades and have seen numerous quarter ends/month ends. The trick to avoid burnout is to ensure that you disconnect from work every now and then. I try to take 5 days off every quarter to re-energize myself and get back on the grind. I also keep on taking up a new hobby which also is a great way to destress yourself without having to go on a week long holiday. At present, I am learning how to play the guitar :) 

Staying up to date: It’s important to pick a medium that you like for content. Whether it is Linkedin, podcasts, email newsletter, or chat based slack groups, you want to make sure you are setting yourself up for success. If the content goes unread or unlistened to, you won’t build a consistent learning habit. Personally, I find the most value in content forums where you can engage and ask follow up questions, hear multiple opinions on a particular matter, and even reach out the the original writer for a 1-1 chat! Another underutilized source of knowledge for industry trends is content from Sales Development technology vendors. It’s imperative that they stay on the cutting edge, so following a few top vendors on Linkedin will allow you to see what future the tools are preparing for. Avoiding the noise: There can be a great amount of value in public best practices. That said, there is risk in assuming that something that works for someone else will also work for you, or for implementing changes to something when you are already seeing above-average results. For example, if your content is getting a 20% reply rate, you may not want to adopt the “best practice” that moved someone else's team from a 10% to 15% reply rate. Having your own benchmarks and running your own A/B tests can help you determine where you should be altering your SDR motion, and where you should keep yours in place. Then, you can proactively search for interesting ideas to test in areas you are performing below benchmark. 

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? :)

Coming into an organization as the first sales hire puts a lot of responsibility on your shoulders. You are basically in charge of proving the validity of this function within the company. There are a few things that I would consider and act on in this position: Start with the short term. As a first hire in a sales organization, you are required to deliver results that have a very immediate impact that meets the business needs. This means focusing on some low-hanging fruits in order to deliver results within a short time frame. Build a framework. As a first hire within the team, you should make sure you document your work, and create clear guidelines and processes, with the expectation of adding additional members to the team in the future. This will ensure a smooth expansion of the team while positioning you as a thought leader and a pivotal member of this function. Go beyond your scope. As a junior sales hire, never underestimate the power of tenacity. I always invite my team members to push the boundaries and look for additional scope and responsibilities whenever they feel capable. This is a very strong signal that you are willing to take on more, and when management will face a new task at hand, they will know they can count on you.

Staying up to date on industry trends and sales enablement best practices is something that needs time to absorb the information to analyze if your organization needs to adjust any of the current or future programs. Below I have outlined a few ways to stay up to date on both industry trends and best practices. Industry Trends Sales Enablement is accountable for providing the GTM customer-facing teams with the current information and training to assist them in their customer engagements. Below are some of the Industry Trends to review based on your business needs. * Vertical Markets - Sign up to industry papers, forums and magazines to stay ahead * Personas - Sign up to any CSuite forums, magazines and blogs to stay informed of the thinking * Technology - Sign up to the technology forums that align with your solutions, preferably your own company's customer early adoption, or customer forums or developer communities * Purchase Industry Benchmarking Reports : Forrester or Gartner to assist in your efforts There are alot of vendors that offer enablement and insights for the enablement practioner. Below are the top three enablement professional networks that would help you. SalesEnablement Pro ATD (Association for Talent Development) Sales Enablement Society (Chapters are local in your area)

Good question! When it comes to motivation, at any stage & maturity of a sales organization, you need to make sure: 1. Purpose - your sales team understands the mission & objectives of the organizations, feels connected to the purpose of what you are trying to acheive, and most importantly, can see how their work directly impacts progress towards company goals 2. Compensation - your sales team is well compensated and that the components of that make up compensation (base salary, variable inventives, bonuses/accelerators, equity, etc.) all work together to reward the behaviors required to acheive the output the company needs 3. Development - you are continually investing in the growth of your people. All top performers want to continue to learn, grow, improve, and ultimately master their craft. Look for those opportunities to expand the experience of your team, be generous with your feedback, and invest in coaching at every chance you get. That said, as companies & teams scale, the mechanisms & resources you have to impact motivation also evolve. Early Stage Companies & Less Mature Sales Organizations are usually focused on trying to find product-market fit and build a go-to-market motion to support it. During this phase, compensation plans need to be simple, aligned more to behaviors than outcomes, and reward progress. There is generally a greater need to ensure alignment and connection to "Purpose", and leaders should create opportunities for their salespeople to engage with cross-functional executives, influence the product roadmap, etc. If you are looking for a first compensation plan for your SaaS sales team, Jason Lemkin's framework can provide a great starting place. Mid-to-Late Stage Companies & More Mature Sales Organizations can then evolve to dedicate more resources to invest in their salespeople in different ways. Things like more formal career pathing, mentorship, and management development courses become table stakes. Salespeople will have opportunities to work with larger companies, build bigger deals, and raise their skillset. And compensation can shift to allow for additional rewards and incentives through SPIFs and President's Club.

Be prepared: C-Suite folks are busy people- don't waste their time. Ensure you are prepared for every meeting you have with them. Anticipate the questions you would expect them to ask and have your answers ready to reply with in real time. Be clear and concise: It goes a long way in terms of how you show up to the C-Suite if you can articulate what you need to say in a clear and concise way. If you are taking the time to prepare, this should be easy enough to accomplish. Properly prepare them: If you are running a meeting or call together or simply need your C-Suite's involvement in a deal or project you're working on, it is critical to properly prep them for it. Take the extra time to build out a pre-read that outlines the background of the deal or project, who's involved, the goal of their involvement, what you actually need from them, and in some cases suggested ghost written content (i.e. ghost written email in a deal for exec to exec alignment). Simply put, if you are asking something of them, make it as easy as possible for them to get up to speed and execute on it. Be confident: The C-Suite are people too! Of course, have respect, but also have confidence in you and make sure that shines through. 

The biggest mistakes that we see from candidates are related to not being prepared for the interview. Failing to research the company, role, or industry before an interview can signal a lack of genuine interest and initiative. Thoroughly research the company, its products or services, industry trends, and competitors, and come prepared with thoughtful questions to demonstrate engagement and enthusiasm. We expect candidates to do their homework on the role, the interviewer and the company, just like we expect of our Account Executives prior to a prospect meeting. Asking questions when the answers could have been easily found online and not showcasing knowledge when they should have studied up on the company is a clear sign of not being prepared.

Here's some advice I would give to someone tasked with taking the sales function up-market in an existing business structure: *What sales cycles are repeatable that have closed up market? *What hiccups did you see in that original sales cycle? *Competitive Landscape *What potential objections change and how do you sell around them differently? *What was the process around: Security? Legal? Procurement? If you haven't closed anything up-market yet in your sales org, I recommend first asking for recommendations from your current customers that are down-market. An introduction is the best way to start this process from someone who is currently spending money with you. 

Our top reps excel at spotting potential opportunities. Since we're focused on run-rate tactical deals in the form of additional license, new initiatives, and pilots, our main stakeholders are typically at the VP level or below. The key here is mastering the art of tailoring conversations - distinguishing between "above the line" and "below the line" discussions ensures that our messaging aligns with the audience. In larger enterprises, industry trends and company direction are often widely available. It's crucial to delve into these trends, gaining a deep understanding of industry challenges and directions. This forms the basis for crafting a unique perspective that resonates not only with the business but also its key players. Once everyone's on the same page and the problem is crystal clear, we can then propose a forward-thinking solution that drives them towards their desired outcomes. What sets this approach apart is its emphasis on discovery. Rather than leading with a product pitch, we invest time in understanding the company's priorities. This makes our interactions much more aligned with the client's needs, creating a more genuine and less "sales-y" experience. This method ensures that our solutions aren't just one-size-fits-all, but tailored to fit the precise needs of each client we engage with.