Better Together - Collaboration with other departments and Sales Enablement If you have not already started to build out councils with your core heads of department this will allow for set times for you all to meet to collaborate on the enablement priorities and build out RACIs to outline who is responsible during each phase of each project. Below are three steps that can help you start one 1. Meet with all the key department heads that you need to collaborate with to effectively manage or funnel all the information that is required for sales enablement to build strategy and enablement for the field. Explain what your organization is responsible for and how you can partner together 2. Schedule regular cadence with one representative from each group and form your sales enablement governance council - this allows each head of the department to delegate someone to represent that group in any or all projects that require you all to work together. 3. Keep it documented, share the successes, take input and build together The above is the most efficient to build credibility, trust and collaboration with your department heads, remember they will be talking to the sales leaders in other meetings just like you so building your collaboration and trust will help you all partner better together for the benefit of the sales and the organization.

By far the most over-hyped KPI is total pipeline created. This is certainly a key metric to track week over week as a health check, but it provides little insight into what's actually going on. The problem with total pipeline created, is at no point should the conversation end with that KPI. If it's low - why? If it's high - why? Was it one large opp? Was it a bunch of baby opps? Was it quality pipeline? Was it from one AE/Segment/Business Unit - or is everything firing on all cylinders? At best it provides directional guidance to tune into major variances and inspect. At worst it provides false confidence in a pipeline that won't get you to goal. Typically addressing total pipeline creation falls into one of two camps: 1. Mention & move on. These are meetings where the metric is called out, compared to last week and it's either * Good - "great job, let's see if we can stretch this 10% higher next week" * Bad - "we really need to prioritize pipe gen this week. Get on it." 2. Paralysis by analysis. These meetings show the metric, and then dive into 40 slides with individual permutations of how everything performed over the past week; leading to information overload and very little insight into what actually needs to change. This is why instead of just tracking total pipe creation - we want to take a three-pronged approach: 1. How are we tracking towards our pipeline generation goal (which is a leading metric against future bookings)? 2. Identify the factors that are contributing to the current results. 3. Define strategies to optimize the path to goal The standard discussion described above hits the first objective, skips number 2, and the only strategy is often "do more." We could write an entire post on steps 2 and 3, but here are a few variables that can take your basic "total pipeline creation" reporting to the next level * # of opportunities created & average opportunity value. This controls for the one big opp skewing results. You generally want more big deals, but don't want to have to rely on only one big deal to hit the goal. This helps monitor quality & quantity. * Split by region/segment/AE's - this allows you to identify people and parts of the business that are doing well and understand why (do more of it, share learnings, double down). It also ensures that those who aren't doing well don't hide behind overall success of the business and get neglected. We want to identify why they're struggling, and ideally get them unstuck to improve performance. * Pipeline by opportunity source - attribution can lead to some sticky conversations, but tracking where the pipeline is coming from is necessary to improve the overall output. This isn't meant to start a blame game, but you can't optimize something you don't measure. So if AE's, SDR's, Marketing, Partnerships, or PLG is slacking - what can we do about it? If something is working incredibly well - how can we do more? * Pipeline conversion metrics - how is the pipeline that's coming in converting through the funnel to closure? Are disco to demo conversion rates improving, declining or staying the same? What about win rate? Any new trends where we should ride the wave? Anything that's not working which we should stop doing? These metrics will give you a much deeper understanding of the factors that contribute to current results and lay a strong foundation so you can define strategies to help optimize results. With a strong team and partners in marketing, partnerships, SDR and RevOps leadership - you're a brainstorming session away from having your best pipeline generation quarter yet.

I really like this question because it's so true! Leadership can break a lot of trust by implementing incorrect KPIs for a segment. Experienced sellers will get angry they are treated like SDRs, etc. The best thing leaders can do is watch, listen, observe, and then replicate. What have the most successful reps done in this position? Are they having 10 calls a week, 2 on-sites a month, and 1 "high value activity" a quarter (like exec intro, hackathon, etc)? Standardize from the top and make excellence the norm.

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. 

Personally my favorite interview question, which I ask all of my hires from SDRs/BDRs to Sales Directors, is: "Of everything in your life (professionally, personally, academically, athletically, artistically, etc.), what do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment?" Of the hundreds of times I've asked this question, I've received so many incredible answers. Some people have talked about the accomplishments of building a family, qualifying for the Olympics, summiting mountains, changing careers, moving to entirely new countries and starting from scratch. All were great, and the reality is, there is no one "best answer". To me the reason I love asking this question early in an interview process is, I get to: * Quickly learn more intimate details about someone's life to begin to understand who they are as a person and discover what they value * Listen attentively and observe how they tell a story they are passionate about, and * Use that answer as a jumping off point to probe into other attitudinal & behavioral competencies From that simple question, you can then take the conversation into so many follow on questions like: * What were some of the biggest obstacles you needed to overcome to achieve that accomplishment? (which gets into the topics of resilience & adaptability) * If you were to re-live that experience again, knowing what you know now, what would you change? (which addresses self-reflection and learning) * Now that you've accomplished [insert accomplishment], what are you setting your sights on next? (which uncovers ambition & motivation) I'm curious to hear from you...what do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment?

Big question, but I'm happy to share some small factors that can really help to align and at least surface areas that enablement professionals can miss: 1. Know when and by whom business reviews are created. Even if it's async, understanding the target numbers, target audiences, and key strategies can help you understand where there are areas of opportunity. If you don't have this (common for early business organizations), gather feedback, create a base document of your strategic focus areas, and then gather feedback from top leads. 2. Align yourself as an enablement individual to understand where in the sales selling journey these numbers/initiatives align. For example, maybe your organization wants to increase top-of-funnel conversion. You'll probably want to focus on outreach efforts like effective outbound emails, cold calling best practices, and effective value-selling content to use for outbound campaigns. 3. Be aware of any sales leads' initiatives that they may start without enablement knowledge. This is very common when in hyper-growth mode or when an enablement team is so strapped that they have to say "no" to projects. At least being aware will help you to consult and map out what they are doing. 4. Report on your findings and annual/quarterly strategies and key initiatives for feedback. You'll get comments on whether you're on the right track and can provide call-to-actions with your team on areas that they can support.

I don't have a favorite question but I do prefer open ended questions in discovery. Close ended questions start with helper verbs. Every question beginning with these words(Am, Are, Is, Was, Were) can be answered by a buyer with a yes or a no. Even when folks give you more than a yes or no they will always be giving you less than a response to an open ended question. To get the most information and provoke deep thought from a prospect. I coach my team to leverage open and command open questions. For example questions that start with Who, What, Where, Why, Tell Me, Explain, Describe, Help me understand ETC. When you construct questions that are "open ended" buyers will elaborate and provide answers with a lot of detail.

* Not doing enough research on the company they're interviewing with * Not anticipating the questions the interviewers will have * Not coming prepared with their own questions for the interviewer * Not coming with multiple examples prepared or not having results and metrics at the ready to speak to in the interview * Not leveraging their recruiter as a resource to adequately prep for the interviews * Not asking for feedback from their interviewer to apply to the next interview * Not closing their interviewer * Not sending a follow up email post-interview * Not practicing concise answers ahead of the interview

Sales KPIs play a critical role in forecast accuracy, especially in unpredictable markets. Amidst the market turbulence, really the only thing you have are deal execution and forecast accuracy. The difference between having a math based forecast everyone is aligned around vs not is stark. There are so many ways to cut your forecast in an effort to determine where you'll land. The math itself is important but the most important is having a shared language and "walkup" in order to pinpoint the assumptions you're making - so you can have an in-depth discussion in a short amount of time.

OKRs can vary depending on how your specific business and team are measured. It is crucial to first understand what the business OKRs are before you can be prescriptive in delineating key objectives to your respective team. Team metrics: * Data trends - SCL, ACV, WR + pipeline (3x) * Days within stage * ACV (average contract value) * ASC (average sales cycle) * Delineated by stage * WR (win rate) * Delineated by stage * New logos * New logo vs. expansion revenue * SQO to SAO production (sales qualified to sales accepted opportunity) * Your team should have ~3-4x pipeline coverage in order to feel confident in attaining the number * Activity to SQO production (how many activities until a meeting is booked) * % to quota attainment * There is a fine balance. ~125%+ attainment across the team to me means the number is too attainable. I like to see performance average ~90-95% attainment across a team by region. Business Metrics Great metrics to ask in an interview * Run rate vs. growth rate * Path to profitability * At scale, do these unit economics work? * Revenue now vs. targets for the year vs. projections * Revenue streams * Market share * CAC (Customer acquisition costs) * NDR (Net dollar retention) * What is the current valuation vs. projection for next year