Category: Startups

You Need a Rock Star to Help You “Sell Your Way Out”

You were happy with your sales team. Most of your reps were hitting at least 62% of quota. They loved working for you and the company. Who wouldn’t? Free lunch on Fridays, beer in the fridge, and you weren’t really holding them accountable to performance metrics. Life and the economy were good; until they weren’t. As you are finding out, what worked then, won’t work now and this might include ...

May 19, 2020

3 Clues that Your Sales Process is Broken

I worked for a CFO once who would regularly say, “That sounds like a broken process.” I got tired of hearing that, not because he was wrong, but because he was right. I often get calls from Founders or Sales Leaders asking if I will come in and evaluate their sales reps. because they aren’t sure they’ve got the right players on the team. I gently say to them that ...

February 18, 2020

The Problem with Productivity

The dictionary definition of productivity is: The amount of time it takes to complete a task. The KKJ definition: The ability to identify and execute on tasks that will result in providing the highest value outcome. So what’s the big deal? Why should sales leaders care about and measure the productivity of their sales reps? Because it matters. What I love about sales is it is the blending of art ...

January 15, 2020

“Stalled” is NOT a Stage

I was doing a pipeline audit for a client a few years ago when I ran across a sales stage called “Stalled”. What is this, I asked? “Oh- That’s where we put all the deals that we think will close someday but are currently stalled out. We don’t want to lose track of them.” WTF???? So as crazy as this sounds, they aren’t the only company I’ve run across with ...

January 10, 2020

Base Salary: Are you getting what you’re paying for?

So, sometimes I refer to myself as “The Badass Sales Leader”. I do this to set the right tone for hard conversations I need to have with Founders and Sales Leaders about behaviors I have no tolerance for, like Sales Reps. who take their base salary for granted. Let me be clear. I’m all for paying SDRs, AEs, and CSMs a base salary along with commission and bonus. What I’m ...

December 10, 2019

Understanding the Impact of your Prospect’s Pain is What Will Close More Deals

By now I’m sure your sales team is good at uncovering the pain points and challenges your prospects face. But are they digging to get the negative financial impact those pain points are having on the prospect’s organization? Are they able to calculate what the cost to the company is for not solving the issue? Are they able to calculate the positive revenue or negative cost impact that purchasing your ...

December 9, 2019

Customer Churn Starts at Implementation

The most dangerous time in the Customer’s Journey is after the deal has been signed and before First Value Delivered (FVD) has been realized… Implementation! It doesn’t matter if you have a self-serve ecomm product/service or sell an Enterprise software solution – Your customer MUST have a successful implementation experience or your company risks churning them in the future. A successful implementation experience is really in the eye of the ...

November 12, 2019

Addition by Subtraction

We spend most of our life trying to add more to it. More money, more friends, more activities, more fun, and more time off. What if life, work, and sales weren’t a quantity game, but a quality game? What if you could enrich your life and work by saying “No” more often? We are over-scheduled, stressed out, and under the delusion that more is better. Saying “No” or “I wish ...

October 9, 2019