Ian Lavey

I joined Boostly (YC S22) in February 2023 🙌 At that time we had…... 👇 👉 3 SDRs 👉 1 AE 👉 Longer than ideal customer enrollment to go live cycle 👉 An ok average deal size 👉 Some multi location accounts 👉 1 - 2 enrollments a day 👉 Maybe a couple customers going live per week 👉 A starter SDR + AE playbook/slidedeck with inconsistent training 👉 No inbound marketing function 👉 Decent new monthly revenue relative to size of our team  👉 Overall little consistency in our month to month outputs  👉 A baseline culture with some values Fast forward 15 months and oh boy have we turned up the heat.... 🔥 🚀 9 SDRs 🚀 1 additional AE  🚀 Shortened enrollment to go live cycle by 10 days 🚀 3.5x enrollments per day 🚀 2x average deal size 🚀 Many many more multi location accounts 🚀 Multiple customers going live any given day of the week 🚀 A fully functioning playbook/slidedeck + consistent training for teams  🚀 Fully functioning inbound marketing motion with 1 inbound SDR  🚀 3.5x new monthly revenue output 🚀 So much more consistency 🚀 Values clearly outlined and lived by an awesome team! We’ve experienced so much positive movement and have a strong team that’s willing to learn and put in the work! 💪 On this note, with growth comes the opportunity to have new Booster’s move up or come aboard for the first time! I am super stoked to announce Kevin Courtright has joined Boostly as our newest Manager of SDRs 👏 Let's crush! I’ve said it before and I will say it again, the best is yet to come! 🏆 Make sure to check out Boostly for roles and positions available in the coming weeks 😎

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Why is 60-70% of SDRs missing quota? It's because their leadership is failing them. I had the pleasure of interviewing Sara Storm on the SDR Hire Podcast - a tenured SDR and Revenue leader with multiple successful teams behind her, countless lectures and trainings delivered. Sara has a very unique, no BS approach to sales and SDR leadership. In this episode she shared: • What's the current state of the SDR/BDR role • Why sales leaders are failing their sales teams AND their customers • How can SDRs take ownership of their careers?! • Should you even be in an SDR role? • How she used to close 7/10 cold calls she'd make Here's the full episode: https://lnkd.in/eCANhKGu Sara thank you for sharing your expertise and holding sales leaders everywhere accountable! Hope you all enjoy and subscribe! #sdr #bdr #salesdevelopment #techsales #career

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If you need top sales people, that is what we do. Here's a glimpse into our approach: 1️⃣ Volume: Recognizing the time constraints of managers, we cast a wide net to identify 100-300 key targets, swiftly narrowing down prospects. 2️⃣ Weeding out B Players: Hiring B players can be costly. With 50 years of combined experience, we meticulously screen candidates, ensuring only the best fit and potential for growth. 3️⃣ Pitching and Promoting: We're not just recruiters; we're advocates. We delve deep into understanding your company's culture, mission, and vision, presenting compelling reasons for candidates to join your team. 4️⃣ Our Drive: Our relentless pursuit of talent keeps us up at night. We explore every avenue to unearth top prospects, dedicated to delivering the talent that fuels your company's success for years to come! Partner with us for strategic hiring that drives massive growth both short and long term! ✌🏻

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What do you do to streamline your business? Here are a few things I'm doing to try to make my life easier: 📅 I spend so much time looking for availability for meetings that I added a link to Calendly on my email signature. (what a game changer) ✨ I use Salesforce to keep track of leads. What I'd love to know is what tools do you to maximize your time in the office? #sales #salestools

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Be honest with why you need experience for your SDR/BDR role? You could be saving yourself huge amounts of money for the same results by going with an entry level hire. Legit reasons for needing experience - Complex sell with a tough buyer profile (CISO, CTO, CRO etc) - You don't have an outbound process or manager who can train. Non legit reasons - You're too lazy to train - You think hiring with experience improves your retention (it's the opposite) Analyse your SDR culture, could you be going with no experience?? #sdrjobs #sdrteam #salesjobs

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Goal is 100 personalized videos before EOD What type of prospecting are you prioritizing today? 🥰 Happy pipeline & relationship building #sales #prospecting #video #sdr #personalization #gtm #salesvideos

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Enterprises are desperate to hire #SDR leaders. 🚀 Sam Nelson just posted about this. Organizations with great marketing are now leveraging outsourced SDR services to boost their capabilities. I've even had agencies reach out to me about it! The SDR role is nowhere near dead—it's harder and requires more nuance. But with the right data and the right leadership, SDRs can keep your #AEs busy and revenue soaring. 💼 In many ways, what's old is new. When I started in sales, I had no leads and had to: - Identify - Engage - And convince While it's harder to do that now, we have a lot more tools and channels to do so. Yes my career started before #LinkedIn. P.S. Modigie is offering free trials. Link in comments. #SalesDevelopment #revenue #Leadership #Innovation

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The best "cheat codes" every AE should know: 1. 1:1s with your boss. Approach them strategically. Proactively share format and content. Biggest deals you need support on. Challenges you need help with. Forecast for the month, quarter, etc. Wins. 2. Perception. Performance is your fire. How you're perceived internally (aka your brand) is the water or gas that gets dumped on your fire. Attitude, how you show up, handle change, communicate, matters. Hold yourself to a high bar. Two levels above where you're currently at. 3. Document everything. Take the time to write down your own sales playbook. Every strategy, process and template you have. Store it on your personal computer. The value of this over time is immeasurable. I can't state this enough. 4. Problems are a good thing. Anytime there's a problem that's an opportunity to solve it, improve it, and add value. Some of the biggest opportunities I've gotten in my career came because I dove head first into problems and helped move the business forward. Startups always have problems. Don't be the negative person. 5. Time management. Block Monday mornings every week. Don't go to meetings if they're not worth your time. Most things can be solved async. Make meetings 15 to 20 mins. Sometimes you need a whole week of no meetings to catch up, get organized and do deep work. Don't feel bad for saying no to people. They'll understand. 6. External coaching. Up level by listening to podcasts, taking courses and building an external network. Don't rely on your company for everything. Even if they're doing a great job get the perspectives and strategies of other people for a significant edge. What would you add to this list? - Mike G 👉 Join 5,000+ sellers getting my (free) sales newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/gwQVvVBK

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How much is Salesforce holding your salespeople back? When SFDC isn’t implemented properly for your company… When salespeople can’t use CPQ to speed up deals Or can’t reach out to customers at the right time because alerts aren’t set up Or when they don’t know how the best way to input data so opportunities are getting missed every day… How many deals could they be missing out on? How many customers might churn? How many renewals don’t get handled at the right time? How much smaller are deals because your salespeople didn’t have the data they needed? And how much could you be losing, because the job opening for that CPQ consultant or SFDC developer has been open for 3 months? 

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Customers shouldn't be a simple hand-off from sales to CS. (no, no and no 🙅🏼‍♀️ ) (+ without customers, there wouldn't be a hand-off happening in the first place) Mastering the art of customer retention isn't just beneficial for orgs today... 👉🏼 IT. IS. ESSENTIAL.👈🏼 When this is realized + full understood that success is directly tied to the recurring revenue model that defines the SaaS industry today – it quickly becomes clear that high churn rates are more than just numbers. What they are - are warning signs of potential mismatches in: a/ PMF b/ huge miss in customer satisfaction Showing up and delivering market needs + intentionally focusing on building solid, trusting relationships that fuel long-term growth... that's growth for BOTH your customers + your company = winning combination. There is no question that it’s easy to get caught up in the race for new sign-ups, I get it. But if we pivot towards nurturing existing relationships, ensuring that what we sell, will solve now, and solve as things evolve with your customers’ growing demands - those new sign-ups, they become a fun bonus. 📈 The most valuable asset any SaaS company (+ beyond SaaS) can offer = - the trust and loyalty of the customers being served and the future customers experiences to come - bc it's not just a customer journey anymore, it's a customer experience from 1st touch through buyer cycle +++ beyond. Don't let the hand off get out of hand. Sales people, stay in touch with your customers. Set reminders on your cal to follow up on something specific: E.g.: touch base about "XYZ" they talked about that was happening a few months from when you spoke last - that has nothing to do with the product or solution you sold to them, big ps! Be human enough where your buyers, who are also human (as a reminder), will continue to follow you in your career because you cared about them past the sale...trust is retention and relationships are gold. #customers #retention #revenue

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Starting out with BD... How many calls should you make in the week? ZERO. Here's how to make a better start... 💫MONDAY: WHO (AM) Map target companies: Get specific! West Coast, SaaS vendors with 100-1000 employees isn’t a niche (PM) Identify target contacts: Create a list of people, not companies - 3 people per firm. If you can’t find three people to sell to in every business leave it. 💫 TUESDAY: HOW (AM) Map your process Emails, calls, voicemails, video’s, voice notes, texts. Schedule when and how you’ll reach out. Then set up the system. (PM) Set an objective: Watch playbacks of your colleagues meetings. Decide what works. Focus on booking quality meetings and why. 💫 WEDNESDAY: WHAT (AM) Create your content: A 7 step email sequence takes me hours to write and I know what I’m doing. A rookie will take a day easily. (PM) Map your cold call script: Yes, script. If it's your first time flying a plane, at least read the instructions. 💫THURSDAY: WHY (AM) Create awesome questions for meetings. Map how you'll get a client from their problem to your solution. (PM) List out the likely objections Practice handling them over and over and over. Aim for muscle memory. 💫 FRIDAY: WHEN (AM) Practice Practice on a colleague. Practice on your own. Practice. Practice. Practice. (PM) Review the plan THATS IT. YOUR ACTION PLAN FOR WEEK ONE. 99% of recruiters don't have a sales process. They struggle to win high-maintenance, low-paying clients with hard to fill roles. Join the 1% Check out the featured resources in my profile. —————— The video shows the Resonant OS. A playbook consisting of 12 Chapters on everything you need to consistently and confidently win new business. Starting with your sales Culture.

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📊 Chart of the Week 5 📊 Why do more than half of SaaS Sellers consistently miss quota? RepVue aggregated data from 207 organizations and 28k sellers that illuminates the fact that most software sellers don't hit quota. Having sold into the revenue function for the last 6 years, here's my take: 1/3 = Macroeconomic pressure that has negative implications for software sellers selling into software companies. This is cyclical. 1/3 = Really good OR really poor quota planning by leadership. Depends on how leaders want to manage cost of sales. 1/3 = Deficiencies in seller knowledge/skills. This is where enablement and front line sales managers have the biggest ability to impact. Curious, what's your take? Link in comments.

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What do Jessica Simpson and SmartScout have in common? We'll both be at Pattern's Accelerate this week 😎 If you're not coming already, find a way. This week Salt Lake City will be the mecca for e-commerce with the best insights and biggest players in the game. This is something you cannot miss. If you're already coming, DM me to talk off-screen! #Ecommerce #Pattern #SmartScout #Amazon #Data

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Top 5 key metrics I recommend CROs use for inside sales professionals: 1. Speed of response 2. Efficiency of progression through the process 3. Number of calls per day 4. Number of positive outcomes 5. Demo sets As a CRO leader, these are five metrics that I live by. 

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There's a common mistake salespeople make in the first sales meeting.  With leads that are sourced via outbound.  They treat outbound leads like they're "problem aware".  Most outbound sourced leads aren't convinced that they have a problem they need to solve.  If they were... they would have come inbound. Therefore your first job is to sell them on the problem - not your product.  Until they recognise they have the problem... and they're motivated to solve it - it doesn't matter how good your product is.

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Such a valuable list of “cheat codes”! Some I wish I learned earlier on in my career, but happy to have learned them at some point and able to act on them!

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You cannot trust the win-loss data in your CRM. Reps are wrong about the reasons 85% of the time. ❌ ❌ Deals are tagged with the wrong competitors. ❌ There are 4-5 factors determining deal outcome, not 1 picked from a drop-down menu in CRM. ❌ Most of closed-lost data is useless and not actionable to help you win more. ❌Most CRM data ignores why you win, which yields faster win rate improvement than fixing weaknesses. 🟰 That means you are making big, expensive decisions based on wrong assumptions. WHAT'S IN PLACE TO AVOID THIS? hashtag #B2Bsales hashtag #RevenueOperations hashtag #WinLossAnalysis hashtag #ProductMarketing hashtag #Salesenablement

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Right on 📈 Jeremey Donovan. Agree always need to establish a next step and lock it in. The typical 1st / discovery call is scheduled for 30 minutes and is challenging. There is a lot to unpack in 20 minutes. Why 20? Lose 5 min on the front end due to people coming in late from their previous meeting and reserving the 5 min close. That is not a lot of time to provide intro's, background, value prop, demo use cases, q&a and then close on a next meeting. Doing the pre-research + having a short list of discovery questions + perfecting a tight 5 min demo/use cases allows for that 5 min needed for next step aligment and calendaring. A reason it really does take 5 minutes is because there typically is a need to coordinate other stakeholders calendars for the next meeting.

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