Stage 2 Capital’s Post

Would you like longer sales cycles? Smaller deals? Customers that ghost you? Low investor confidence? Start doing the following immediately: 1. DON’T meet in person or use Zoom/Teams/Google Meet. Ignore human connections and expressive body language. Disregard your charisma, smile and sense of humor. 2. DON’T use the phone. Stick with asynchronous emails that are often misunderstood, don’t convey emotion or instill urgency. 3. DON’T take time to understand what’s important to customers, using their words. Rely on product jargon. Also don’t help your champion translate your solution into the language of the C-Suite. Send a generic price quote that you hope isn’t perceived as too expensive. 4. DON’T review pricing proposals with customers to collaborate on an exact solution at a mutually agreeable price. Send them via email and hope they meet expectations. 5. DON’T ask for feedback after you’ve presented a demo or price and don’t schedule follow up calls while you’re meeting. Let them call you when they’re ready. 6. DON’T align all stakeholders or help prepare a project plan. Assume your champion buys enterprise software as much as you sell it and knows how to sell your solution internally. 7. DON’T anticipate obstacles and prepare contingency plans. Assume everything will be fine. 8. DON’T build proposals that allow customers to crawl, walk and run. Assume they’ll simply give you millions of dollars without demonstrating success and ROI. 9. DON’T talk about long term, sustainable success and referenceability. Ignore the opportunity to ask how you can become one of your customer’s Top 3 vendor. Close this deal and run. 10. DON’T engage an Enterprise Deal Coach. Assume customers are lining up, waiting to give you money. Rainmakers, what did I miss? ++++++++++++++ I’m Mark Phinick and I coach sellers to win Enterprise SaaS deals, freeing leaders to focus on strategy. Let’s discuss how to help sellers avoid the above guidance and actually increase conversions, deal value and recurring revenue. www.letsmakeitrain.net

After doing three $50M+ SaaS deals, being top 1% at Oracle and becoming financially independent, here are 5 rules about selling I’ve learned which no one talks about: 1. Email is the absolute worst form of communication. - Overused in prospecting - Can’t accurately convey tone - Too easy for recipients to ignore - Can’t build relationships through email - Permanent record of massive faux pas 2. Constantly assess who you are talking to. - Are they friend or foe - Do they have influence - Are they being truthful with you - Are they invested in the problem you solve - Do they actually know what’s going on internally - Deprioritize them if you can’t answer the above affirmatively 3. Break out of common sales plays or you will never land an uncommonly large deal. - Prospect > discovery > demo > pray = common road to nowhere - If you haven’t learned to engage executives, that is your glass ceiling - Learn to get more than you fair share of A-players and other internal resources - Break rules and get exceptions to internal policies to get your customers unique solutions that hit the nail on the head to address their business realities. 4. When it’s go-time in a big oppty, get serious. - It will be 24/7. - There will not be work/life balance. - You will be making sacrifices. - It will hurt. - Sometimes the pursuit of happiness drives you right through stress and pain. 5. Success is short-lived. - You will/should enjoy it in the moment - Reward yourself a little and save the rest of your commissions - But come Q1 you’ll be back to zero and management has a short memory - Don’t let it rock you. Accept that it's part of the game. If transactional, velocity sales plays are burning you out, my new course, The Elite Sellers Playbook starts tomorrow, Monday July 1st at 2pm EST. Comment 'check it out' and my main man Shelton Smith will get you the details.

Yesterday, we got a "verbal" on a $300,000 ARR deal at pclub.io. After a long negotiation, we're sending for signature. Market conditions are harder than ever. But enterprise deals like this still close. Three highlights to help you close your next big deal: 1. This took tons of effort. Our sales cycle was relatively short (4.5 months). But that 4.5 months was jam packed: - 26 cell phone calls - 31 total Zoom meetings - 60+ back and forth emails - 5 meetings w/C-Suite execs - 9 people involved on their side - 4 people involved on our side Takeaway: The key to enterprise sales is this: - pick the deals you can win (qualify) - then win the deals you picked (commit) Re-read the second line. Once you commit to a deal, do whatever it takes to win. Don't let good deals slip away. Lean in hard enough to make it happen, or don't pursue it at all. "It ain't gonna close itself." 2. Senior execs are focused on risk, problems, and loss. Here's what the SVP Sales said when I met him: "In my senior meetings right now, you don't hear us talking about the good or fun things. You hear us talking about the problems. The things that put our plans at risk. That's what we're solving for." Indeed. Money follows pain more than it follows benefits. Here's a snippet from the COO's problem statement: "Challenging market conditions have increased the complexity of purchase cycles. Buying decisions are made at a higher level, with more people, with more scrutiny, and with lower risk tolerance. These market conditions changed faster than we can upskill our people." Then he outlined the impact on the business. Millions in 2024 revenue were at risk. Takeaway? Little problems lead to little dollars. Big problems lead to big dollars. (Turn little problems into big problems here: https://lnkd.in/gWVp_Vxd ) 3. Strategic multi-threading > random acts of multi-threading. There were 9 people involved on their side. But we didn't meet with them all willy nilly. There were no "random acts of multi-threading." Instead, we focused on building one (influential) champion. Got him bought in. Once we had him on our side, we expanded our footprint. Met with more skeptical people. Without him on our side, we would have gotten eaten alive. But he did a lot of the selling for and with us. It was as if he represented pclub.io, in some ways. Then he sponsored a meeting with the SVP. Again, with him on our side, it was easy to get the SVP on board. Finally, we met with the COO. He was tough as nails. But by then, we had built a full blown 'league' of champions. Hard for him to resist that groundswell. He eventually bought in and blessed the deal. Takeaway: In multi-threading, order of operations matters. Think through the right 'blend of people' to involve. Approach them in a strategic order. Ok. That's it for now. Want to learn 7 lessons I use to close deals like this? Grab them here: https://lnkd.in/g8mixtVc

Great insight on the difference between salespeople and sales professionals.

Years ago I was on a discovery call that led to a $500,000 deal. Most AEs would have missed this opportunity, or settled for a $50,000 deal. Here's how the call went: Us: "What led you to want to explore Gong?" Enablement Manager: "We need better visibility into our sales team's conversations." Many reps would stop right here. That's what Gong can do right? Let's show 'em the good. But we dug more... Us: "Great. We can certainly help with that. What's driving you to crave that level of visibility?" Enablement Manager: "Our reps are struggling to sell to power. We need to coach them up on that and we're blind to it right now." Us: "How is that showing up in your deal cycles? What effect is it having?" Enablement Manager: "Sales cycle. It's dragging out. 9 month average sales cycle right now. We built next year's AOP on the assumption that it will be six months." Now we're getting somewhere. But let's keep going... Us: "Can I ask a redundant question?" Him: "Yeah." Us: "What's going on in your business that's driving you to prioritize solving this among everything else you could focus on? if you're like any other sales org, there are a dozen problems you could solve. Why this?" Now notice *Power* takes over the conversation: SVP Sales: "This is a focus from our board because it's putting us in a cash crunch. Our typical contract has net 60 payment terms. That means it takes 11 months for cash to hit our bank from the time we start a new sales cycle." We then went on to uncover that they'd have to raise a bridge round if they didn't fix this. Translation: Millions of dollars worth of company valuation would dilute. This was a Utopian discovery call. They're not all this easy, and I recognized this in the moment. But the TAKEAWAY: Little problems (like "visibility") get you little commission checks. Big problems (like valuation) get you BIG commission checks. And many times, there are big problems hiding underneath those little problems. Tag a seller who'd like these tips. P.S. Here's 7 SaaS sales strategies we used to grow from $200k to $200M in less than six years: https://lnkd.in/g8mixtVc

This is just one of those sales masterclass you NEED to listen.

House accounts. Hate them. What are they? Opportunities owned by your company (ie. CEO, VP Sales, CS Leader) and not tagged to any particular sales rep. Those accounts stay with the "house" or company. The main reason for house accounts is that there is usually a transition in territory from rep to rep or at early stage startups, the founders have been working on opportunities before you got there and still have those opportunities tagged to them. And they never give it up even after you start. If you’re an early stage founder or any stage sales leader, if you're holding onto house accounts - you’re sending the wrong message to your team. What your action is saying is this: “Hey buddy. Thanks for joining our great company where we love to write big commission checks. However, these accounts here, these are my accounts... These are accounts I’ve been working on (even though they’re monster accounts in your territory) - so you go focus on everything else in your territory." There are some issues house accounts will end up creating: 1) As a founder or sales leader you’re showing an immediate divide by letting the reps know it’s Us (leadership) vs Them (reps) mentality right from the start. 2) By not involving your new reps, you’re also setting the stage that the company will most likely be cheap when it comes to paying out commissions. 3) Creates animosity and ambiguity for the rep's future deals in territory. For example: When/where does it stop? That’s what your reps will be thinking about. Ok - so every inbound lead my execs get from the board or their connections, they’re going to run themselves and take that deal away from my terriotry? Basically taking food off the table for my family? Do this once or maybe twice and there won’t be a third time, any decent salesperson will be gone before you try it a third time. The better thing to do is properly hand off and assist the new rep within that account and help make a proper transition to the right contacts. Build up the rep you’re introducing them into the account. Be proud of who you hired and let them do what you’ve hired them to do…sell! Or find a way to tag team the deal together. Even if the new rep isn’t going to provide much value in the conversation, get that new rep involved in the conversations so they can ramp-up faster. You’ll start to notice how many stories that rep will pick up from the conversation and how much they will sound like you during their meetings. This allows founders and sales leaders to go back to playing an executive role. You should be happy to pay the rep for helping land the deal even though you may have done most of the work. That’s part of being a good leader. Get that sales rep feeling good about themselves, their territory, their decision to come work for your company. #sales #territory #toponepercenter

Last quarter, we closed a $300,000 ARR deal at pclub.io. Right at quarter-end. Big deals still close even in these market conditions. Three keys to help you close your next big deal: 1. This took tons of effort. Our sales cycle was relatively short (4.5 months). But that 4.5 months was jam packed: - 26 cell phone calls - 31 total Zoom meetings - 60+ back and forth emails - 5 meetings w/C-Suite execs - 9 people involved on their side - 4 people involved on our side Takeaway: The key to enterprise sales is this: - pick the deals you can win (qualify) - then win the deals you picked (commit) Re-read the second line. Once you commit to a deal, do whatever it takes to win. Don't let good deals slip away. Lean in hard enough to make it happen, or don't pursue it at all. "It ain't gonna close itself." 2. Senior execs are focused on risk, problems, and loss. Here's what the SVP Sales said when I met him: "In my senior meetings right now, you don't hear us talking about the good or fun things. You hear us talking about the problems. The things that put our plans at risk. That's what we're solving for." Indeed. Money follows pain more than it follows benefits. Here's a snippet from the COO's problem statement: "Challenging market conditions have increased the complexity of purchase cycles. Buying decisions are made at a higher level, with more people, with more scrutiny, and with lower risk tolerance. These market conditions changed faster than we can upskill our people." Then he outlined the impact on the business. Millions in 2024 revenue were at risk. Takeaway? Little problems lead to little dollars. Big problems lead to big dollars. 3. Strategic multi-threading > random acts of multi-threading. There were 9 people involved on their side. But we didn't meet with them all willy nilly. There were no "random acts of multi-threading." Instead, we focused on building one (influential) champion. Got him bought in. Once we had him on our side, we expanded our footprint. Met with more skeptical people. Without him on our side, we would have gotten eaten alive. But he did a lot of the selling for and with us. It was as if he represented pclub.io, in some ways. Then he sponsored a meeting with the SVP. Again, with him on our side, it was easy to get the SVP on board. Finally, we met with the COO. He was tough as nails. But by then, we had built a full blown 'league' of champions. Hard for him to resist that groundswell. He eventually bought in and blessed the deal. Takeaway: In multi-threading, order of operations matters. Think through the right 'blend of people' to involve. Approach them in a strategic order. Ok. That's it for now. I just finished writing three new ebooks. They include 30 SaaS sales scripts and frameworks for repeatable success. Give them a read: https://lnkd.in/gZcrmSWE Let me know if I got it right.

5 Steps To Closing That Enterprise Sales Deal https://lnkd.in/d4jCXyzk A beautifully crafted process by Dannie Herzberg when she was at Slack and HubSpot. 1. Get in the Door - Research, Research, Research 2. Prioritize In-Person Meetings - Build Relationship 3. Seek First to Understand - Understand prospect's business and pain 4. Get Multi-threaded - Multi-Hierarchy approach for Enterprise Sales 5. Ask For It - Do not sell yourself short #enterprisesales #sales #forbes

The 3 most common mistakes I see SaaS leaders make when it comes to outbound are... 1. Failing to get Account Executives outbound-ready Your typical AE has sold the majority of their deals to hand-raisers. Hand-raisers that have product familiarity, specific requirements, and timelines. Outbound is a different kettle of fish. Developing the relationship with an outbound lead isn't about regurgitating discovery questions, it's about delivering a compelling narrative that highlights how they (like others) can win with your solution and leaders need to be coaching their AEs to do this. 2. Failing to close the "nurture gap" Are all of your outbound meetings going dark after the demo? Well, they're probably falling into the dreaded "nurture gap". When the lead liked the demo but hasn't yet committed to a follow-up or they were engaged in the discovery but then went dark, does your team know what to do with it? Without a clearly defined strategy of nurturing, most of these opps will be forgotten and replaced with leads that shout louder and more often. Leaders need to be crystal clear with the strategy. Closing the nurture gap is all about remaining aligned and keeping the prospect engaged so it should be a top priority for the entire commercial team. 3. Only compensating SDRs on meetings booked The quickest way to build a lot of outbound pipeline with a terrible win rate is to only pay commission when an SDR books a meeting. If you're trying to build pipeline with a respectable win rate, then you need to be fostering a culture of collaborative selling throughout the buying journey and paying commission at a later stage in the sales cycle. Don't be the leader who continually raves about the growth of the outbound pipeline number, only to find it unclosed 18 months later.