1. Opportunity: There are the select few Sales Leaders that actually see an opportunity in the chaos and economic downturn that we’re experiencing in SaaS Tech Sales. They see the opportunity to upgrade their sales talent. They see the opportunity to distinguish themselves from their competitors by investing in their sales team to optimize their sales performance via technology (AI) and through a vastly improved qualification process (e.g., NOT BANT!). The great value investor Warren Buffett always buys when everyone else is selling and panicking. There are always great value stocks and sales people that become available during a Bear market.

2. Building Deeper Customer Relationships: Enterprise customers are always striving to cut the number of high tech vendors they work with… not expand them. Particularly in an economic downturn where SaaS renewals and churn will likely increase precipitously. Building more meaningful customer relationships will be paramount to all SaaS companies over the next 18-24 months. Do you really know your customers? Or are they just an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) that you sell to? What do your customers really think of you as a business partner? It’s time to ask yourselves as Sales Leaders the hard questions that the inferior Sales Leaders are afraid to ask themselves.

3. Business Outcomes: Stop selling features and capabilities. The customer could care less about your cool, whiz bang features (real world customer quote from one of my Exec Buyer customer interviews). They only care about the business outcomes that your solution drives and enables that are important to their business. For example, I recently heard the CISO from Levi Strauss say on a Webcast… “tell me how you’re going to help me sell more jeans. Not how your Cyber Security technology is going to prevent from being breached.”

4. Build a Winning Sales Coaching Program: Think like a highly successful Football Coach like Bill Belichick (New England Patriots) or Nick Saban (University of Alabama). They have built a coaching system and framework for consistent success… year after year. They are incredibly adept at recruiting people that fit their system and will be successful. They adapt “in game” (e.g., analogous to “in a sales process”) better than their competitors and as such, are able to overcome early point deficits and win the game at the end. They out prepare, out practice and out scout their competition. Open Disclaimer: I am a die hard New England Patriots fan having grown up in Massachusetts and living in Boston for 12 years between College and early business career.

My son played football growing up in the East Bay of San Francisco from 4th grade through High School. I was a coach or assistant coach for many of his football teams over the years. Rob Ryan had just been hired to be the Defensive Coordinator for the Oakland Raiders. He had just spent four (4) years as the Linebackers Coach for the NE Patriots. During his tenure, they had won two (2) Super Bowls and ranked 1st in NFL scoring defense (both points allowed and points scored by a Defense). He gave the football season kick off speech when my son was in in middle school. I stalked him at the hot dog shack and ended up chatting with him for 15-20 minutes about what makes the NE Patriots so consistently great. He laughed and said it’s all Belichick. He shared with me that the level and depth of preparation before a game was nothing like he’s ever seen in his football career. He told me that the Patriots do things in building their football team that no other football team is doing in the NFL.

5. Build out a world class Discovery Framework: I’ve always submitted that the top performing sales teams that I’ve had the pleasure to work with fundamentally out discover and out discern their peers and competitors. As a result of their deep dive discovery and discernment process, they simply have a much richer pool of information to formulate a winning sales strategy from. And oh by the way, sometimes the best sales strategy is to qualify out because the deal is not realistically winnable if you’re being sober and honest with yourself as a sales team. I call this “ruthless qualification”… not BANT (see above). Again, great sales teams are not afraid of asking the hard questions of the customer. Rather, they embrace asking the hard questions early and often in their sales pursuits so they don’t waste their time. That’s why far less of their deals end up in the dreaded “No Decision” state. That’s why they have a much higher winning conversion rates on their deals versus their peers and competitors.

Good Selling in 2023 to All!

The post 2023 Complex B2B Sales Predictions first appeared on True Sales Results.

RAs have analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of their team and their competitors. They deeply understand their customers and the business outcomes that they want to achieve. RAs know where and how they will win and lose. They know what sales skill development areas they need to invest in and build in their team to optimize overall sales performance.

There are a ton of variables that you need to consider when developing an annual sales plan. Here is just a sampling of the variables that factor into a well thought out sales plan:

• Macro-economic forecasts and projections for 2023
• Micro-economic forecasts and projections for 2023 by Region of the World (ROW) and major industries that you sell to
• Geopolitical issues and risk
• Projected sales growth rate Year over Year (YoY) and on a Quarterly basis
• Average Deal Size
• Average Sales Cycle Length
• Win Rate/Loss Rate/No Decision Rate
• Pipeline coverage (e.g., 3-5X ARR goals)
• Sales headcount needed
• New sales hire ramp up time to full productivity
• Projected sales team attrition
• Competitive threats (existing and new)
• Budgetary constraints

Again, the bullet points above represent just a small sampling of all the variables that need to be factored into a well architected sales plan. What’s the bad news that is inextricable linked to building sales plans? Regrettably, the bad news is not just that as a Sales Leader you have to figure out how you are going to create more hours in the day in Q4-2022 to successfully close out your 2022 fiscal year and build out your sales plan for 2023 in parallel.

No the bad news is that your 2023 sales planning process needs to include multiple contingency plans. The good old backup plan to the backup plan. The “What if” analysis. Two years ago no one planned for a global pandemic and how that would impact their business. What if the madman Putin starts World War III in Europe over the Ukraine invasion by using nuclear weapons?

One of the best Sales Leaders that I know is a pilot. He uses a lot of Aviation and pilot analogies as part of his sales leadership style. He is an expert Revenue Architect (RA). He is fond of saying; “Plan the Flight and Fly the Plan.” That is until the plan no longer makes sense. And rather than thinking of them as backup plans, think of them as alternative plans. That way it’s easier to mentally and emotionally accept that there were changes outside of your control that require an alternative plan.

In Aviation, pilots need to constantly monitor the weather and the aircraft mechanical issues. They have to figure out their fuel needs as part of their flight plan. Pilots have a dashboard of sophisticated gauges that need to be constantly monitored for changes called avionics. Sales Leaders similarly have a dashboard of analytics that need to be constantly monitored for changes called Salesforce.com.

But Sales Leaders and Pilots simply can’t afford to make the mistake of getting too distracted when a single indicator alarm in your dashboard goes off. In Aviation, you are taught three priorities (A-N-C) you need to focus on as a pilot:

1. Aviate: Fly the plane
2. Navigate: Figure out where you are and where you’re going
3. Communicate: Talking to Air Traffic Control (ATC), fellow crew airplane members or passengers

But above all else, always Fly the aircraft first! I’d submit to you that the analogy in sales is always keep talking with customers and really listening/discerning what their needs are. They may have unmet needs that you can solve well for and deliver transformative business outcomes. If your sales team can become experts at discovery and discernment with your customers, you can bring substantive commercial insights to the conversation.

Best of luck to all you Sales Leaders and RAs as you go through your 2023 Sales Planning process!

The post Working on your Sales Plan for 2023? first appeared on True Sales Results.