Live from SaaStr Europa 2022: 4 Data-Backed Tips to Accelerate Revenue Growth with Salesloft

Please welcome Salesloft VP of Revenue, EMEA, Ollie Sharp, Salesloft Director of Global Customer Programs, Natasha Evans, Vidyard VP Sales, Rebecca Drew, and Sixth Sense VP Sales, Paul Gilhooley.

Good morning, good morning. My name is Ollie Sharp, the MD for EMEA at Salesloft, and I'm joined today by Rebecca Drew, VP of Sales at Vidyard, the video for business platform, Paul Gilhooley, VP of Sales at SixSense, the revenue AI platform, and Natasha Evans, Director Global Customer Programs and Success at Salesloft, the sales engagement platform. We're going to be talking about 4 data-backed tips to accelerate revenue growth. So first of all, the tip we're going to talk about is getting your timing right. Sorry, too many sheets and stuff. Okay, so lots of studies have been done around this, and 78% of customers buy from the first company that comes back to them. We also know that those respond within the first 1 minute have 400% increase in response rates coming back to them. So it's really important to get the timing right for inbound and outbound. Other studies have shown that if you respond within the first 5 minutes, you get 21 times more effective conversations happening. So Tash, tell us your thoughts on this, on timing.

Yeah, thanks, Ollie. So if I take it back a step. I think we can all agree that timing is really important. Like, we all know if you can engage with a buyer or a customer when you know that they have a high propensity to buy, that we are obviously more likely to convert them. It makes sense, right, when you say it out loud. But actually, from a customer success standpoint, when we're speaking with customers and companies, most of them haven't really thought about how to integrate this timing element into their sales strategy. So if we think about it from an outbound and an inbound perspective, like Ollie said, and we start with outbound because arguably it is a little bit harder, let's face it, when you're outbounding to know when the right time is to engage with a buyer or a customer. And so really the way that I think about it are there two key things that you can be doing, and this is what we're speaking to our customers about every single day. You can leverage insights data, technology to really understand when is the right time to engage with a person or a company based on what the data tells you and the market. Or you can build a process that allows you to execute multiple touchpoints over time to consistently stay top of mind so that you know when the right time is, you're more likely to get a bite. So outbound is arguably a lot harder, as I've said, Inbound, on the other hand, is so much easier, and it's such a quick win that really gets missed by a lot of companies that we're speaking to. Because if you think about it, you know that it's the right time because they've just told you. They've researched your company, they know that they have a pain, they've come inbound because they want to speak to you. And actually, you know, the data says you'd be surprised by how many companies really aren't capitalizing on that. So let's think through that for a second, and I've been there myself. You recognize that you want to speak to a company, you're coming inbound, and you don't immediately get a response. Maybe you get a response 5 hours later or 3 days later or 7 days later. It isn't the best experience for the prospective buyer because they don't necessarily feel like you care enough to respond quicker. So what I would encourage you guys to be thinking about is how can you leverage technology to have that quick response time, ideally less than 5 minutes as the data is showing us. How do you be responsive but also go back with the right messaging? And I know that I'm sure, Paul, you've got some things to add here.

Yeah, thanks, Natasha. You're absolutely right, inbound is such an important health metric for any business. It's something you should be tracking, and if you're responding quickly, you'll yield really good results. However, We have a concept that says inbound is too late, right? Because while it's highly valuable, showing a real signal to purchase, you know, they've engaged with your brand, they found you, they've been motivated to act, but something's been influencing them during that process. And if it's not been you and that the inbound is somewhat of a surprise, are you best placed to take that business down? The likelihood is is that they have already done a lot of research. They might have researched your competitors. They built up a perception, and that means a missed opportunity. So we talk a lot about, I'd say, beating the inbound, because we know if you get into deals early enough, you can shape the evaluation process. If you do that successfully, your win rates and your average deal sizes increase. So it's really critical. So this idea of beating the inbound is is maybe not common, but something we certainly advocate for. And now today, the landscape's changed in terms of what data and technologies that you have available to you that will enable you to really understand which accounts are in market. So imagine that actually, rather than waiting for someone to fill out a form, you know exactly when that same account arrived on your website and started that research. But even then, that's just on your website. You are now able to look and really shine a light on the anonymous research that's happening. So again, I go back to this view of what if you could identify which accounts were in market. You know, there's a big shift in the market moving away from traditional MQL and lead processes because it has a very limited view at an individual level around ad hoc engagement. But we know the buying committee is at an account level, it's much larger. So if you can identify that, there's huge benefits around that. And for us, we've got to the stage now where we can accurately predict which accounts are going to be most likely to open a sales qualified opportunity with us in the next 90 days. That's huge, you know, valuable to a business in your commercial teams. But just having that insight from a market and a TAM perspective can offer really strategic growth as well. At SixSense, we were traditionally an enterprise purchase, but analyzing this data enabled us to really see that there was a commercial segment that there was more demand for us. And we've done— under what, 2 years— it went from a greenfield opportunity into our largest segment. So the data can be used in many different ways, but a lot of it is of course around timing, and for us it's about beating the inbound.

Thank you. Thank you, Paul. So next up is do your due diligence. Really important to do your research nowadays. Now you've got to stand out. 5% of customers' time is spent with the rep during the process, so you don't actually get much time to impress them and add value. And a lot of the time, 25% of the sellers are asked to do a demo on the first call. It's not always the best because you haven't done— got enough from them. So how do we create enough value to stand out? Paul, let's start with you. On this one?

Yeah, again, for us, while there is such limited time with, with your buyer, for us, your opportunity to differentiate starts with your first outreach, right? Some of the things that we advocate— everything starts with your ICP, your ideal customer profile. You should be looking at firmographic, demographic, and technographic data in terms of really zoning in and prioritizing your, your effort and spend towards accounts that are most likely to convert. But once you do that, again, I go back to this, there's so much data available to us now to understand the, the behavior of an account. So for me, that really revolves around how can you be timely, so you're acting in the right moment, being relevant to your accounts, relevant to their current priorities. So for us, we collate data, both first-party and third-party data sources, so it gives us a holistic view of that account. And then we can understand what they've been researching, so we know what's important to them at that given moment. We then align those topics to a persona-based approach. So for us at SixSense, it's sales leaders, marketing leaders, and operation leaders, RevOps and so on. The way we speak to those personas are very different, even though the topic or the area of interest could be the same. So we take that relevance and those topics and the personas, and that then informs our outreach, the cadences that we use. We use Salesloft, and that's how we get that meeting. So we want to differentiate and be relevant straight away so you get good response rates. Once you're in that meeting, what we try to do really is be— we use that but then build more preparation around it. We want to come in with a perspective. So for For us, we're trying to build a perspective around the common problems that we would solve for these personas and use that to qualify. So for us at SixSense, it's all about your TAM. So we help customers either with pipeline creation and/or pipeline prioritization. So the size of your TAM will indicate what problems that typically will solve for you. So we understand the topics and the product category that will be relevant to you. As a persona, and then we create a point of view off that. So regardless of your products and your process, they're the things that we think are really important in terms of due diligence. Thank you.

And Bex, the only thing I would say, and just on that piece around sellers being asked to demo at the first call, you're gonna get it, right? People are impatient now. They want to, they want to see and feel like what you're providing. One of the things I would recommend, we do one-call closes at Vidyard for about 30% of our emerging opportunities. One of the things that I would encourage you to do is think about how you're equipping your team with the questions that they need to ask, those discovery questions that they can weave into a demo that's going to help them to understand what are the outcomes that that prospect or potential client is looking to achieve, essentially. So that's one of the things I would say on that.

Tash, anything to add?

Yeah, I'll add one thing. I think, um, oftentimes due diligence, discovery, research, creating perspectives is, is really thought about as part of the sales process and not really necessarily thought about post-sales once you have a customer on board. And I think don't underestimate the value for a CS team or an account management team of continuously researching your customers, continuously doing discovery and coming up with perspectives, because that's really how you understand your customer. That's really how you partner and you bring the right proactive recommendations to them that's going to impact on their business goals. And ultimately, you know, we're here today to talk about accelerating growth. That will be something that unlocks growth within your existing customer base as well.

Thank you. Okay. Be human. I think we all get spammed enough to know that we don't respond to things that we know aren't meant for us. So it's about how we stand out. One stat that we do know about is that going from zero personalisation to 25% personalisation, you see nearly 400% increase in your reply rates. So a huge difference by doing that. I think it was 300, just over 300, sorry. And so what we've got to do is make sure that we know they know it's a human reaching out to them. So Bex, over to you on this one first about being human.

Absolutely. So to give you some, some ideas around stats, so HubSpot HubSpot did a study where they looked at the number of sales emails that are being sent out. Okay. And in the last 2 years, so since the beginning of the pandemic, sales emails have doubled. Okay. So your buyers are receiving twice as many sales emails as they were 2 and a half years ago. That's a lot of noise out there in the marketplace, right? And unsurprisingly, response rates have gone down by about 37%. So what you need to do is make sure that you're standing out from that crowd and being human. Like, we are in a hybrid environment now where, you know, there's a lot of virtual selling still happening. It's great to see everyone in person here for this event, but, you know, a lot of it is going to be virtual. So it's about how do you over-index on building those relationships, because, you know, sales— people will buy from people, um, you know, that I think will, will be true forever. So it's about how do you really stand out, how do you kind of come across being that authentic human. And video is one, one way to do that in a really effective way.

Tash?

Yeah, I mean, naturally very much agree with, with what Bex has said. And, you know, we spend our day speaking to customers about this. How do we be more personalized? How to be more relevant and how that boosts your response rates. Some of the pushback that we're getting, and quite rightly, is how do you balance that with the need for reps to hit activity, to cover your market? I think the balancing of personalization, whether it be through your content, the kinds of things you suggest using video, balancing that with scale is really where technology can be your best friend. And I think those sales teams, those organizations that find that lovely balance between personalization and being relevant and still hitting all of their market will be the ones that win.

Thank you very much. So, fourth and final tip, we're getting there. So, layer, not lair, layer your tech strategically. Sorry. Okay, so, typical tech stack. Most companies average 80 applications across marketing and sales. And 67% use between 4 and 10 digital sales tools. This becomes a problem. We started using technology to make sure that we're doing— adding value to the rep. By having so much tech, it's not adding value anymore if they're using too much tech. So, Tash, let's start with you.

I love that I can see that this one has already hit home, like a few like nods and shakes of the head on the front row. And I'm sure we can all agree, like, I don't want to be using 80 different technologies across sales and marketing, and I'm sure you guys don't, and you don't want your teams to be doing that either. It's not the most efficient use of our time. I also know that it's really easy to get sucked in by a fantastic demo, whether that be by a snazzy product that's got a great little feature or by a really good salesperson. It's really easy to see that and see how it might be solving a little pain point for your business and to get drawn in and to get your tech stack built up. I think what we're speaking to our customers about, and the, the tip that I would provide here, is take a step back and think about, as a business, agreeing as a leadership team, what are your core business priorities and your core business pain points? And using that as your north star when it comes to evaluating any new technologies or evaluating your existing tech stack. And I think once you've done that and you know the top priorities or the top pains that you're looking to solve, you can then be smart about who you evaluate. Can some of these technologies, or can any of the technologies in your existing tech stack, solve more than one problem for you? Because we then know it makes it a lot easier for the teams to use when they've got fewer technologies they've got to learn and you've got to enable them on. It means that, um, from a cost perspective, it usually makes a lot more sense for me, for your business. But also, if anybody works in ops, It means that you guys aren't having to spend your time negotiating 80 different contracts and speaking to 80 different customer success teams and going through all the renewals. So that would be the second thing I would think about. How can you find technologies once you know your priorities that can solve more than one problem? And then the third thing that I would advise here, and naturally I'm biased because I'm in a customer success role, is when you're evaluating a potential technology, look for the partners. Look for the ones who care about the business problems that you are trying to solve and will proactively help you figure out plans to get there based on how you can leverage that technology. Because they're the ones that are really gonna make a difference to your business, that will help you maximize any investment you have made in a technology and ultimately meet those business objectives.

Great points, thank you.

Bex? Yeah, so I mean, I see this all too often. I've been in sales for 20-plus years and leading teams for 10 years. There's just so many things out there, but there are two things for me that are so important. One is whenever you're evaluating technology, think about how does it integrate with your existing tech stack? How is this going to make your process and your team's life easier, basically? 'Cause that's why, that's when they're gonna use it. The second piece that so many people just don't do enough of is around the enablement. So you buy something, it's like, great, this is going to be the silver bullet. This is going to change my world. But they don't do enough enablement around it. So it's so important, critical, that you actually explain to the team the reason why you're buying this piece of technology, what it's going to do for the business, and importantly, what are the outcomes that you're looking to drive as a result of putting this into place. There are a couple of things for me.

Paul, anything to add?

Yeah.

I echo a lot of what's been shared, to be honest. I think prioritization around strategic business goals is a common one. What I would say though is that invariably, either through my own experience or the customers we serve, a lot of the times they're not linking that to a specific business outcome. Actually saying, well, what— how is this going to move the business forward? Not from a functionality or capability-led, but from an actual business outcome. So in 6 6 cents. That's about improved win rates, pipeline growth, average deal size, and so on. Be really clear about that. I would definitely echo some of the points around, you know, how you select technologies not just for now but future-proofing your investment, because nothing more costly than having to replace technology. So I'd encourage you all to think about the immediate priorities, but where does, where does the tech stack go in 12 months 24 months or even beyond. So picking a technology that meets these immediate needs, but is it— does it have current functionality that you know you can grow with, or is it part of the roadmap that you can grow with? Because again, replacing technology is, is the worst, right? Just across the board, costly time, but the change management, the behaviors that you might have had to drive and now change again with the same individuals who've lost confidence, it's huge. And then some the other points, which was about partnering with someone beyond the technology. I'd really encourage you to be evaluating your partners, you know, your technology partners with their own people and their own process. Does that instill confidence? Are these people that you're going to buy into? And one thing that we always ask of our partners is how is customer success KPI'd? Is it going to be purely on renewals and monetary terms? Or is it actually going to be around use cases and adoption and value? That will give you an indicator of the type of organization you're partnering and what they ultimately value. And I think that's really important beyond the technology itself.

Thank you. Some great points. Thank you very much. So just key takeaways to run through them again very quickly. Get your timing right. That's including inbound and outbound, making sure that you're on your front foot. Be human. Make sure you stand out. Do Do your due diligence. I always struggle with that one. Due diligence. Do your research. Make sure you can add value in the process and layer your tech strategically. I want to personally thank these guys, Paul, Bex, Tash. Thank you for a great job and adding so much value there. Thank you. Thank you, everybody.

Thank you.

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