SSA#37: Enterprise Sales Secrets
Enterprise Sales Secrets
10 Lessons From A 7-Figure AE
Happy Wednesday to 12,046 SaaS sales professionals!
Yesterday we had an amazing guest speaker in the SaaS Sales Academy: Gilberto Picareta.
Gilberto was my AE when I was a BDR at Salesforce. Together we sourced & closed millions in ARR. During that time I learned some invaluable lessons from him. He remains one of my closest mentors until today.
Here are Gilberto's Top 10 Enterprise Sales Secrets, summarized from yesterday's live masterclass👇
Success Story From Our Coaching Program:
Q1 is known to be the toughest quarter of the year, and Karishma is already crushing her quota! Way to go, Karishma!
How To Prospect Into Enterprise Accounts
- Most sellers are too lazy when it comes to following up. The reality is: it takes 6-12 touch points (per prospect!) to get a first response.
- Monitor your entire patch in Sales Navigator. Triggers like job changes, for example. New C-level hires are very open to talk since they're still in the onboarding process.
- First, go top-down: target C-level executives with a generic pitch. If you cannot book a C-Level meeting, continue bottoms-up. Target staff level or middle management. They are the subject matter experts and can involve people higher up in the hierarchy.
- BDRs and AEs must align on a tiered strategy. Go DEEP instead of wide. Focus on the 20% of accounts that will bring 80% of the pipeline & revenue. Use Sales Navigator search filters like headcount, headcount growth, company revenue, sweet-spot industries, funding or buyer intent.
- The job of a BDR is not just to book the first meeting. She should be a running mate for her AE and help drive deals to a stage 4 (at Salesforce, qualified demo with decision maker). This helps the AE to close more deals, and helps the BDR build the skillset required to excel in a full cycle sales role. Win-win.
How To Win Enterprise Deals
- You need to sell a vision to the C-suite. Companies are resistant to change, especially when they are doing well. You need buy-in from the entire C-suite on your vision of a better future.
- Bring in implementation partners as early as possible. Ideally in the first discovery. If you want to scale your sales process and win 15 new mid-market logos in 5 years (like Gilberto) you need to have your partners do some of the selling for you.
- Selling in the enterprise space requires orchestrating a team of 20+ people. You need to be relationship builder and project manager at the same time.
- Enterprise sales cycles are like free consulting projects. Multiple discovery interviews, process workshops, demos and presentations. The prospect would pay $80,000 to $100,000 to get this kind of value from a top consulting firm. But you offer that value to them for free - in exchange for a verbal commitment from a C-level buyer.
This commitment means: if the evaluation is successful, if you can fulfill our needs and requirements and justify the financial value of your solution, we will sign a contractual agreement by date X. This is called a mutual action plan (MAP). - You can run the best sales cycle and have the best product, but if your competitor is 50% or more cheaper, you simply need a 100% better business case. If they can do the same scope for less, you will loose 10/10 times.
Thank you for this masterclass in enterprise selling, Gilberto!
Every month we have a new guest speaker in the SaaS Sales Academy.
They hold a 1-hour masterclass in their domain of expertise.
See you next week!
