Dan Martell - June 13, 2022


The Best Way to Build a SaaS Sales Pipeline

Hosted by
Dan Martell
Mentioned
John Joe Coleman
Watch this before you compare yourself to others. #shorts Unlock Incredible Sales Velocity. Full episode in pinned comment. #shorts

Episode Stats


Length

11 minutes

Words per minute

185.59

Word count

2,098

Sentence count

108

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I talk about the difference between a SDR, a BDR, an AE, and a CSM, and why you need to know the difference so that you can get clear on what the pipeline flow should look like so you can increase your sales velocity.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 There's stages in that process where the ratios are abnormal
00:00:04.480 that if they fix 3% here, 5% there, 10% there,
00:00:08.740 you can get a result where most of my clients I work with
00:00:12.120 were growing at least 100% in a 12-month period.
00:00:15.080 hey there i'm dan martell serial entrepreneur investor and creator of sas academy in this
00:00:32.780 episode i'm going to share with you what is the difference let's define these things around an sdr
00:00:38.280 a BDR, an AE, or a CSM so that you can get clear
00:00:43.280 on what the pipeline flow should look like
00:00:45.860 so you can increase what's called your sales velocity.
00:00:49.020 And be sure to stay at the end.
00:00:49.900 We're gonna tell you how to get access
00:00:50.820 to an exclusive resource called the Rocket Demo Builder
00:00:54.000 where you can close deals twice as fast, twice as big.
00:00:58.100 I know it's a big promise, but we're gonna get into it.
00:01:00.300 Let's do this.
00:01:01.080 So if you're new to my stuff,
00:01:02.220 I have been in the SaaS space for almost 25 years, okay?
00:01:06.720 building technology companies, scaling organization,
00:01:09.380 raising venture capital, exiting companies.
00:01:11.880 And one of my favorite things
00:01:13.520 is to build the revenue engine, right?
00:01:15.980 I always look at business through two different funnels,
00:01:17.700 the revenue engine and the people engine.
00:01:20.020 But the revenue engine is the funnest
00:01:21.440 because that's where a lot of the velocity
00:01:25.840 and throughput to build a really exciting company
00:01:27.940 comes from, right?
00:01:29.160 And if you've never done that,
00:01:30.660 I mean, there's challenges like comp plans
00:01:33.000 and managing sales coaching
00:01:35.480 and making sure that people are saying the right thing
00:01:37.440 to potential buyers,
00:01:38.520 and that marketing sends over leads
00:01:41.120 that the salespeople like,
00:01:43.080 and there's always a conflict between marketing and sales
00:01:45.380 and then customer success,
00:01:46.400 because sometimes you sell stuff to people
00:01:48.600 you shouldn't have sold to,
00:01:49.480 and then the onboarding team is dealing
00:01:51.920 with all the downfall of that,
00:01:53.840 and it just becomes crazy.
00:01:55.980 But here's what I've discovered.
00:01:57.120 I was recently working with one of my clients,
00:01:59.560 and part of my private coaching that I do
00:02:02.520 is we map out the whole almost buyer journey, okay?
00:02:07.160 All the way from awareness, to consideration,
00:02:10.280 to purchase, to activation, engagement, and upsell, right?
00:02:14.240 It's the whole bow tie funnel.
00:02:16.340 And what you discover when you map it all out
00:02:19.500 is there is so much waste typically amongst organization
00:02:24.300 because they don't see the opportunities just dropping, right?
00:02:28.240 They just look at their revenue numbers.
00:02:29.940 They're like, oh, well, we added an extra 15K
00:02:32.100 I have monthly reoccurring revenue this month
00:02:33.600 or a lot of my clients are in the kind of the hundreds
00:02:35.940 of thousand dollars of new revenue every month.
00:02:38.320 And they don't see that there's stages in that process
00:02:42.560 where the ratios are abnormal that if they fix 3% here,
00:02:47.080 5% there, 10% there, you know,
00:02:49.820 and 10% of the current number,
00:02:51.160 if you stack all those things together,
00:02:53.400 you can get a result where most of my clients I work with
00:02:56.780 were growing at least 100% in a 12 month period
00:03:00.340 because it's math.
00:03:01.720 We just focus on the right things, right?
00:03:03.840 To 2X your pipeline by understanding
00:03:06.280 what is the audit process,
00:03:07.720 what's mapping out what I call the flow process,
00:03:10.260 the reports that you need to be able to manage this
00:03:13.160 and then tweak the different stages of that funnel
00:03:16.080 to get your results.
00:03:16.940 But to do that, you need to understand these four roles.
00:03:19.800 I'm gonna define them because they often get mixed up.
00:03:22.100 People don't understand them.
00:03:23.500 And we're gonna make sure we get some clarity today.
00:03:26.020 First one is sales development rep, SDR, okay?
00:03:30.000 So sometimes you hear this called an MDR, a qualifier,
00:03:35.920 a setter, there's all these different terminologies, right?
00:03:38.880 But I wanna normalize it and just say,
00:03:40.860 a sales development rep is responsible
00:03:43.100 for finding opportunity, okay?
00:03:45.960 And usually it's inbound or it's in your CRM
00:03:49.220 or it's, you know, some,
00:03:50.740 you can get super nerdy on this stuff,
00:03:52.260 but it's really just qualifying the potential buyer, right?
00:03:57.000 And to me, I just think that
00:03:58.200 that's the way to think about it.
00:03:59.120 You have prospects that are potential buyers.
00:04:01.340 And the job of a sales development rep
00:04:02.980 is to develop the sales opportunity.
00:04:05.760 They wake up every day and they should be chatting
00:04:08.020 with customers that come through the online forums.
00:04:10.100 They should be chatting with customers that are chatting.
00:04:12.360 They should be following up on email.
00:04:14.580 They should be, you know, somebody downloads a lead magnet.
00:04:16.920 They should reach out to them.
00:04:18.440 They should call them.
00:04:19.360 They should, you know, see if there's opportunities
00:04:21.800 to upsell within organizations.
00:04:23.460 Like there's the sales development reps job
00:04:26.320 is to execute the playbook to identify
00:04:29.520 and qualify opportunities.
00:04:31.800 And then, so once they qualify them,
00:04:34.460 then they move them up to the next stage.
00:04:36.220 But that is what a sales development rep is.
00:04:38.440 So, you know, setters and a bunch of other things,
00:04:41.020 people are like, well, we call them this.
00:04:43.240 You can call them whatever you want.
00:04:44.200 I'm just saying in the software world, in my world,
00:04:46.760 it's an SDR and that's what they do.
00:04:48.820 Number two, business development rep.
00:04:50.900 So a BDR, a business development rep,
00:04:53.520 in my language, it's outbound.
00:04:55.460 Outbound means cold, okay?
00:04:57.060 So I don't even consider if you have somebody
00:04:59.560 that's engaging in chat, that's not even outbound.
00:05:01.860 Outbound is they have ideally targeted accounts
00:05:05.960 using what we call an account-based marketing process,
00:05:09.800 and they're reaching out to the market
00:05:12.240 and they're trying to find opportunities
00:05:14.640 to create pipeline, okay?
00:05:16.340 So they're talking to the market,
00:05:18.220 they're opening up chats, they're offering assessments,
00:05:21.080 but a BDR is somebody that's dialing for dollars,
00:05:24.200 They're emailing for dollars.
00:05:25.520 They're literally sending out messages,
00:05:28.280 obviously value add, personalize,
00:05:30.480 all these things have to be true,
00:05:32.280 to get people to respond to then qualify them
00:05:35.600 and then kick them back up to your sales team,
00:05:38.400 to the next stage.
00:05:39.520 But that is when people are like, what does a BDR do?
00:05:41.960 A BDR is not an SDR.
00:05:43.180 A business development rep does outbound.
00:05:45.840 They make sure that the person has a need.
00:05:49.100 They qualify them.
00:05:50.320 They try to add value through that process.
00:05:52.360 and once they feel like there's an opportunity there,
00:05:54.520 then they move it up.
00:05:55.600 Number three is account exec.
00:05:57.640 So I call it an account exec inside my company,
00:06:01.140 but these are the salespeople. 0.67
00:06:03.100 These are people that are trained on how to,
00:06:06.200 what we call it in our company is,
00:06:08.180 we teach our customers how to buy.
00:06:10.620 These are not, some people call them closers,
00:06:12.720 and I get it because it's a cool word,
00:06:14.680 and closers get paid and all these things.
00:06:17.840 There's all these chants in the sales mantra,
00:06:19.680 but I mean, call it what you want.
00:06:21.340 I honestly don't care.
00:06:22.920 Sales rep, person who does demo, closer,
00:06:26.940 but they are an account exec.
00:06:28.560 Most of my clients that I coach,
00:06:30.080 I tell them to call them product specialists
00:06:31.800 because somebody wants to get on a call
00:06:33.200 with a product specialist,
00:06:34.040 they don't want to get on a call with a closer.
00:06:36.020 So it's funny how language you use
00:06:39.000 sometimes through the organization
00:06:41.100 gets propagated out to the customer.
00:06:43.320 So you might call them setters and closers
00:06:45.360 and then somebody in support's like,
00:06:46.920 hey, let me get you on a call with John,
00:06:48.500 he's one of our closers.
00:06:49.800 Well, the buyer does not wanna get on a call
00:06:52.760 with John who's gonna sell them.
00:06:55.180 Like nobody's ever like,
00:06:56.140 hey, get me on a call with a salesperson.
00:06:57.680 I wanna be sold.
00:06:58.900 No, they wanna be informed, right?
00:07:01.640 So you wanna give your demo process a cool name
00:07:05.260 and you want to give the title of your account executives,
00:07:10.260 which account executive is a good term, obviously.
00:07:13.480 And you wanna teach them that your job
00:07:15.040 is to teach them how to buy.
00:07:16.240 It's to help them understand how to evaluate
00:07:18.620 to opportunities in their business
00:07:20.320 and how they should evaluate other vendors and solutions
00:07:23.240 so that they can get the problem solved in a complete manner.
00:07:26.740 But that is what an account executive is.
00:07:28.760 That is a sales person that is responsible
00:07:31.940 for doing the sales call, the follow-up call
00:07:34.740 in an enterprise format, it's a complex sale.
00:07:37.820 They're usually doing solution selling.
00:07:39.700 They've gotta get all the different parties involved,
00:07:41.640 but they're responsible from, you know,
00:07:43.780 once it's qualified, they're taking the conversation
00:07:46.500 all the way to paperwork, credit card, check, right?
00:07:51.320 Like money in the bank.
00:07:52.680 And that's the responsibility of the account exec.
00:07:54.680 Number four is customer success manager.
00:07:57.020 Okay, CSM, it's a big word.
00:07:58.560 It's kind of a new industry.
00:07:59.580 Back in the day, we used to call it customer retention.
00:08:02.520 Then we call it revenue retention, then revenue expansion.
00:08:05.980 But, you know, some people call it onboarding,
00:08:08.320 but I like to call it customer success
00:08:09.980 because it just like, it's the right language, right?
00:08:12.060 Because the job of a CSM, a customer success manager,
00:08:15.180 is once the account exec has understood the pain,
00:08:19.760 talked about the solution
00:08:20.840 and showed them how the product can solve their problems,
00:08:23.560 they take that buyer and they bring them into the world 0.81
00:08:27.160 of becoming a consumer of your product or service.
00:08:30.680 And their skillset is no longer selling,
00:08:33.680 their skillset is really understanding
00:08:35.880 how to connect your product to their pain and activate them.
00:08:39.980 So a lot of companies don't think about it,
00:08:41.600 but there's different phases to this.
00:08:43.020 If you actually want a great book on this,
00:08:45.080 Joey Coleman wrote a book called Never Lose a Customer.
00:08:47.300 I think there's seven different phases of customer journey.
00:08:49.960 But the idea of mapping out the onboarding
00:08:53.620 and getting everybody from this,
00:08:55.580 what's the entry criteria,
00:08:58.260 what's the exit criteria for that stage,
00:09:00.480 and then moving them to the next stage,
00:09:02.120 which might be the first three months of engagement
00:09:04.340 and then ongoing and then renewals.
00:09:06.340 That's usually the area
00:09:07.940 the customer success manager spends time on
00:09:10.900 and it depends on the volume of your business,
00:09:13.520 but you might have like a high-touch
00:09:16.700 or a high-volume, low-touch model,
00:09:18.400 or you can have a low-volume, high-touch model,
00:09:19.980 depending on the price point.
00:09:21.240 You can have dedicated CSMs per each account,
00:09:23.700 or you might have kind of a rotating per function
00:09:26.820 where one group of customer success managers
00:09:29.440 just do activation or onboarding.
00:09:31.480 But that is what CSM stands for.
00:09:33.020 It is a relatively new skillset,
00:09:35.700 a new area for a lot of companies.
00:09:37.640 It's been around in SaaS for a while,
00:09:39.240 software as a service, but new in other industries,
00:09:42.760 but it's catching on because it just makes sense.
00:09:45.240 They are a revenue generating department.
00:09:48.060 Usually you monitor their churn
00:09:49.940 and their ability to activate
00:09:51.460 and get people retained and upsell.
00:09:53.640 That's another opportunity.
00:09:55.040 But that is what CSM stands for.
00:09:57.200 So quick recap.
00:09:58.600 Sales development rep does inbound qualifying.
00:10:01.080 Business development rep does outbound pipeline generation
00:10:05.320 or opportunity generation.
00:10:06.580 Number three, account exec.
00:10:08.540 These are the quote unquote closers.
00:10:11.300 And number four, customer success manager.
00:10:13.700 These are the people who are responsible for onboarding
00:10:15.840 and managing the customer experience.
00:10:18.020 So as I mentioned at the beginning of this episode,
00:10:19.480 I wanna share with you an exclusive resource.
00:10:21.460 Below, click the link.
00:10:22.600 It's called the Rocket Demo Builder.
00:10:24.300 It will help you double your win rates
00:10:26.880 or increase your win rates in half the time.
00:10:29.140 So click the link below to learn my nine box model
00:10:32.860 for following a prospect or a buyer through a sales process
00:10:37.820 that's allowed me to generate tens of millions of dollars
00:10:39.820 in revenue, personally, as a salesperson.
00:10:43.060 It's what I still use all the time.
00:10:45.260 If I'm doing any call that kind of looks like a sales call,
00:10:48.560 I pull out my Rocket Demo Builder
00:10:50.780 and I follow the exact same model
00:10:52.720 that I'm gonna give to you guys.
00:10:53.860 So click the link below to download your copy.
00:10:55.820 And if you like this video,
00:10:57.460 please click the like button, subscribe to my channel,
00:11:00.020 and please, please let me know below in the comments,
00:11:02.620 what is the number one thing you took away?
00:11:04.180 What did you like the most?
00:11:05.180 What is gonna have the biggest impact on your life?
00:11:07.380 That would be a real treat for you.
00:11:09.100 Leave that below.
00:11:10.180 And as per usual, I wanna challenge you
00:11:12.020 to live a bigger life.
00:11:13.180 Go even bigger and a bigger business.
00:11:15.800 Dream big, build an empire.
00:11:17.480 And I'll see you next Monday.