November 29, 2022

1114: Turning Profitable Growth During a Downturn with Karen Clarke

43 minutes

Karen Clarke is the SVP and Managing Director for the Americas at Anaplan. In the current market, sales leaders face many challenges including a slowdown in the economy, difficulty finding staff, and sales attrition. Leaders must use data that provides insights into shifting buying behaviors.

Karen discusses the main things sales leaders should focus on for profitable growth like ensuring the alignment of sellers to the business objectives, knowing how to balance sales resources across the business, and the increasingly critical role of sales enablement and execution as the market gets tougher.

Andy and Karen then dig into key concerns like attrition and capacity issues and how to deploy talent in the most effective way across territories. When planning for the next fiscal year, sales leaders should think carefully about how to segment their territories and target their reps in the most promising markets.

HIGHLIGHT QUOTES

CROs must get data on where sellers sell best - Karen: "Combining that with data in terms of where your market is and really having a good view of matching the right reps to the right opportunities. And obviously, aligning the quota to the size of those opportunities. So really thinking about what the addressable market is today for those sellers and doing that very intelligently."

Sellers that can help buyers achieve real business value are prized - Karen: "Customers don't want sellers that just turn up and respond to what they're asking for. I think they're looking for sellers that bring something, organizations that bring something that share what they're seeing in other organizations, that challenge their thinking, maybe stretch their thinking a little bit in terms of what they could achieve."

Find out more about Karen in the link below: