Outbound Sales Lift

#62: Listen as Ben Stroup, President of Velocity Strategy Solutions, discusses building a revenue operating system for your business. He offers insight into how revenue operating systems drive revenue, how they play into common scorecards, and what roles managers have in overall success.
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Read the Episode Cliff Notes instead below:

Revenue Operating Systems (0:33)

Everyone must agree on a framework, measures and dimensions, and different processes, workflows, and permission systems. Those are all core tenants that gum up the revenue process.

We all have to share the same scorecard, and we all have to be moving in the same direction.

Revenue operations are certainly the fundamental technical aspect of how you enable an organization to drive revenue. But sometimes, what happens is it doesn’t do a good job.

Each aspect of an organization (marketing, sales, service, management, etc.) plugs into revenue operations to be able to extract the value from it.

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Building Revenue Operating Systems (3:58)

Ben starts with a three-step process of frame focusing and growth. First, you have to understand the current reality, and the truth is everybody defines their reality based on their perspective of the situation.

The second part focuses on what success is for each part, which is part of the cascading reality.

Once you decide on that, you have the two pivot points: where you are and where you want to be in the current reality vs. preferred future.

Spend the time to capture existing business processes, permission systems, and workflows.

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Building and Using Scorecards (6:51)

We have to define a common scorecard by how it influences decisions and behavior at every level. So revenue, customer acquisition, MRR, ARR, growth- all of those kinds of things are lagging indicators that need accounting for.

The scorecard needs to have a combination of leading indicators to give everyone clarity around what was successful that day.

As a manager, you should know where your people are moving. The earlier you can intervene when a variable or variance is observed, the sooner you can resolve it before it becomes a real impediment to growth.

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Role of Management (13:26)

The purpose of Revenue Operating Systems is to enable everyone to be more successful. For that to be true, the manager must believe that their fundamental goal is to enable other people to succeed.

What often happens on the revenue side is we promote substantial individual contributors into management roles because if you’re a great revenue leader, you’re a great revenue generator. But it doesn’t often work that way.

You, as a manager, can do what you knew best, which is resolving that friction. And they, as a contributor, can do what they do best, which is develop relationships and drive that revenue.

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Ben's Bio:

Ben Stroup is Chief Growth Architect and President at Velocity Strategy Solutions, a next-generation business strategy, and management consulting firm focused on helping ambitious leaders align teams, reduce complexity, eliminate friction, and drive revenue. He is a futurist, disruptor, and data champion having served organizations from $5MM to more than $500MM in revenue for more than 18 years. 

Ben's written and edited dozens of books on leadership and growth and is a frequent speaker, podcaster, and guest for business and industry groups. His most recent book, Master the Pivot, was released in 2020. Ben and his wife and two boys live in the Nashville, Tennessee area.

#61: Listen as Jocelyn Quall, the Senior Director of Marketing and Sales Development at RESIDE Worldwide, discusses the role of scripts in marketing and sales. Jocelyn and Tyler look at the right way to approach scripts, how to ensure they’re dynamic, and how leveraging them can help you have the right conversations with prospective clients.

Click here for full episode show notes & more!

Approaching Sales Scripts (0:32)

It's understandable to be unsure of scripts because they can make people sound robotic and monotonous. However, the key to scripts is not just crafting a message but understanding it and working with it.

From a marketing perspective, it's about crafting the message of the brand and company, then adapting the value proposition so that the sales team can speak to a variety of clients in a way that works and that they can make their own.

Evolution of a Dynamic Script (4:40)

As the industry changes and companies pivot to selling a different type of product or to a different person, it’s important to keep your script dynamic. So you don’t get stuck on the words. 

In sales, it's really important to believe and understand what you're saying, especially as a new SDR. So your first ninety days or six months is all about getting comfortable with what you're saying.

Stop selling and start talking to people like they're human beings.

It's a matter of sheer respect. Marketing and sales are about hitting people in the right way, at the right time, so that they hear your message. SDRs are likely hitting people with the right message at the wrong time. 
If you've done your prospecting, you'll know when it might not be the right time. So asking that permission upfront is so important. Otherwise, your message may fall on deaf ears.

It's a conversation for a reason. You need to be adding value to the person you're talking to, and you need to leave that person better than you found them.

Different Types of Scripts (10:09)

There are certain key things SDRs need to find out before they can pass something over to sales to show they’re doing their job.

If you're just trying to hit five qualifying questions, you're not listening to what the person says on the other end of the phone. Or they've already answered it in passing, and you're not reacting to what they're saying.

Scripts are also important for setting the call's tone, whether it's a cold call, discovery call, etc. And they become a lot looser once you get past the intro of the call.

You have to have the tools and resources now to be smart about how we go about sales and marketing. The last thing you want is to insult people by reaching out to them when they never needed your services. 

Jocelyn Quall's Bio:

Jocelyn is the Sr. Director of Marketing & Sales Development at Reside, a leading prop-tech and B2B global hospitality provider. She is responsible for driving all lead gen and demand growth efforts for the Reside brand portfolio. 

Jocelyn has spent her career working with B2B and B2C hospitality leaders; growing with the industry as it pivoted toward technology-led and experience-driven. She is a passionate storyteller and loves crafting messages that elicit emotions and drive engagement with her audience.

After hours, you’ll find Jocelyn mastering her job as a first-time mom to Liam, honing her communication skills with her husband, and chasing her chickens and dog around her property in Monroe, WA. She’s always ready to host family and friends with a bottle of red, a new recipe to test and a story to share.

#60: Listen as Chris O'Connor, Head of Sales Development at Ambition, discusses sales coaching and the balance between accountability and encouragement. He offers insight into coaching sales reps and raising the bar to help your reps get the most out of their careers.

Please visit The Sales Lift Website for full show notes and more!

Show Notes:

Encouragement and Raising the Bar (0:42)

The perfect recipe is a balance between accountability and encouragement, and most sales leaders will fall closer to one of those two ends on the spectrum.

An important aspect is to know where your rep's ceiling is and raise it for them. For example, say, "I know you think that this is your bar, but I see more out of you, and I'm going to hold you to that until you get there."

We want to raise that ceiling for everyone because if we can do that across the board, we likely can hit our numbers more easily as a team.

Building Accountability (4:40)

It's important to be very open and transparent with your reps about expectations and where they fall. That makes accountability easy because the numbers do the talking. 

While a lot of reps are pitted against one another, it's really about competing with themselves at the end of the day.

Once you have the right visibility, it makes it a lot easier to hold them accountable and stay on the same page. Put the numbers in front of them and figure out together what's the right path to get there.

Look at those numbers consistently and set that standard from the beginning versus being a little more wishy-washy on what activities lead to the outcomes we're looking for.

Chris uses a productivity quadrant, and if you don't use Ambition you can easily create it. It's essentially a skill-versus-will chart.

Highlighting opportunities for the rep and showing them exact areas where they may have some weaknesses is important.

Coaching to Empower (12:21)

We want to build a muscle of self-awareness within our reps to begin self-diagnosing as they move on in their careers. It's important to empower them. 

That one-on-one interaction is the most important interaction you're going to have with your reps every week. So, you want your reps to look forward to that 30-minute slot.

When they lead that conversation, it tends to be more valuable for them, which is why Chris always suggests empowering them to lead that discussion.

It can be intimidating for them because they don't necessarily know what we should be talking about. So what Chris likes to do is give a really high-level agenda of what he'd like to talk about, but not set it in stone.

Setting The Agenda (16:23)

Working remotely poses other challenges since you're not face-to-face. 

A simple "how are you doing" is a great way to open up that discussion. Some reps will give a generic answer, but others will use it as an opportunity to let you know what they've been struggling with. 

The second thing Chris always covers in his one-on-ones is what goals the rep has for the week. Again, it's helpful to have the meeting early on in the week to set goals and make a plan.

The third is what the path to quota this month is. That's a really big area where you want the rep to take control of the conversation and make a plan for themselves. 

This leads to asking what the rep will need to win that week so you can help them get the tools they need to succeed.