Revenue Jam – Details, episodes & analysis

Show Notes:

This episode discusses best practices around responding to RFPs (requests for proposals), including when to bid or not bid, managing internal collaboration, maintaining relationships even if declining to bid, and leveraging AI for efficiency and learning. Listeners can gain insights into strategically approaching RFPs.

Key Discussion Points:

• Starting an RFP process - focus first on content library and single source of truth
• Signs an organization needs a formal RFP process - inconsistencies, lack of process
• Determining whether to bid on an RFP - alignment with goals, capabilities, profitability, competitive landscape
• Making the bid/no bid decision - account team spearheads but cross-functional collaboration
• Maintaining relationships if declining to bid - treat everyone respectfully
• Using RFPs for market learning even if unlikely to win
• Trends in RFP space - AI for efficiency, reporting for optimization

Brad Rosen Bio:

Brad Rosen is President at Sales Assembly, which provides skill development for go-to-market teams. He focuses on sales effectiveness and process optimization.

Tony Germanario Bio:

Tony Germanario is the RVP of Enterprise at Responsive (formerly RFPIO), a software company providing RFP and proposal management solutions. He has over 15 years of experience in sales leadership.

Company Bios:

Sales Assembly - Services firm focused on sales skill development through workshops, custom training, and coaching. Helps teams sell more strategically.

Responsive - Software company with solutions for streamlining and optimizing RFP response and proposal processes. Enables efficiency through content collaboration and AI.

This session of Sales and Stuff and Things discusses how revenue organizations can scale through developing seller skills, rather than solely through adding more headcount. The guests provide historical context on why sales leaders often default to hiring more, despite data showing skill development is needed. They outline essential modern seller skills like decision science, writing, active listening, and empathy.

Main Discussion Points

- Many sales leaders are not formally trained for their roles, so they default to hiring more reps rather than prioritizing enablement (Sam McKenna)
- Throughout history, sales training and education has often declined during economic downturns, leading to more reliance on quantity over quality (Todd Caponi)
- Leaders and boards often prioritize short-term results over long-term enablement due to lack of experience with previous economic cycles (Todd Caponi)
- Sellers today often lack skills like writing, active listening, and intellectual curiosity that are essential for modern sales (Sam McKenna)
- Foundational understanding of decision science and empathy are key for applying modern sales techniques effectively (Todd Caponi)
- Sales messaging and outreach should focus on buyer challenges and perspectives, not just product features (Sam McKenna)

In this episode, Amir Reiter interviews Brad Rosen, President of Sales Assembly, to discuss the importance of sales training and enablement. Brad explains that Sales Assembly is a skill development platform for go-to-market teams that offers fundamental sales training to individuals at different stages of their careers. 

They address the challenges of creating and maintaining up-to-date training content and emphasize the need for organizations to invest in sales training and enablement early on. They also highlight the unique aspects of the Sales Assembly community, including actionable next steps, diverse thought leadership, and the opportunity for experienced professionals to contribute their knowledge.

Want to make your proposals better?

Of course!

Proposals are often an after thought but are the last thing (and sometimes the first thing) a decision-maker sees when you're selling your product.

Your proposals are the last step in a closed deal.

So you better make them effective.

We’re discussing:

- The current proposal process at Sales Academy
- The proposal format and structure Tanner is using
- How do they follow up after a proposal is sent
- Actionable takeaways from us to improve proposals

All in the name of closing more deals!

Tanner Lacey

Have you directly addressed the economic environment with your team?
Your people are stressed. They don’t feel safe.
There have been 201,860 layoffs in Tech in 2023.
 
They are worried they might be next.
 
And a lack of psychological safety creates a negative revenue impact.

Because people start looking for jobs instead of new customers.
 
But as leaders, we have to focus on how we can create psychological safety for our teams.
 
But how?

That's what we aim to answer as Samantha McKenna, Jen Allen-Knuth, Todd Caponi, and Matt Green dive into the Revenue Impact of Emotional Executive Intelligence.

Massive thank you to our sponsor Insightly - Modern CRM 🧡.

Did you know that 79% of B2B Leaders are unsatisfied with their CRM... 

So if you're struggling to create and convert cold pipeline because you can't effectively manage your sales tools, Insightly might be the CRM you need to scale.

By registering for Sales & Stuff & Things, you'll qualify for a free onboarding package to help you get started! 

So register for Sales & Stuff & Things & check out Insightly today!

In this enlightening episode, Jeff Rosset & Michelle Vu delve into the inner workings of G2, a company renowned for its robust culture and commitment to performance, entrepreneurship, kindness, and authenticity. Our guest shares key insights into how they maintain a healthy balance between performance pressure and their team members' individual "why" — the personal goals and motivations that drive each employee.

New and experienced sales leaders know that creating and redistributing sales territories can be a challenging task. 

There are numerous factors to consider 
– industries, geography, ideal customer profile, deal size, and more – and it’s not a one-time process. 

If your team operates remotely, it could be even more complex.

So, how do you begin creating sales territories? How frequently should you reevaluate and redistribute them? Is it fair for the best reps to get the best books of business?

In this episode, Dave Osborne from Insightly and Brad Rosen from Sales Assembly discuss effective strategies for creating and maintaining a sales territory plan that is equitable and sets your sales team up for success. 

In this episode, Jeff Rosset & Konnor Martin offers an in-depth account of RFPIO’s journey to becoming a category leader in the emerging field of response management software. Despite entering the market late, the company was able to carve a niche for itself, a success the guest attributes to two key factors: an incredible product-market fit and talented sales personnel.

Konnor further explains that their continued growth strategy is built on the foundation of delivering a consistent narrative to their prospects, along with strong value selling and business cases. He provides insights into the company’s latest strategic moves towards asserting its category leadership, one of which includes consolidating its brand messaging.

The discussion then shifts to the competitive nature of the current sales landscape. The guest stresses the importance of viewing competition from a broader perspective, beyond just other solution providers. For him, the competition also includes potential customers choosing to stick with the status quo, find free alternatives, or not make a decision at all. This understanding of competition has fundamentally changed RFPIO’s sales approach.

In addition, he emphasizes the importance of providing solid economics behind the solution, which can help a company stand out regardless of the competitive scenario. The guest concludes by stating that simplicity and sticking to sales fundamentals are key to succeeding in a complex, competitive market.

This week, Brandi and Georgie will tackle Sustaining Success: The Integral Role of Customer Success in Revenue Teams

Georgie is a third-culture kid born in the US to Greek immigrants who grew up in the Middle East. She began her career in the public sector at the Embassy of Cyprus, conducted health care research as an analyst at the Advisory Board Company in Washington, DC., and taught English in Spain and Ethiopia.

Leaping into SaaS and Customer Success in 2015, her first Customer Success role was at HubSpot’s Dublin, Ireland office, where she became a leader overseeing the Implementation Specialist team. Since then, Georgie has led more than 40 global Customer Success professionals across teams at SaaS companies of various stages, including Sprout Social, Showpad (Learncore) and Workday (ScoutRFP).

Georgie has spent her entire career at mission-driven organizations and companies, consistently putting the citizen, the patient, the customer, or the team at the center of everything she does.

Bullet Points of Key Topics + Chapter Markers:

• Topic #1 Defining Customer Success [07:01] “It's really important that customer success teams are goal oriented, and that those goals are driven by their customers,” Georgie shares.  She goes on to explain, “if you're investing in a software or a service, it means that you either don't have the time, or the capabilities, or the people or the resource on your team to solve it”.  This partnership helps drive customers towards those goals and see success.
• Topic #2 The Role of Customer Success in the Revenue Process [11:37] Georgie describes some reasoning behind variables as to when Customer Success should be inserted into the revenue process, such as company size and growth stage.  However, she goes on to explain, “[if] we're more talking about b2b SaaS companies...I do think CSMs are really well positioned” to be integral at least in the renewal stage.
• Topic #3 Optimizing Revenue through Customer Success [17:45] “We're living now through a time that shows us how quickly things can change” Georgie says, “so some of it is understanding competitive intelligence versus the cost of doing nothing intelligence.” Creating alignment with Sales, Marketing and Customer Success is critical to your Revenue Process she says; “companies that work in silos don't succeed”, so, in order to optimize revenue, there has to be integration at some level.

So, What's the One Thing You Can Do Today?

Georgie’s one thing is to “Go and find a CES (Customer Effort Score) person that you haven't connected with yet and have a 20-minute conversation with them”, she advises and ask them to share about their role.

Links:

Get in touch with Georgie Papacostas on

• LinkedIn
• Sales Assembly

Jeff Rosset, Founder & CEO of Sales Assembly, joins Dustin on this week's episode to discuss the changes in the sales industry in 2023. 

In today's landscape, companies are now focusing on efficiency and structure, and sales reps need to develop skills in building pipeline and self-sourcing leads. 

They share advice for closing skills gaps, overcoming AI's challenges in sales and the changing roles and responsibilities of sales professionals.

You can learn more about Jeff and Sales Assembly on LinkedIn.