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MarketingThe term “regression analysis” may seem rigid, but it’s not as scary as you’d think. It‘s basically a fancy way of saying that we’re trying to figure out how two things are related. It‘s like playing detective, but instead of solving mysteries, we’re solving puzzles […]
SalesThe term “regression analysis” may seem rigid, but it’s not as scary as you’d think. It‘s basically a fancy way of saying that we’re trying to figure out how two things are related. It‘s like playing detective, but instead of solving mysteries, we’re solving puzzles about data.
However, if you’re anything like me and not at all mathematically inclined, the idea of using regression analysis may seem daunting. Thankfully, this piece will give an easy-to-understand breakdown of how to use regression analysis, when to use it, and how it works when it comes to sales. Plus, I’ll guide you through an easy-to-follow example using Google Sheets.
Table of Contents:
There are multiple types of regression analysis. Here are some short definitions to get you up to speed:
Linear regression is the most basic and common type of regression analysis that uses the following equation: Y = bX + a. On a graph, linear regressions look like what you’re probably already imagining.
Let’s say you’re trying to figure out the correlation between heat and ice cream consumption. On one side, you’d have the temperature (how hot it is), and on the other, you’d have the number of ice cream cones sold.
Linear regression is like drawing a straight line through the points on this graph. This line helps us predict how many ice cream cones you might sell at a certain temperature.
Sometimes, relationships between two variables aren’t a straight line.
As temperature increases, people buy more ice cream. But maybe, when it gets really hot, people start to slow down and buy less ice cream. Nonlinear regression is like drawing a curved line through the points. This helps us account for more complex relationships.
What if the number of ice cream cones sold also depends on other things, like the day of the week or whether there’s a nearby festival?
Multiple linear regression lets us consider multiple factors at once. It’s like drawing a line in a 3D space or even higher dimensions.
Now that I’ve covered the basics of the different types of regression analyses and how they work, here are some real-world ways that you could utilize them.
You just joined a marketing team at a B2C company and they’re looking to assess the efficacy of different channels (i.e., TV, online, social media) on sales.
To help them figure this out, you’d complete a multiple linear regression – utilizing sales data and marketing spend for each channel – to analyze the impact of each marketing channel on sales.
In this example, here’s what your regression analysis equation would consist of:
Perhaps you work at a bank and you’re trying to figure out how much interest to charge customers on their loans. You don’t want to charge too much (because you might lose customers) but, at the same time, you don’t want to charge too little and lose money.
To solve for this, you’d use a linear regression analysis to review data on past loans. You’d look at things like the customer’s credit score, income history, and the amount of the loan. Then, you’d see how these factors relate to the likelihood of the customer defaulting on the loan.
Once you’ve got all this information assembled, your linear regression analysis would predict the risk of repayment failure for new loan applicants, helping you set interest rates that are fair to both the bank and the customer.
In this example, here’s what your regression analysis equation would consist of:
Let’s say you work for a tech company. They’re considering launching a new product and want to determine an optimal pricing strategy before they begin to roll it out to customers.
In this case, if you wanted to use a type of regression analysis to determine the success of a marketing campaign, you could potentially lean on a nonlinear regression analysis to model the relationship between price and demand.
You’d use market research data, competitor pricing, and sales data from previous years, for similar products, to help the company identify a price point that maximizes revenue.
In this example, here’s what your regression analysis equation would consist of:
Now, I can understand if these types of explanations don’t paint the prettiest picture. In reality, regression analyses aren’t the most colorful, especially if you don’t already have a grasp of the full regression analysis process.
Instead of trying to jump the gun, in the next section, I’ll walk you through a more simplified explanation of regression analysis, in a more controlled context: Sales forecasting.
Sports coaches use it to analyze player performance and make strategic decisions during games. Economists use it to predict changes in interest rates. Overall, it’s a pretty helpful tool for making informed decisions based on data.
But since regression analysis is most commonly used by sales folks, I’ll explore what regression analysis looks like when used for sales forecasting.
Now, independent and dependent variables are still at play here, but the dependent variable is always the same: sales performance. Whether it’s total revenue or number of deals closed, your dependent variable will always be sales performance. The independent variable is the factor you are controlling to observe how it affects sales performance, like the number of salespeople you have or how much money is spent on advertising.
Sales regression forecasting results help businesses understand how their sales teams are or are not succeeding and what the future could look like based on past sales performance. The results can also be used to predict future sales based on changes that haven’t yet been made, like if hiring more salespeople would increase business revenue.
You’re probably wondering: What do all these words mean… in math terms?
Like I said before, I’m not good at math. ButI did conduct a simple sales regression analysis that is straightforward and didn’t require many calculations on my part.
Let’s go over this example together below.
No successful sales forecast can happen without a query in mind. To test this theory out, let’s run one to understand if having salespeople make more sales calls will mean that they close more deals. We’re going to do so by using a linear regression analysis.
To conduct this forecast with me, we’ll need historical data that depicts the number of sales calls made over a certain period. Mathematically, the number of sales calls is the independent variable, or X value, and the dependent variable is the number of deals closed per month, or Y value.
I made up the data set below to represent monthly sales calls, and a corresponding number of deals closed over a two-year period.
d
So, the overall regression equation is Y = bX + a, where:
Since we’re using Google Sheets, its built-in functions will do the hard stuff for us, so we won’t need to try and calculate the values of these variables. We’ll use the historical data table and select the correct graph to represent our data.
The first step of the process is to highlight the numbers in the X and Y column and navigate to the toolbar, select ‘Insert’, and click ‘Chart’ from the dropdown menu.
The default graph that appears isn’t what we need, so I clicked on the Chart editor tool and selected ‘Scatter plot’, as shown in the image below.
After selecting the scatter plot, I clicked ‘Customize’, ‘Series’, then scrolled down to select the ‘Trendline’ box (shown below).
And after all of these customizations, I get the following scatter plot.
The Sheets tool did the math for me, and the line in the chart is the b variable from the regression equation, or slope, that creates the line of best fit. The blue dots are the y values, or the number of deals closed based on the number of sales calls.
Now, the scatter plot answers our original question: Will having salespeople make more sales calls will close more deals? By looking at the visual representation of our data, the answer is yes, and we know this because the line of best fit trendline is moving upwards, which indicates a positive relationship.
Even though one month can have 20 sales calls and 10 deals, and the next has 10 calls and 40 deals, the statistical analysis of the historical data in the table assumes that, on average, more sales calls means more deals closed.
I’m fine with this data because it tells a story. It means that having salespeople make more calls per-month will increase deal count. However, this scatter plot does not give us the specific forecast numbers that we’ll need to understand our future sales performance. So, let’s use the same example to obtain that more thorough information.
Now, let’s shift gears a bit. Let’s say that we’re now looking to find out how to generate more quarterly revenue, which is directly related to sales activity. We can assume closing more deals means generating more revenue, but you still want the data to prove that having your salespeople make more calls would actually close more deals.
The built-in FORECAST.LINEAR equation in Sheets will help you understand this, based on the historical data in the first table.
I made the table below within the same sheet to create my forecast breakdown. In my Sheets document, this new table uses the same columns as the first (A, B, and C) and begins in row 26.
I went with 50 because the highest number of sales calls made in any given month from the original data table is 40 and we want to know what happens to deal totals if that number actually increases. I could’ve only used 50, but I increased the number by 10 each month to get an accurate forecast that is based on statistics, not a one-off occurrence.
After creating this chart, I followed this path within the Insert dropdown menu in the Sheets toolbar: Insert -> Function -> Statistical -> FORECAST.LINEAR.
This part gets a little bit technical, but it’s not as complex as it seems. The instruction menu below tells me that I’ll obtain my forecasts by filling in the relevant column numbers for the target number of sales calls.
Here is the breakdown of what the elements of the FORECAST.LINEAR equation mean:
This equation, as the FORECAST.LINEAR instructions tell us, will calculate the expected y value (number of deals closed) for a specific x value based on a linear regression of the original data set.
But, there are two ways to fill out this equation. The first option, shown below, is to manually input the x value for the number of target calls and repeat for each row:
=FORECAST.LINEAR(50, C2:C24, B2:B24)
The second option is to use the corresponding cell number for the first x value and drag the equation down to each subsequent cell. This is what the equation would look like if I used the cell number for 50 in the second data table:
=FORECAST.LINEAR(B27, C2:C24, B2:B24)
To reiterate, I used the number 50 because I want to be sure that making more sales calls results in more closed deals and more revenue, not just a random occurrence. This is what the number of deals closed would be, not rounded up to exact decimal points.
If you couldn’t already tell, this is the beauty of completing regression analyses. Because we were able to make solid predictions based on pre-existing data, we can now confidently ask our sales team to make ten more calls per month than the previous month, knowing the number of deals closed will increase and, ultimately, help our business to generate more revenue.
While Google Sheets helped me do the math without any further calculations, other tools are available to streamline and simplify this process. I’ll talk about a few of them in the following section.
A critical factor in conducting a successful regression analysis is having data and having enough data. While you can add and just use two numbers, regression requires enough data to determine if there is a significant relationship between your variables. Without enough data points, it will be challenging to run an accurate forecast. If you don’t yet have enough data, it may be best to wait until you have enough.
Once you have the data you need, the list of tools below that can help you through the process of collecting, storing, and exporting your sales data. Check them out:
HubSpot’s newest Forecasting Software helps businesses of all sizes predict future sales and revenue. Thankfully, it uses a variety of data points – including past sales data, pipeline deals, and sales activities – to create accurate forecasts. Plus, with features like deal probability tracking, customizable forecasting models, and real-time reporting, it empowers sales pros to make well-informed decisons and optimize their sales strategies.
These projections can help you come up with further questions to analyze in your regression analysis to understand what is (or isn’t) going wrong.
What I like about this tool: When I tell you that HubSpot’s Sales Forecasting tool is extremely customizable, I’m not kidding. You can separate data and pipelines based on quarterly results, monthly results, even teams. If you’re anything like me, having as much control over what I’m seeing and how I’m seeing it is a huge plus, especially for sales pros working collaboratively.
InsightSquared is a revenue intelligence platform that uses AI to make accurate forecasting predictions.
While it can’t run a regression analysis, it can give you the data you need to conduct the regression on your own. Specifically, it provides data breakdowns of the teams, representatives, and sales activities that are driving the best results. You can use this insight to come up with further questions to ask in your regression analysis to better understand performance.
What I like about this tool: InsightSquared allows its users to track every moment of sales activities. From the initial prospecting stage to securing an actual lead, you’re not only able to see how your sales are maturing but where exactly they’re doing so (which is super important for gathering accurate sales forecasting info).
Since sorting through data is essential for beginning your analysis, MethodData is a valuable tool. The service can create custom sales reports based on the variables you need for your specific regression, and the automated processes save you time. Instead of digging through your data and cleaning it up enough to be usable, it happens automatically once you create your custom reports.
What I like about this tool: As I briefly mentioned above, MethodData is about to learn about your data as you work with it, which is a timesaver. Plus, its ability to do the hard stuff (like creating custom sales reports) makes the difficult aspects of completing multiple regression analyses simple.
A regression analysis will give you statistical insight into the factors that influence sales performance.
If you take the time to come up with a viable regression question that focuses on two business-specific variables and use the right data, you’ll be able to accurately forecast expected sales performance and understand what elements of your strategy can remain the same, or what needs to change to meet new business goals.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in December 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
Sales training is a time-consuming process. Ann Clifford, founder and president at Safari Solutions, says that it can take sales hires between three and nine months to ramp up to reach quota. With all this time invested in sales training and onboarding, you want to […]
SalesSales training is a time-consuming process. Ann Clifford, founder and president at Safari Solutions, says that it can take sales hires between three and nine months to ramp up to reach quota. With all this time invested in sales training and onboarding, you want to a) be realistic with expectations and b) maximize returns as soon as possible.
A well-thought-out manual and onboarding template for new sales hires is crucial.
At the beginning of sales training, it might feel like you’re over-communicating or micro-managing your new team. However, salespeople are on the front lines of your business and act as the representatives of your brand. Your sales rep training process should reflect this, and that means you can’t afford to compromise on the content or delivery of your onboarding.
In this post, I‘ve gathered tips and tricks from sales professionals to help you create a comprehensive training and onboarding manual for your sales team. You’ll also find examples of sales training manuals to help your reps ramp up quickly. By the end of this article, you’ll feel confident about your training delivery.
Table of Contents
When you’re creating a new-hire training plan, I recommend you keep a few things in mind:
Featured Resource: Sales Training Manual
If you want your new hires to come confident and prepared to maximize their first day, consider pre-week training. This gives your sales representatives more information on their roles and what they’ll learn during training.
Before their official first day, new HubSpot sales hires experience “a day in the life” of a sales representative. From technical setup to call observation and activity shadowing, new representatives get an up-close look at the end goal of their training period.
About 72% of employees say one-on-one time with their direct manager is the most important part of the onboarding process. I’ve found it’s crucial that your new hires’ first day sets the right tone for their career in your company.
To make sure they feel like they’re being formally introduced to their role, I suggest you give them a direct manager on the first day at work so they don’t feel that they are being led astray.
To combat the isolating feeling that can come with being a new hire, make sure the email account of your new representative is accessible prior to the first day of work. This allows you to send the new hire HR information ahead of time, as well as an agenda for day one. That way, even if your day is packed, they will know where to go and who to meet.
Here’s a good place to create an email signature.
Using the first day to orient your company’s new hires broadens the strokes of the company. Take care of HR documentation, set them up with a computer, and introduce them to the company on a high level.
At HubSpot, these are just a few of the things new hires experience on their first day. They also have lunch with a veteran HubSpotter to learn more about the company. In addition, new hires also get a chance to ask questions from a senior SF or someone who’s been around for a while.
You’ll also want to introduce them to their 30-60-90-day plan, which outlines expectations as they ramp up.
The first month (30 days) of your representative circles around learning about your company, your customers, your solutions, your internal organization and processes, and their role. Getting them acquainted with these things may include:
Sales training balances sales logistics and the company itself. In the early stages, you want to introduce your new sales member to the company, its culture, and its values.
David Rubie-Todd, co-founder and marketing head at Sticker It, explains the importance of company culture.
“The social aspect of onboarding often doesn’t receive the attention it deserves. For instance, organizing meet-and-greet sessions with colleagues or assigning a mentor can greatly facilitate the transition for new employees, helping them to feel a sense of belonging and camaraderie quickly,” Rubie-Todd says.
Rubie-Todd also notes that these cultural components are just as important, as they create an atmosphere where employees can grow personally and professionally.
One of the most important parts of training and onboarding new sales hires is helping them understand the “why” behind their new role.
Scott Williamson, vice president of sales engineering at R. Williamson & Associates, warns, “It’s easy to teach someone the steps of the sales process, but helping them understand the reasoning behind it is crucial for their long-term success.”
Like Rubie-Todd, Williamson focuses on company values and the mission. Williamson says, “I want [the new hire] to understand why we exist and who we serve. This provides context for everything else they will learn.”
From there, Williamson’s team dives into the details of their sales methodology.
“As we review things like prospecting techniques, objection handling, and closing — I share stories and examples that illustrate why we do things this way. The reps who truly grasp the why end up internalizing it and selling with more passion and effectiveness,” Williamson says.
What will your rep be selling? Whether it’s pool supplies or software, it’s important to train them on how to administer, use, and see the value of your product or service.
HubSpot’s new hires undergo extensive product and Inbound Marketing training. They learn how to use HubSpot’s CRM, Marketing, and Sales tools. The hands-on training involves building landing pages, setting up contacts, and presenting “final projects” at the end of their training cycle. The project serves as a benchmark for new hires. Reps get to show off their understanding of HubSpot tools, and managers can gauge new hire progress.
Josh Ladick, president at GSA Focus, emphasizes product training in sales training. Ladick says, “Product knowledge and customer-engagement strategies [are the] fundamentals [that] empower new hires, giving them confidence and clarity when interacting with clients.”
A successful sale often comes down to BANT: Budget, Authority, Need, and Timing. While determining budget and handling general price objections can be pretty straightforward for an experienced representative, the other three components require familiarity (and perhaps intimacy) with both the buyer and the market:
All of these take experience and training.
Once the sales representative completes their “information gathering” period, it’s time to give them hands-on experience to improve their comfort level and get them into process development and routine.
An effective way to get a representative’s feet wet is to pair them with one of your seasoned team members so they can gain insight in real time. Have the new employee listen to calls, ask questions about workflow, and get a sense of the team’s strategy.
The representative should also be given a chance to introduce themselves to points of contact for accounts they’re inheriting and/or do some initial prospecting and outreach to begin filling their pipeline.
Meet with the representatives to provide feedback, encourage good habits, and reinforce performance milestones and goals.
After 60 days, the representative should be comfortable and autonomous enough to apply their training and start making an impact as their pipeline opens up. Managers should ensure that new reps have everything they need to:
Once you’re sure your representatives are ready to hit the ground, here are some of the last things I suggest you do.
Set 30-, 60-, and 90-day goals. Calculate ramp rate based on the average number of months it takes a new salesperson to hit 100% (or close to) of quota. To make this more accurate, segment an average ramp period by experience — for example, it might take the typical veteran salesperson four months to ramp, while a freshly minted college grad requires nine months.
Sales onboarding can be challenging. You can lessen some of the challenges by assigning a buddy to onboard sales personnel. Assign every new salesperson a mentor who’s been in their position for a longer period.
Mentees can bounce questions, comments, and new hire growing pains off their mentors. Mentorship provides new hires with perspective, guidance, and advice from someone outside their management team.
At HubSpot, every new hire is paired with a mentor. Beyond the first few weeks, mentors can offer career advice, make important networking connections, and save salespeople from burnout. In my experience, pairing new hires with mentors sets them up for a longer, happier career with your company.
Sales manuals are a great way to automate your sales agents’ orientation program.
A sales manual is a guide that contains the background information of your company, the goals you want to achieve, and the selling process. A good sales manual also describes your target client, how to talk to them, the do’s and don’ts of your selling process, and more essential information.
You want to create a sales manual that becomes the go-to guide for new sales personnel. Naturally, the manual will guide them through their entire onboarding process. The manual should also provide details about their job, access to tools, and more. A well-put-together sales manual will support your team beyond their onboarding, too.
Pro tip: Sometimes, a sales manual will include technical guides, like how to log in to certain software or how to access a sales dialer. You can create these parts quickly and painlessly using HubSpot’s free Guide Creator, which captures step-by-step instructions with images.
Every sales training manual is different based on what the company is selling as well as the goals and objectives.
For more clarification, here are some examples of sales manuals that you can use as a guide to write your own.
HubSpot has a very elaborate onboarding process for its sales agents. The entire process takes 90 days.
In the first 30 days, sales agents are introduced to the company’s internal organizations, selling systems, solutions, customers, and everything else about the services they offer.
For the next 30 days, the sales agent gets what I‘d describe as a “trial process.” They start their sales journey applying the concepts, principles, and lessons that they’ve learned. This is when an agent fashions their style through experimentation.
After 60 days, the sales agents are ready to start working officially. At this point, the sales manager sets key performance indicators (KPIs) for the agent and provides them with everything they need to achieve them. On the 90th day, the agent can monitor their progress and see what they can change for better results.
For more details on the 30/60/90 method, download the HubSpot Free Sales Training Manual.
Jibu is a drinking water company with over 160 Franchises in eight African countries. It has sold over 490 million liters, so it’s clearly doing something right.
Jibu has an extensive sales agent training guide like any other successful organizations. Their sales manual template is divided into two sections.
The first part contains the company’s background information. This includes:
This part allows the sales agents to connect with the company and understand how things run across the organization.
The second part of the sales agent guide covers the selling process. Some of the things that the sales agent learns in this part include:
This part is crucial in ensuring that all the sales agents understand the company’s expectations on how they should carry themselves.
Check out the Jibu Sales Training and Development Guide PDF to see all the details.
This guide is ideal for a newbie in the sales department. Badge Sales Training Manual provides a comprehensive guide on all the basics of sales training. It defines sales, gives you the benefits of sales training, and teaches you how to go about it.
In this guide, you‘ll learn hacks like how to cut the sales training program time by 50%. This will ensure your sales agents are effective and you don’t spend months in the training session without getting results. I also like that you will learn how to automate certain tasks and the best tools to use.
The Badger sales manual also teaches you all types of sales marketing methods to ensure you choose the one aligned with your products or services. Check out the Badger Sales Training PDF to learn all the basics in sales.
Trojan is a subsidiary of Hire Quest Direct that has been in the industry since 2002. They help companies looking for workers in any field — most of the workers are temporary, which is very economical for many companies.
Trojan has an intensive sales manual training guide that teaches their sales agents everything they need to know to sell their staffing services.
I like that their sales manual shares email and call templates their agents can use in all possible scenarios, which makes work easier for the new recruits.
The manual also teaches the agents the importance of not over-glamorizing their services to manage the customers’ expectations. It also guides an agent on what to do once a customer makes an order and the correct follow-up messages.
Teach your reps how to use your CRM, and include hands-on, project-based training (like how to enter new contacts, set reminders, and log communication). When appropriate, have them take a CRM certification exam. Most CRMs offer them, and it’s a great way to ensure that new reps understand how to use the software.
You can find HubSpot’s free certification courses here.
Sign up new hires for call reviews — and lots of ‘em. It’s good for them to listen to reviews from your top reps and a few from reps who haven’t been part of the team for so long. This allows new hires to learn from a variety of experience levels and gives them access to different types of critique.
Cover the main stages of the sales process and conversion rate benchmarks (on average, 10% of emails convert to connect calls, 20% of connect calls convert to discover calls, etc.). This will tell your new representatives where to prioritize efforts and what numbers they’ll be held to.
How does your company prospect? Share common channels, number of touchpoints, and best practices. Outline how much research representatives should conduct and which details they should look for.
In this section of training, describe your ideal customer. If you’re a B2B company, teach your salespeople what a best-fit company looks like and which contacts they should be trying to make at that company. If you’re B2C, describe the types of consumers reps should be targeting. I also recommend you lay out the foundation for how your organization assesses and communicates with decision-makers.
Provide an overview of your main competitors, and then share a competitive analysis that highlights exactly what makes you different. Be honest about where your product/service falls short of the competition and where it outperforms the rest of the market.
Incorporate good and bad examples into demo training and have everyone participate in role-play. Conduct reviews of new hire demos, connect calls, and close conversations. Include common objections that arise during your sales process and let new hires respond to those objections before supplying them with ready-made scripts.
My rule of thumb is to provide positive feedback first, then move to areas for improvement. Foster this rule in your sales organization to create a team that embraces constructive criticism instead of being afraid or resentful.
Learning to use team or company technology (i.e., phones, video platforms, etc.) can be a tough and undocumented process. Train new hires on how to use your technological resources, and have them showcase their skills during a demo with you. When they can troubleshoot basic issues — like asking prospects to mute their microphones if an echo arises during a presentation — they’re one step closer to being ready for a live call.
Even experienced representatives need to know how a company approaches the negotiation phase. What are your parameters for discounts and sales? What kind of judgment calls can your representatives make in terms of discounts? And, what is the etiquette for discussing these topics with prospects?
Will your representatives be in charge of onboarding new clients? Share best practices and responsibilities that accompany this role. If there’s a hand-off to a renewal manager or customer experience representative, make sure both parties understand what that process is as well.
At the end of their sales training, hold a certification exam. Have your reps role-play an exploratory call, demo, negotiation, and closing call. This allows you to gauge whether a rep is ready to start representing your company in front of prospective clients.
By the end of training, HubSpot representatives are certified in inbound sales and inbound marketing. They’re also certified in giving HubSpot demos. Certain passing scores must be met and managers are notified if further training is necessary.
Make sure each new hire receives relevant supplementary training for role-specific duties. If you’re onboarding a BDR, provide further training on how to qualify prospects by asking the right questions. And train your reps on specific verticals or territories they’ll be targeting (i.e., when prospecting in the Pacific Northwest, phone calls convert at a higher rate than emails).
Everyone should move through basic sales training to understand the goals, values, and customers that your sales organization prioritizes. If you’re bringing in a manager or executive, further training may be required to set them up for success.
14. Keep training engaging.
I’ve found a good training process accounts for different learning styles and preferences. Use a range of sales training games and activities to keep your training engaging for all. Get feedback after training sessions so you can see what the team liked and disliked about each session so you can develop your onboarding as you go.
Ramp up for salespeople is tough. But if you do it right, you’ll see a huge ROI on the time and efforts you invest in new hires early on. Don’t skimp here, and you’ll enjoy the benefits of talent retention, high morale, and a high-quality sales strategy.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in August 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
Startup founders, especially early-stage ones, have been feeling quite the pinch in recent years when it comes to fundraising: Nearly a quarter of fundraising rounds are down rounds in Q1 2024 Time in between rounds is getting longer Overall deal count is low It makes […]
Sales
It makes us wonder: How are the founders holding up? How should they adapt?
Source: Carta
My colleagues from HubSpot for Startups set out to find the answer.
They surveyed 500+ early-stage startup founders — from pre-seed to series B — across the US and Europe, and compiled an insights report that I can only describe as… meaty AF.
Some snippets of their findings:
Oh, and almost 60% of the startups surveyed categorize their product or service as AI.
While AI-based startups are getting a leg-up in the fundraising race, it still takes a combination of classic moves and new tech to up their rizz in front of investors.
What are those moves, you ask?
The full report covers an extensive amount of survey data and expert insights from both ends of the spectrum. But to give you a taste, here are some gems straight from the horse’s mouth.
In VC fundraising, the name of the game is to find product market fit. When it happens, you see an inflection point of some sort. It could be:
We all look at the market, the founder(s), the product, and the level of customer love. For each stage, we weigh different parts of these slightly differently.
It’s about the market dynamics and there being a really good ‘why now?’ We look for the intersection between the market and an outlier founder. And in all our early stage companies, we want to see velocity, in both speed and direction.
At SFC, it really comes down to the team. We take as scientific an approach as possible to assessing the cofounders (we like co-’s rather than solos).
It’s not about their background or ethnicity — in fact, we go the other way and invest in underrepresented founders and have a diversity mindset. We look at how a founder’s personality aligns with their cofounder. We like to see somebody who’s driven, then someone else who is either sales or somebody you want to follow.
What we also look for, and what founders shouldn’t underestimate, is the power of a strong community when it comes to securing funding in a competitive VC landscape for AI-native startups.
Building community within your early customer base and partner ecosystem means you can develop it over time, and a large (and loud) community online tends to stand out over everything else.
Fundraising in general is still pretty difficult. We’ve seen timelines extend — seed is looking like 3-4 months. That’s a significant jump.
My rule of thumb:
It’s become an investor-friendly market, and more time is being taken by investors, which is a good thing for both sides. You want an investor who really knows your business — they’re more likely to be a long term player and support your business if they build the relationships before investment.
Start raising sooner than you think you need to. You’re not going to build a relationship within one touchpoint of one email. Finish off your first outreach with a cliffhanger, then follow up with relevant updates. Then it becomes a line, not just a point.
Founders need to consider [fundraising timelines] as far out as possible. Be driven by the runway, but also by the fact that your runway could easily run out whilst you’re raising your seed round. Start that process as early as possible and enable yourself using tech.
Take the time upfront to set yourself up for success. Set up a CRM so that you can work through the stages.
Add any investor who tells you, “we might be interested” to a nurture bucket in your CRM. Anytime something big happens, send an email update to that whole list of people in the nurture bucket.
I’m a huge advocate of an online presence and posting regularly. I cannot count how many opportunities have come my way just because of LinkedIn. Post and talk to people and showcase what you’ve been doing. The community aspect is huge — it’s a small world.
So be present on LinkedIn, attend conferences, and show up where your ideal investors are… People do business with people they like, and people invest in people they like.
Now go check out the full report for:
…and a lot more!
Sales presentations: They either blow you away or induce a daydream. Why? Not everyone’s a gifted speaker — but everyone can put together an effective sales pitch deck with the right guidance. While many salespeople focus on making their sales decks flashy, fun, and exciting, […]
SalesSales presentations: They either blow you away or induce a daydream. Why? Not everyone’s a gifted speaker — but everyone can put together an effective sales pitch deck with the right guidance.
While many salespeople focus on making their sales decks flashy, fun, and exciting, I find they overlook the need for their presentations to address the prospect’s top concerns and offer an irresistible solution.
As a result, many presentations are met with wishy-washy responses that drag along the sales process and waste valuable time. Your sales team can do better, but what exactly does a great sales deck look like?
I used to design corporate sales presentations. Let me show you some stand-out sales presentation examples. I’ll cover some common pitfalls to avoid to help you perfect the pitch. Let’s dive in!
Table of Contents
The primary purpose of a sales deck and presentation is to introduce a solution (i.e., your pitch) that ultimately leads the prospect to purchase from your company.
If you’ve done everything right during the discovery process — digging deep into your prospect’s challenges and understanding exactly what they need — only to get a noncommittal response, then your presentation needs some major adjusting.
A sales deck is a pitch meant to convince a prospect to make a purchase by showcasing your product features, benefits, and value proposition.
A pitch deck, on the other hand, is usually created for investors who want to learn more about your company, vision, products, financials, and target audience. Think of the pitch deck more like a synthesized version of your business plan.
Ready to see some sales deck examples? I’ve collected some of the best for your inspiration, in no particular order.
I think Leadnomics has done something few companies successfully do in presentations: Showcase their brand identity. The internet marketing agency hired a designer to create a sales deck that reflected their sleek, techie brand.
So, while prospects learn about Leadnomics and what it offers, they can also get a peek into what it represents as a brand.
What I like: The simple, high-contrast design of this pitch deck doesn’t overwhelm viewers with excessive information and instead highlights a few key elements per page.
This slide deck for Stripe, Inc. starts with a very brief company summary, followed by a value proposition and a list of reputable companies that use the product. I like that it doesn’t overwhelm, which is a fatal flaw in presentation design.
“The biggest mistake I see in sales presentations is information overload, with too much text on slides or too many slides overall,” shared presentation designer Linda Tran.
“Sales presentations should be scannable: Try to use 3-6 points per slide and use imagery to help convey your key message effectively. If you have additional critical information, include it in an appendix section for easy reference, so you’re prepared if asked about it.”
What I like: Some presentations are designed in a heavy-handed way with too many colors, words, and graphics per page. This feels light and airy to me, using graphics and icons intentionally.
QS, a platform that ranks colleges and universities, effectively uses icons and visuals throughout its sales deck to communicate its messages. At just a few slides, this is one of the shortest sales decks featured on this list.
If you’re going to make your sales deck short, I suggest making sure the information you include gets straight to the point, and be sure to front-load the most important information.
In terms of content, QS showcases its features, value proposition, and client impact.
What I like: The best sales decks are fluff-free, and QS embodies this with beautiful graphics that show rather than tell. While this is a brief sales deck, I appreciate how it paints a picture of a compelling sales narrative.
Attention Media, a B2B creative agency, hired a presentation design agency to create a sales deck that features statistics and reasons businesses should work with them. I like how key figures and messages are either in a bold, large, or bright font to make them stand out from the rest of the text.
While their slide deck is on the shorter side (the typical presentation is around 10 to 15 slides), they include intriguing visuals and statistics that grab attention and keep viewers interested. Presentations can be as short as 5 minutes as long as they’re clear and effective.
What I like: Successful sales decks are specific and use data to tell a story. Attention Media does that beautifully with this sales deck design, in my opinion.
Freshworks is a B2B software platform that promises an all-in-one package for businesses. Its sales deck emphasizes simple text and organization. The problem and solution are introduced using graphics, which I think makes the text easier for readers to prioritize.
I like how they include a dedicated slide to their mobile app (which serves as a “solution slide”), one of the product’s key differentiators and most salient benefits. The following slides provide a step-by-step walkthrough of how customers are onboarded and what they can expect on a regular basis.
Since the slides aren’t text-heavy, the salesperson can easily elaborate and answer any questions the prospect might have.
What I like: I love that this sales presentation makes the customer’s problem so clear and memorable (“the cloud is broken”) and then focuses on product features and solutions.
Soraa, a lighting company, starts its sales deck with a visually appealing table of contents that contains three items: “Quality of light,” “Simply perfect light,” and “Why Soraa?”
The brand then dives into what its prospects care about most: how the light will look in their spaces and how they can apply Soraa’s offerings to their specific use case. It sprinkles in the benefits of using Soraa as a lighting supplier. And it does this all while maintaining its strong branding.
What I like: I appreciate that the value proposition on this sales deck is very clear and memorable. The best pitch decks focus on showing rather than telling, and this does so beautifully.
The first thing Planetly does in its sales presentation is present an eye-catching statistic about customers wanting more eco-friendly brands. Then, they present the reasons behind that data.
I like how the deck doesn’t overwhelm prospects with too much text, opting for more graphics and visuals instead. It introduces a hard-hitting stat about the problem their prospect is facing, engages them by asking a question, and provides a solution to the issue.
The slide deck continues to outline specific product details and what sets the solution apart from others, ultimately leading to a slide that represents the expected outcome for the prospect.
What I like: Every presentation should include a strong call-to-action (CTA), and Planetly uses data to create a mic-drop CTA. The presentation cites the statistic that carbon management will be the norm in three years. Then, they push customers to act with the memorable CTA “Move first, gain the edge.”
What you’ll first notice when scrolling through Kibris Developments’ sales deck is that it’s straightforward and easy to scan (not to mention stuffed with beautiful imagery and branding).
The brand kept it simple with its deck, making it easier for consumers to consume. On every slide, Kibris Developments has one main message with supporting information in smaller font. Too often, companies stuff their decks, and the result is viewers who are overloaded and stop listening.
What I like: While some brands don’t include any photography in their sales decks, I love how this brand uses photography heavily to tell a story and compel viewers.
Sometimes, the best way to explain a concept is through a series of process maps and timelines. In this sales deck, Leadgeeks.io takes this approach to explain its product process and onboarding process.
I think this method helps consumers visualize how this software will help them reach their goals and how they can adopt it in their business.
What I like: Potential users will always wonder about the process of working together, and I like how Leadgeek’s simple onboarding slide provides a clear answer to this question.
Similar to Leadnomics, software company Accern puts its branding at the forefront of the sales deck.
In addition to the use of design to make the sales deck stand out, Accern also highlights customer case studies in its deck, another form of social proof that shows the success other customers have found with this tool.
What I like: In my experience, the most effective sales decks will leverage customer success stories; this shows a beautiful way of achieving that.
Prepare to feel ancient: Facebook‘s original pitch deck is 20 years old. What can a pitch deck old enough to vote teach us about selling to today’s market?
It’s arguably one of the most successful sales decks we can study: This deck raised the money that turned Facebook into one of the most prolific companies in modern life.
This presentation isn‘t made of impressive graphics or flare; there are even some off-center elements that would make a graphic designer cringe (raises hand). It’s a simple sales deck that summarizes product impact, basic data, and a vision. It doesn’t overwhelm with flashy visual elements but rather focuses on customer research and potential impact.
What I like: Instead of leading with impressive stats or their goals, this pitch deck creatively gets the audience’s attention with a quote from the newspaper describing the frenzy surrounding the product.
So far, most of these examples have been beautiful, sleek slides designed to get the audience‘s attention and look professional. There’s value in great graphic design, but there’s more value in the hard details and facts of your product or service. Nothing showcases that better than Airbnb‘s slide deck from 2008.
This is a presentation so basic it could’ve practically been handwritten on Post-it notes, and it puts 100% of the focus on the product concept and impact. I think it’s a masterclass in clear communication.
We can learn a lot from the older generation of sales presentations. I think too many sales presentations start with flash and sprinkle product clarity on top as a final step, and it should be the other way around.
When you’re designing your sales presentation, I recommend starting with bare-bones ideas and making sure the communication is spot-on before moving on to the pizzazz.
What I like: Ideas, product details, and data shine above all else in this presentation.
Each of these presentations provides a general overview of the products, problems, and solutions, and they can easily be tailored and customized to each prospective company. A custom presentation not only piques the prospect‘s interest but also increases the likelihood that they’ll buy from you.
Curious as to how you can word your presentation during your meeting with prospects? Below, I’ll go over the best examples I’ve seen so far.
While there are plenty of videos online on how to deliver a sales presentation, there aren’t quite as many live sales presentations to watch.
That’s because sales presentations are delivered in the privacy of a meeting between the sales rep and the prospect and are often not recorded with the intention of sharing online.
As a sales rep, though, you have an excellent resource for inspiration: explainer videos. Companies publish explainer videos to pitch their products to qualified leads. (Sound familiar?) I recommend using the below examples to hone your own pitch to buyers, and pay close attention to the structure of each video.
[Video: https://youtu.be/gjpXUD8Vz6I ]
This explainer video for Leadjet starts with an urgent problem: Finding leads on LinkedIn and moving them to a CRM loses valuable time and minimizes lead opportunities. Leadjet then presents its product as the solution.
The video jumps into the benefits users can enjoy, such as synchronizing conversations over both your CRM and LinkedIn, keeping the lead status updated, and adding custom details. In this video, Leadjet follows the ideal sales presentation structure: problem, solution, and benefits.
What works: Starting with the customer’s pain point makes the product benefit clear and memorable.
[Video: https://youtu.be/W-f6F2gxrl4 ]
The Node influencer app allows small business owners to connect with influencers on social media. It starts its video with a simple question: “Looking to promote your brand with social influencers?” I like how the presentation effectively identifies and addresses the target market before pitching the product to viewers.
This presentation is more tutorial-based, making it ideal inspiration if you‘re creating a sales deck for someone who’s closer to making a decision. People most often want to see actionable demos when they’re ready to choose a provider.
What works: Rather than telling viewers that this app is easy to use or explaining how it works, this video showcases that ease by putting the product itself on display.
[Video: https://youtu.be/hAP2QF–2Dg ]
This explainer video from Upsend, a former customer service software, begins with a problem: Most customers want instant responses to their queries, but customer service systems can be expensive for new companies. Enter Upsend.
The presenter addresses the target market — startups and small businesses — while assuaging their concerns about budget. In addition, it covers the most important features of the platform and the end result for the user. If Upsend were still available, this would be a product a new business would immediately want to add to its tech stack.
What works: This is a fast-paced sales video that shows quick product demos without overwhelming the viewer.
[Video: https://youtu.be/qDSlX4mWypY ]
Within a few seconds of the start of this presentation, Algoplanner drives home the critical urgency of adopting supply chain software. It uses a scary number to gran your attention, citing a possible “loss of millions of dollars” if you fail to adopt the right tool.
It then introduces its product with a breakdown of what the software can do for users. Plus, it provides powerful stats to back up its claims, including that users can reduce automation development costs by 80%. I think the CTA at the end is powerful and simple, telling viewers to schedule a demo.
What works: Algoplanner’s sales video explains how their product benefits companies and individual users while creating urgency.
Have you ever watched an episode of Shark Tank where a great product flops because of the sales pitch? The reality is, there are more bad sales presentations out there than good.
Stick to these five simple sales presentation guidelines (recommended by Marc Wayshak) to help yours succeed.
Have you ever met with a prospect who was excited about your product or service — and used your presentation to keep on selling? This is called over-selling, and it’s the leading cause of death for sales presentations.
When you start your presentation, first lead with solutions. Don‘t talk about the benefits of your product’s features or tell the prospect how great your company is.
Simply dive into how you’re going to solve the deepest frustration your prospect is facing right now. I think this Zillow presentation is a great example of a solution-oriented sales deck:
What I like: The mission slide starts this presentation off on a strong and memorable note.
Once you‘ve addressed the specific solutions you can provide to the prospect, it’s time to add some color to your presentation.
Turn your sales presentation into an engaging story by sharing case studies of similar prospects and the results they’ve achieved with your help.
In my experience, this step is important for building trust and credibility with the prospect. At the same time, case studies bring your solutions to life in the real world, making your presentation more engaging.
The below sales presentation template from Visme has a concise case study slide that introduces successful customers and details the product’s impact on their lives:
If you don’t have case studies, I recommend highlighting key data points instead to add authority to your claims. Data visualization makes presentations more engaging and helps contextualize your points, like the example below.
Why it works: Your audience members are asking themselves, “How can this product or service impact my life?” By including case studies in your presentation, you show that you understand them and can back up your claims with proof.
Most presentations are a one-way monologue by the salesperson. This approach is boring — and it’s certainly no way to connect with a prospect.
Instead, ask short questions throughout your presentation, like “does that make sense?” or “can you see how this would work for you?” Asking for feedback periodically ensures your prospect stays on the same page.
Pro tip: Having a text-heavy presentation makes this more difficult. If you’re focused on reading out your slides, spontaneous questions are more likely to throw you off. Keep text on slides light to make you agile during your presentation.
If you want to close more sales, you have to care about what your prospect is thinking throughout your presentation.
Any interruption is the perfect opportunity to find out. Whenever a prospect interrupts you — either with a verbal remark or subtle shift in their facial expression or posture — stop immediately.
Acknowledge the interruption, and welcome the opportunity to explore it with the prospect. Never ignore signals just to stay on a roll and conclude your point. Invite prospects to ask their questions or share their concerns.
In my experience, the opportunity to respond to those concerns is always more valuable than whatever you were about to say.
Your presentation should be ASAP: as short as possible.
It’s natural for salespeople to get excited about what they have to share, but this causes most of them to ramble on for far too long.
Prospects only care about themselves and their challenges. Present the information they’ll be interested in and nothing more. I suggest practicing your next sales presentation with a colleague or friend and asking for their honest feedback on its length.
Here’s an example of a brief 6-slide presentation for Lyft:
What I like: This sales deck prioritizes clarity with its use of imagery, icons, and text. The length leaves people wanting more, instead of leaving time for people to daydream and disconnect.
Ready to start creating your own sales deck? Get started with these free templates.
It includes 10 PowerPoint templates, each with a different focus.
Haven’t found what you’re looking for? Here are additional resources to find a sales deck.
This presentation platform allows you to pick from hundreds of templates and fully customize the template you choose. The best part? It’s free and offers premium packages for teams who want analytics, multiple users, and live video collaboration.
On this graphic design platform, you can search through countless presentation templates and customize them. Canva also offers extensive collaboration features, such as file sharing and commenting.
What’s your big takeaway from these sales presentation examples? Mine is that nothing sells better than simplicity. I hope these examples inspired you to refine your slides and simplify your offer into a no-brainer “yes” from your audience.
When delivering a sales presentation to a prospect, you can do so with the knowledge that thousands and millions of others have been in the same position as you. Luckily, we can see their work online to guide our sales deck creation process. Use these decks to structure your own, and you’ll be well on the road to closing more deals and exceeding your quota.
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in April 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
Welcome to Trends, a weekly newsletter with the zestiest business trends and actionable insights for entrepreneurs. We recently wrote about “MeMooners” — a new way to describe solo travelers, coined by Hilton’s 2025 travel trend predictions — and the opportunities associated with that. It was not the […]
SalesWelcome to Trends, a weekly newsletter with the zestiest business trends and actionable insights for entrepreneurs.
We recently wrote about “MeMooners” — a new way to describe solo travelers, coined by Hilton’s 2025 travel trend predictions — and the opportunities associated with that.
It was not the only curious term in that report. We’ve also got “hurkle-durkling,” a folksy-sounding Scottish phrase that means to lounge in bed long past the get-up time.
That’s an easy activity to get behind: One in five travelers around the world say they enjoy a chill day with no itinerary on their vacation (30% for Gen Z and Millennials).
The popularity of “hurkle-durkling” shows that travelers are taking the spirit of self care and wellness on the road — and a cozy bed is essential to the experience.
Wellness tourism is a wild market. The industry is already worth $814B+ in the US alone, and projected to grow by 21% annually through 2025. Sleep tourism, a crucial segment in it, is worth $70B alone.
And it’s clear that jetsetters are willing to pay up for premium sleep on vacation:
Average monthly US Google search volume. Source: Ahrefs
Hotels have already spied an opportunity here — provide the weary masses with sleep sanctuaries. A growing number of American establishments now offer top-quality snooze tech, from 24/7 sleep concierges to guided sleep hypnosis sessions.
And consumers are tucking (themselves) in.
Here are a few ways for entrepreneurs to count sheep, and profits:
A weekend of top-quality snoozing could become a popular mini vacation option. Partnering with hotels is an easy way for sleep brands to get their products in front of the masses. It’s also a great way for smaller hotels (or Airbnbs) to attract clientele.
If you’re a small biz in the sleep or hospitality space, get in bed with well-matched partners, or act as a middleman and connect brands.
Existing establishments could attract sleep-hungry clients with specials during off-peak times.
DayUse.com offers hotel rooms for 75% off to guests who use them only during the day — and the site gets ~537k visitors/mo., per Similarweb. Launch a sleep-centric version that allows busy professionals (or parents 😅) to book sleep hotels for the best day nap of their lives.
Source: Tenor
Or, use sleep to attract clients during other off-peak times, such as weeknight snooze specials or winter sleep getaways.
Rosewood Hotels & Resorts offers Alchemy of Sleep, a collection of retreats where guests can opt for one-night “Dreamscapes,” or five-night journeys of “Sleep Transformation” (at $5k+ per night 👀).
This is likely the first of many luxury sleep retreats that will cater to the high-end market. As sleep tourism rises, this demographic may look to professionals to curate their dream snooze-cations, and sleep travel agents may become a thing (sign us up).
We can’t all afford $5k+/night dreamscapes (sigh). Bring sleep luxury to the masses via:
🎁 Sleep boxes. Launch an at-home version of the Rosewood Hotel’s “Curated Sleep Boxes,” featuring essential oil blends, tea blends, aromatherapy linen mists, silk eye masks, and decent earplugs.
Include QR codes to curated sleep playlists, meditations, and questionnaires so you can direct consumers to personalized products.
🛌 Sleep pods. Don’t have a quiet, private place to snooze? Enter the sleep pod. There’s rising interest in these simple options, and if the trend continues, the power nap may soon replace the afternoon espresso.
Nap York already offers pod rentals starting at $27/hour, targeting tired travelers and employees alike. Focus on coworking spaces, office blocks, and airports to kit out, or service, their mini sleep offerings.
The software buyer‘s journey has shifted dramatically over the past few years. As G2’s Director of SMBs Mike Buscemi puts it: “Software buyers today act like B2C consumers because they have so many options. There are hundreds of thousands of software vendors out there and […]
SalesThe software buyer‘s journey has shifted dramatically over the past few years. As G2’s Director of SMBs Mike Buscemi puts it: “Software buyers today act like B2C consumers because they have so many options. There are hundreds of thousands of software vendors out there and over 115,000 on G2. Buyers have an abundance to pick and choose from.”
Which ultimately means the seller’s journey is going to have to shift, too.
Here, I spoke with Mike about how the software buyer’s journey has changed, according to new data from G2‘s 2023 Buyer’s Behavior Report — plus, how your sales strategy should pivot in 2024 to meet new buyers’ expectations from HubSpot’s own consumer survey. Let’s dive in.
Table of Contents
The B2B buyer’s journey refers to the process that business customers go through when considering, evaluating, and ultimately purchasing a product or service for their organization. Traditionally, this journey has been viewed as a linear progression through several stages:
But today, this journey has become increasingly complex and non-linear.
The B2B buying journey has changed due to factors like digital transformation, increased buyer empowerment, and a growing emphasis on collaborative decision-making.
According to Gartner, buyers embark on a non-linear journey that involves looping through various “buying jobs” rather than progressing through sequential stages. These buying jobs include the following.
Here’s what this looks like in action:
Changing buyer needs and behaviors requires sales and marketing teams to adapt their strategies to meet prospects at various touchpoints with relevant, valuable information throughout their decision-making process.
In my experience working with various B2B SaaS clients, I’ve noticed a significant shift in how buyers approach software purchases.
I realized recently, while writing a white paper for a CRM client, that buyers have more knowledge now than ever. They had already researched multiple options, read countless reviews, and even tried free versions of several products.
It was obvious: The content I create needs to go beyond basic product information and really focus on differentiators and specific use cases.
Here’s how the journey has changed and what you can do about it:
In 2024, many buyers don’t trust sales. As a result, their buying preference has shifted to a self-service approach.
We recently surveyed 700+ consumers for our State of Consumer Trends report. Our data showed that only 34% of consumers somewhat or completely trust how companies use their data, highlighting the need for sales teams to build trust.
Plus, 60% of buyers say that vendor sales aren’t involved in their research phase, and 68% only involve sales at the last stage of the buyer’s journey.
For many sales reps, it can feel like this breakdown of trust between sales and prospects has accelerated over time.
But, as Buscemi points out, “I don’t think trust has fundamentally changed, because you’ve always needed trust with your prospect or your customer in order to build a relationship that is founded in mutual respect. However, I think the way our information is available today has made it more acute in the minds of buyers and sellers.”
Buscemi adds, “There are tons of studies that say a buyer is 60% to 70% of the way down the buying cycle before they even reach a rep — and those studies are 10 years old. Now, I’d argue people are probably even further down the funnel and know exactly what they want to purchase before a rep comes into the picture.”
Sync your G2 Buyer Intent Data with HubSpot to enhance your sales process and close new customers.
Fortunately, Buscemi offers some solutions to ensure your sales team can build and maintain trust throughout the buyer’s journey in 2024.
These include:
As a content creator, I’ve found that building trust is equally crucial in my field.
Last year, I implemented a strategy of sharing behind-the-scenes glimpses of my writing process on LinkedIn. I would post about the research I was doing for articles, share interesting statistics I came across, and even discuss challenges I faced in simplifying complex topics.
Transparency resonated with my audience, leading to more engaging conversations and, eventually, new clients.
Let’s look at some numbers:
Given the data, it’s vital you use reviews to build trust with prospects in 2024.
However, collecting reviews, especially if you work at a small business, can feel a bit like chicken-and-the-egg: If you don‘t have reviews it’s hard to build an online presence; but if you don’t have an online presence, it can be hard to collect reviews.
Fortunately, Buscemi told me there are tons of ways to collect more customer reviews.
A few of his favorite review-collection strategies include:
Collecting reviews for your products or services isn’t just about collecting positive reviews, either. Having a healthy mix of positive reviews and negative reviews demonstrates more authenticity than simply having all 5-stars — plus, in my experience, negative reviews are invaluable to helping you improve your product over time.
It’s also important to note: To take a compliant, ethical, and transparent approach to review collection, always be sure to pull lists that are representative of your customer base. This can include industry segments, but you cannot intentionally solicit from customers that are more likely to provide more positive reviews.
Take it from me: A prospect isn’t going to trust you if you don’t seem like you know what you’re talking about when it comes to their specific challenges and the industry at large.
Which is why it’s vital you become a true expert in your space.
Becoming an expert in B2B SaaS content creation didn’t happen overnight for me. I’ve invested countless hours in staying up-to-date with the latest industry trends. This includes regularly attending webinars, participating in online courses, and even shadowing sales calls with my clients (with their permission, of course).
Consumers are also increasingly looking to brands for education and information, with 46% of social media users saying they use these platforms to learn new things.
For Buscemi, this includes requiring everyone on his team to take a number of marketing courses.
He told me, “Everyone’s responsible for taking marketing courses so we can speak our prospects’ language right off the bat. We also do marketing strategy sessions, where we talk through all the ways our product can fit into a broader marketing strategy.”
According to Buscemi, this helps each sales rep understand the real pain points they’re solving beyond service-level pain. “We can be very consultative about how we’re going to help the customer with our solution,” Buscemi says.
Beyond requiring sales reps to take courses, his team also practices role-play, where the team takes turns listening to calls so everyone can say, “Here’s how you could tweak that.” This, he notes, gets the top reps to help other reps so everyone can learn together.
An amazing 93% of buyers indicate that the quality of the implementation process is important or very important when making the decision to renew a software product.
This makes strengthening your implementation process a vital component for selling in 2024.
The importance of a smooth implementation process ties directly into what consumers value most. Recent data shows that 51% of consumers rate product quality as one of the top factors in their purchase decisions.
For starters, you’ll need to know which areas of the implementation process are the biggest roadblocks for past customers. I recommend conducting reviews which can help you identify weak spots in your implementation process.
You might also leverage past customer reviews to share stories with your prospects about how other customers in the industry implemented your product or service. Hearing from peers is an incredibly effective way for prospects to learn how to best implement the product themselves.
Beyond that, Buscemi recommends each sales rep create a mutual success plan with their prospect.
As he puts it, “You’ll want to build a mutual success plan and gain agreement. This means chatting with the prospect and walking through, ‘Hey, here’s your responsibilities, and here’s our responsibilities,’ and documenting the agreement and sharing with the post-sales team, as well.”
Bonus points, he adds, if you bring the post-sales team onto the call so they can actually speak through how it’s done, especially if your account executives aren’t involved in the implementation process.
Nowadays, 80% of companies have buying committees which influence buying decisions, and 71% of respondents say additional stakeholders are frequently added over the course of the buying journey — up from 61% who stated that in 2021.
All of which is to say: In 2024, your sales rep will need to prove your product’s value to more people to get a sale, which increases the complexity of the sales process.
To combat this challenge, Buscemi urges your sales reps to get comfortable asking, “Who else is involved in the buying process?”
Understanding the full scope of stakeholders is crucial, especially given the diverse ways consumers prefer to make purchases.
Consumer preferences for purchasing channels vary widely, with 64% preferring in-store purchases, 50% favoring online retailers, and 22% using social media apps for purchases. I suggest being prepared to demonstrate value across these various channels and to stakeholders who may be influenced by different purchasing experiences.
He says, “There’s a number of ways you can nuance that question. You might ask, ‘What was the last piece of software you bought? Who was involved in that process? Who can say no when everyone else can say yes?’”
He continues, “You might also say, ‘Typically, when we sell this product, sales is involved. We often see them executing on X, Y, and Z. Does it make sense to bring them into our conversations?’”
As more stakeholders get added to the buying process, it becomes increasingly critical for your sales reps to know your product inside and out.
Buscemi told me, “If I’m talking to a product team member, I might say, ‘Here’s how we typically work with your team,’ or, ‘Here’s a problem we typically solve for your team … Is that the case for you?’ Making sure you’re well-versed in each team’s pain points — and also the features, values, and benefits that your product offers for each individual — is critical.”
Buscemi notes that part of your job as a sales rep is knowing that information.
Already a HubSpot customer? Click here to get 20% off eligible G2 plans.
Seeing the wide-scale shifts we’ve seen across sales in 2023 had me wondering: What additional changes does Buscemi predict for sales in 2024 and beyond?
He told me, “I don’t think selling will ever go away in the sense that there are no more individuals responsible for helping guide people throughout the customer purchasing process.”
Buscemi emphasises that the definition of what a seller is responsible for has changed drastically.
“I think we’re still in that migration where you’ve gone from a transactional salesperson to one that is an expert in the space, helping uncover additional challenges the customer may also face in the future,” Buscemi says.
He envisions a future in which sales reps have built social followings and demonstrated their expertise in a given industry so they’re seen as thought leaders, rather than just sellers.
This approach aligns with current trends in consumer behavior on social media platforms. In fact, 21% of social media users have made a purchase based on an influencer’s recommendation in the past three months.
By positioning sales reps as industry thought leaders, companies can tap into this trend of trust-based, influencer-driven purchasing decisions.
That way, when it comes time for a prospect to make a purchase, he or she will trust the seller to have a pulse on what‘s happening and work to find a solution to the prospect’s problem — even if it’s not directly tied to their products or services.
Buscemi adds, “I think we’ll move to a method where it’s the individual’s expertise in the space that makes or breaks the sales cycle.”
Finally, Buscemi acknowledges that 2024 will present new obstacles for sales reps.
Currently, 55% of consumers are tightening their budgets due to current economic conditions, making it more important than ever to demonstrate clear value and address specific pain points.
He recommends sales reps prepare by leveraging tools to help them better identify who is ready to buy and when.
He says, “In the SMB space, sales reps are sometimes less targeted than you might be with enterprise accounts — you’re kind of just throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. You’re sending mass emails out, you’re doing huge cadences, whatever.”
He adds, “Leveraging a tool like G2’s buyer intent can help you focus on the folks that are actually in the market for your product or service. For instance, with buyer intent you can look at people who are already investigating a product category, or building out a short-list of products, or even comparing two vendors head-to-head.”
Similarly, tools like HubSpot’s Sales Hub provide visibility into prospect behavior and engagement. In my experience, these tools allow sales teams to prioritize their efforts and personalize their approach based on a prospect’s specific interests and activities.
Ultimately, 2024 will undoubtedly bring with it unique challenges for your sales team to navigate. I hope these seven strategies will help you formulate a plan that enables you to stay abreast of changing buyer needs, keep ahead of the competition, and even exceed buyers’ expectations.
It’s every salesperson’s nightmare — you start a new job, and right off the bat, you’re excited to close some business! You love your new company and buy into its mission. You work hard during training, and after 30 days, you understand quite a bit […]
SalesIt’s every salesperson’s nightmare — you start a new job, and right off the bat, you’re excited to close some business! You love your new company and buy into its mission. You work hard during training, and after 30 days, you understand quite a bit about your industry.
You’ve read all your company and product literature. You’ve listened to other reps’ demos and run through all the relevant FAQs you can find. You’re finally ready to hit the phones and get going!
You are so excited to get some business that your lips throb, but things don’t according to plan.
Your first week, you have a lot of activity to set the stage. When the second week comes, you add more activity but nothing is really moving forward. The third week, you look at your stats and are starting to think that this isn’t as easy as you thought.
By the fourth week, you are starting to slide a bit because others are starting to close business. In week five, you’re pushing so hard that you’ve considered calling your Mom and asking her to buy.
Week six shows no better results. You’re making the calls to no avail. You’re even giving demos, but you’re not closing squat! Come week seven, you start to question your basic sales abilities.
By week eight, you are ready to give up — the big dog just ate you.
Does this sound familiar? Over the last 20 years, I have seen this scenario play out hundreds of times. It can be challenging, but don’t lose hope! Here is the six-step action plan to employ when you’re doing the work but not getting any sales.
Powering through a dry spell in sales is virtually impossible if you’re not confident. You have to have faith in yourself and your sales acumen — a firm belief in your ability to tactfully power through your tough run of luck.
Assure yourself that you’ll be able to assess your situation, adapt, and get back on track. “No sales” isn’t necessarily a reflection of you as a salesperson. It’s generally a matter of your mindset, the degree of effort you’re putting in, the strategies you’re employing, and other factors that you’ll be able to adjust with some thought and persistence.
It’s hard to find the resolve to make those shifts if you’re convinced that the problem is with your inherent lack of sales skills.
It’s important to understand what’s expected of you when trying to remedy lapses in your individual sales efforts. Review your goals and remind yourself of the specific milestones you’re supposed to achieve, and as you conduct your sales efforts, document how well you’re performing relative to those benchmarks.
Having that reference point can give you definitive objectives that help you understand and appreciate the progress you’re making. It lets you see the ground you might be making up, and as you start improving your efforts and landing deals, you can get a much-needed morale boost to help you ride your rough patch out.
This point is similar to the first on this list. It’s about keeping a positive, proactive frame of mind that will drive you to overcome the obstacles you’re facing and consistently refine your sales efforts.
Take challenges as learning experiences, persist through any setbacks, be receptive to criticism without letting it demoralize you, and appreciate and learn from your peers’ success.
A growth mindset will both help you grind through periods of no sales and allow you to be constructive in your contribution to your team’s general efforts and overall culture.
Attention to detail is key to boosting less-than-stellar sales numbers. Be particularly thorough when filling out items like sales call reports. Cover all possible bases when pre-call planning.
Know the ins and outs of whatever sales processes or methodologies your team leverages, and take any other strides to make sure no stone related to how your sales efforts are supposed to be conducted goes unturned.
Being able to address the little things is one aspect of your sales efforts that you have near-complete control over. It doesn’t rest on prospects’ unpredictable behavior or potential slip-ups on your part.
It’s solely a matter of effort. Make sure you’re doing everything in your power to improve your lackluster sales performance — this is one of the few factors that are purely in your power to change.
Discipline is obviously an important component of giving your sales efforts some life, but that trait often doesn’t occur naturally. It might take a little push to get there — some degree of accountability.
In many cases, check-ins with management to track your progress and pinpoint areas for improvement can keep you on your toes and set you in the right direction.
If you keep your issues to yourself, the trouble you’re having might get away from you — and if your manager goes without knowing about your problems for too long, you could find yourself in some serious hot water when they find out.
Your manager wants to help you get the most out of your efforts. It’s their job to help see you through rough patches. If you’re struggling, it’s in your best interest to involve them in some capacity, take their advice, and apply what you might learn from them.
Odds are you’re not the first person at your company to every run into the kind of problems you’re dealing with. No salesperson is perfect, and everyone — in almost every line of work — runs into a rough patch every now and then.
It can help to reach out to other reps on your team that have overcome dry spells to see what kind of adjustments they made to get there. But you don’t have to limit yourself to your immediate peers.
Don’t be too reluctant to reach out to more senior reps at your organization. There’s a good chance they’ve been in your position, and even if they haven’t, they can still provide valuable insight about strategies and concepts that helped guide their sales efforts.
Hitting a wall is a reality that any salesperson can face at any point in their career. Making no sales can be demoralizing, but it’s important you keep your head up when you reach that point.
It’s crucial to remain patient, persistent, and proactive in the face of zero sales. Don’t let a rough patch break you. Leverage the resources at your disposal, and seek guidance from anyone who can help set you on the right course. And above all else, keep grinding — there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel.