Ditching ‘Extra is Extra’ to Enhance Gross sales Crew Effectiveness by 50%: Teamwork.com’s Story

How do you go from placing out fires to operating like a well-oiled machine? Properly, the trick may be so simple as prioritizing high quality over amount.

For those who’re rolling your eyes at your display screen proper now, simply hear us out. For eons, salespeople have been informed to make extra calls, ship extra emails, and take extra conferences. However being busy doesn’t depart time for pondering strategically, nurturing buyer relationships, or ensuring your workforce has every part they want — particularly if your organization is rising at lightning pace.

Learn on to learn the way Teamwork.com elevated gross sales effectivity by 50% once they ditched “extra is best” in favor of “higher is best.”

Teamwork.com’s Gross sales Story

Who’re you and what’s Teamwork.com all about?

My title is Beau Brooks and I’m the International VP of Gross sales at Teamwork.com, a mission administration software for consumer work. It’s an all-in-one platform that helps businesses and consumer groups ship initiatives on time and on price range in a single centralized place.

What’s the backstory? How did Teamwork.com get its begin?

The story is fairly cool. In 2007, our founders began an internet company, constructing web sites and different options for purchasers. As their company began to develop, they struggled to maintain up with the mission administration facet of issues. They began in search of software program that might assist handle the consumer facet of the enterprise, however the product they have been in search of didn’t exist. So, they determined to construct one.

The software they constructed ended up being such an enormous success that the founders pivoted the company to concentrate on the platform.

How has the corporate grown since then?

The unique product is now a part of a complete mission administration platform. However, that OG product nonetheless exists at this time as Teamwork.com (formally often called “Teamwork Tasks”). Because the platform grew, so did the corporate. Right this moment, Teamwork.com has over 350 workers and 13 places of work in over six international locations. And within the final 3 years, we’ve undergone a ton of progress and alter.

What was the gross sales method like within the early levels of the enterprise?

Within the early levels, our founders have been doing all of it. Together with the promoting. However they have been product guys, so the gross sales technique was very product centric. The draw back of that’s that when all you’re doing is promoting prospects on a product or characteristic, you’re not constructing deep relationships or serving to prospects perceive the practical and emotional advantages of the platform.

Finally, they employed gross sales leaders from enterprise backgrounds, and their method was to provide folks slightly coaching, throw them in, and begin promoting. They figured folks would swim, however as an alternative, they have been drowning. It’s laborious to remain on monitor if you’re unsure find out how to handle day by day duties and it’s even more durable to show prospects into prospects when you do not absolutely perceive how or why the product you’re promoting helps remedy their issues and desires.

Stroll us by what occurred when the corporate began experiencing fast progress?

Properly, after we went from an organization of 30 to over 300 folks, the gross sales workforce simply couldn’t sustain with the quantity of leads. We have been caught in that previous “Extra, extra, extra. Promote, promote, promote” type of mentality and we bought caught in a vicious cycle the place we might ramp up the closing enterprise, get it closed, after which have to begin yet again each month. It was unscalable.

We needed to hold hiring extra folks, however we weren‘t getting probably the most out of the folks we had, so we have been principally throwing away revenue by not optimizing productiveness. Together with that, we weren’t utilizing a consultative method. That meant we weren’t closing as many offers as we might have, as a result of we have been specializing in pushing options somewhat than connecting with prospects.

These issues, mixed with the truth that our homegrown gross sales instruments didn’t present automation or visibility into the pipeline for a corporation of our measurement, meant we have been consistently placing out fires. It was actually exhausting.

How did you progress out of the firefighting stage and right into a extra strategic section?

To attain scalable, long-term progress, I knew that we needed to cease specializing in amount of leads and begin specializing in high quality — however not simply the standard of our buyer relationships. We additionally wanted to concentrate on the standard of our course of, our technique, even the way in which we prepare our reps.

We took strides like constructing automation within the deal move and guiding reps by the required steps to progress prospects ahead. We leveraged AI sources to foretell lead and deal outcomes, utilizing the info from previous offers to tell extra refined, correct forecasting and utilizing insights about our greatest prospects to arrange a simpler qualification course of.

We began spending additional time creating related gross sales content material that was particular to our prospects, as an alternative of enrolling contacts in sequences with generic emails. We created a brand new compensation plan for BDRs, the place they solely obtain bonuses for the standard leads they generate. And we construct a contemporary quoting course of with approval steps to make sure correct pricing, low cost administration and create robust alignment with our Deal Desk workforce.

Getting access to HubSpot and Gross sales Hub gave us the automation, visibility, and options we would have liked to concentrate on enhancing the way in which we have been approaching and doing issues. With extra time and higher processes in place, the complete gross sales workforce can now work extra strategically and effectively than ever earlier than.

How did you get the workforce on board?

Earlier than we rolled out the platform to the complete firm, gross sales management chosen a number of reps to function HubSpot Champions. The reps got the pre-training and training they wanted to champion the rollout throughout the org.

It was useful to create a gross sales sandbox that allowed reps to check drive the software, observe operating our gross sales course of, with out being afraid to make errors. Gross sales Ops additionally held day by day stand-ups with the workforce to assessment the implementation course of and talk about any challenges that have been popping up. It was actually highly effective to have inside voices praising the platform and it was a terrific alternative for extra peer-to-peer interplay and profession growth.

We have been fast to attach offers to our chat by automation which triggered actual time celebration bulletins for closed received offers throughout the complete workforce. You might be certain the workforce was excited to begin closing offers and getting acknowledged throughout the group!

Stroll us by the evolution of your gross sales course of.

The best course of is clearly outlined, repeatable and designed to show extra prospects into prospects. However with the main focus shifting to high quality, the method wanted to assist us determine our most beneficial prospects, pinpoint inefficiencies, optimize our groups, and nurture buyer relationships. Gross sales Hub gave us full visibility into our gross sales pipeline, which meant we might monitor buyer interactions, determine precious alternatives, and pinpoint inefficiencies so we might work out find out how to begin enhancing our course of.

We checked out what number of SQLs a salesman must be efficient in a given month, and what number of actions they should tackle these results in be efficient. We tracked the typical variety of touchpoints, after we wanted to take motion, and what number of interactions have been wanted to shut a deal.

Getting access to that information in HubSpot made it doable for us to method prospecting as a science and optimize our gross sales course of to make it clear, repeatable, and scalable — which has helped improve the gross sales workforce’s effectivity by 50%.

How did you optimize your gross sales workforce?

Earlier than, we have been hiring folks simply to fulfill the rising variety of leads. And it wasn’t useful or sustainable. So, as an alternative of placing extra butts in seats, spending extra time doing tedious admin duties, and placing extra effort into each doable prospect, we began specializing in doing extra with much less — by profiting from the workforce we already had.

Gross sales Hub helped us optimize the workforce by giving us visibility into how our present reps have been functioning and figuring out in the event that they have been promoting successfully. As soon as the workforce was optimized, we have been capable of decide if we would have liked extra folks. After we did want to rent, we have been in a position to herald the proper folks and supply them with efficient onboarding.

For the reason that key to environment friendly rep ramp up is consistency, we began customizing our gross sales software program to require sure inputs when creating or updating information. For instance, when new alternatives are created, reps should fill in required fields like “firm measurement” — to assist set up robust practices, proper out of the gate.

We additionally arrange reusable playbooks and e-mail sequences for frequent processes and buyer interactions. The impact has been enormous. Within the first six months, alone we have been capable of scale back the typical deal size by 10%.

Inform us about your enablement course of. How has that helped the workforce?

We’ve come a great distance from the “throw them in and see in the event that they swim” days. Even the strongest salesperson goes to battle in the event that they don’t have entry to nice coaching or steerage. As soon as we had entry to HubSpot we had the time and sources to make enablement a precedence — throughout onboarding and after.

Now, our managers use Gross sales Hub to test in and see what’s working for the workforce, and step in if one thing isn’t. It’s been nice to construct shared pipeline dashboards throughout the workforce which have created frequent understanding and expectations in any respect ranges and assist managers laser in to assist with teaching precisely the place it’s wanted. Having perception into efficiency means they will present reps with personalised steerage and related suggestions to assist our folks develop and succeed.

The strong nature of the forecasting software in Hubspot has upped our recreation. Our weekly workforce forecasting conferences are environment friendly and floor the correct offers to debate. Managers can simply monitor modifications in workforce forecast and coach reps with constantly pushed offers. We now have extremely seen forecasting that’s out there all the way in which to the board stage.

For the reason that shift, what’s helped you deepen buyer relationships?

I discover that individuals do not care about what your product can do till they understand how a lot you care about them. And if you’re a salesman, the important thing to doing that’s understanding your prospects’ issues and how one can assist remedy them.

Previously, we didn’t have the bandwidth or instruments to do this. Gross sales Hub modified that. We used playbooks to construct a collection of triggers and checks into our system that tracks prospects’ ache factors and information reps in aggressive deal conditions. We have now additionally added product playbooks in Hubspot making it very quick for reps to entry wanted data. Our workforce is ready to assessment these points and modify their promoting technique to supply every buyer with options tailor-made to their wants. It’s helped us construct deeper relationships, improve our common promoting value by 18% and amp up our win charge by 11%.

How has the workforce benefitted from the less-is-more philosophy?

Ditching the ‘extra is extra’ mentality has basically modified the sport for our reps and managers. It’s helped us improve productiveness, effectivity, and profitability — quick. As of late, our workforce is working like surgeons as an alternative of firefighters — and the high-quality visibility, automation and options that Gross sales Hub has given us has performed a big position in that.

Any recommendation for different rapidly-growing gross sales groups?

Evolve your technique and gross sales course of to concentrate on scalability, effectivity, and long run progress. Optimize your workforce. Prioritize coaching and discovery and search out the correct instruments to amp up gross sales and empower your workforce. And don’t overlook to search out enjoyable methods to have fun workforce wins!