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Selling Saas

Duane Dufault

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In the SellingSaas Podcast (Formerly the Sales Leader Network) we break down the topics of Go To Market strategies, Revenue Acquisition, and my favorite topic of Sales Leadership. We have a few versions of the show where we have the traditional guest episode when I bring on someone who is an expert in one of the topics just mentioned, then there will episodes where I’ve been a guest on another show that I share on this show for you, and then there will be solo episodes from yours truly where ...
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In this episode, they discuss the value of consultants with multiple skill sets who can handle various aspects of a project, potentially replacing the need for multiple agency roles. Both hosts are consultants who bring multiple skill sets to a problem and can do the job of three or four people. They also emphasize the importance of patience and ta…
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Chuck Reigrut emphasizes the importance of building relationships and providing personalized training to gain trust and make a positive impact on customers. They mention that meeting customers in person, rather than relying solely on online interactions, can help create stronger connections and show that the company is invested in finding solutions…
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Understanding oneself and the target audience is crucial for leadership and sales success. Kristie Jones emphasizes the importance of self-awareness in reaching the next level in one's career and life. This applies to both leadership and sales. Just as selling to the wrong persona can harm one's ability to succeed, not understanding one's own stren…
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Lloyed emphasizes the importance of building and leveraging a community for personal growth and success. They highlight that communities provide a sense of connection and camaraderie that is often lacking in business environments. He defines community-led growth as the connection among people with shared values who come together to learn and suppor…
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When scaling up to larger customers, there are five key areas that require attention. The first is winning business, which involves attracting and securing new customers. The second key area is crystal-clear ICP. Not just your partnership's ICP, but who EXACTLY fits the solution your partnership solves problems for. And you do this by truly underst…
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Duane Dufault and Jakub Hon discuss the importance of hiring individuals with a proven track record and experience in the industry. They emphasize that hiring someone who has already been successful in a similar role increases the probability of success for the company. Jakub emphasizes the importance of establishing a solid foundation and process …
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Duane Dufault highlights the importance of promptly reaching out to leads, especially if they have completed all the necessary steps and activations early on. This is because these leads may be trying to identify any flaws or potential issues with the product before presenting it to their superiors. He suggests that if a significant lead enters the…
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Carl Pihl emphasizes the significance of considering not only the primary keyword but also the associated subjects and topics in terms of SEO. Many SEO professionals tend to solely focus on the primary keyword and overlook the related subjects and topics. However, the speaker believes that these associated subjects are actually the most crucial and…
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The episode highlights two types of segmentation: demographic segmentation and behavioral segmentation. Demographic segmentation categorizes individuals based on common demographic information such as their role, industry, and annual revenue of their business. This type of segmentation focuses on basic characteristics that can typically be found on…
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Duane Dufault and Adam Jay discuss the importance of prioritizing tasks and having a realistic understanding of timeframes to achieve better outcomes and avoid falling into the trap of impatience. They highlight the common problem of founders and venture capitalists who believe that everything is urgent and a priority, leading to a sense of impatie…
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The episode also touches on the mindset of sales managers. Duane Dufault points out that many first-time sales managers, as well as senior sales managers, often have a misguided perspective on their role. They may focus too much on managing from a numbers perspective, constantly monitoring metrics and performance indicators. Duane suggests that tru…
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Sam Jacobs and Duane Dufualt discuss the concept of "growing at any cost" in the tech industry. They question whether this strategy of aggressively grabbing market share and spending large amounts of money actually pays off in the long run. They mention companies like Slack and UiPath as examples of successful businesses that have grown rapidly. Th…
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They emphasizes the importance of always being prepared and practicing in sales. They mention that in order to perform at a high level when it counts, one must put in many hours of practice beforehand. They argue that simply showing up and practicing on the spot is not enough. Matt, believes that this mentality of continuous practice is missing in …
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Duane Dufualt emphasizes the importance of asking better form questions on lead forms in order to determine the potential ROI of leads and target higher value leads. The host suggests that simply asking for a name and email is not sufficient and does not provide enough information to assess the potential value of a lead. To determine the potential …
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This episode touches on the ongoing focus on top-of-funnel lead generation for organizations, regardless of the target audience. Matt Green acknowledges that this has been a challenge for organizations even prior to Q3 of the previous year. However, with the introduction of AI-based tools like chat and GPT, coupled with the fact that every organiza…
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In the episode, Duane and Jordan discuss the importance of learning from and observing successful sales reps to develop the necessary skills for success in sales. They mention that many sales training programs and resources focus on building habits and skill sets around specific metrics and strategies. However, they argue that once a sales rep has …
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Duane emphasizes the importance of integrating product usage data into the CRM, particularly in a sales-led motion within a product-led growth strategy. He highlights the significance of sales teams having access to this data and knowing how to leverage it during the sales process. By having visibility into the prospect's product usage, sales reps …
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Jordan Kennedy discusses the importance of focusing on the outcome and value of a product or service rather than solely on its functionality. They explain that when companies become too focused on demonstrating product features and conducting feature-heavy demos, they can lose the emotional connection with the customer and hinder the sales process.…
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In this episode, Michelle Benfer underscores the importance of meaningful thinking and strategic thinking as opposed to simply focusing on tasks. They express the need for time to think and concentrate on reports and strategic work without being constantly tied up in meetings. They acknowledge that having too many meetings does not benefit their te…
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This episode underscores the importance of candidates possessing business acumen and a genuine interest in understanding the inner workings of the company they work with. Michelle discusses how this is vital for selling to mid-market, enterprise, and even some SMBs. They acknowledge that candidates, especially younger ones, often lack interest in t…
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Duane Dufault discusses the tier one MQLs should be the sales team's top priority for outreach and engagement during the trial phase. These tier one MQLs are identified as the leads with the highest potential for ROI. Duane emphasizes the importance of promptly contacting these leads, as it greatly increases the likelihood of conversion. The sales …
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Steffen Hedebrandt discussed the benefits of diversified thinking in a team and suggested that pairing intuitive and rational people together can be beneficial. They explain that having a mix of different perspectives and approaches can help a team think differently and come up with more innovative solutions. They also emphasize the importance of f…
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In this episode, they also discuss the gap between cool marketing tactics and their actual effectiveness. Duane points out that there is a lot of fluff on LinkedIn and other platforms, where people talk about optimizing chat, G.P.T., and A.I. However, the challenge lies in measuring the effectiveness of these tactics. Duane emphasizes the importanc…
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The episode highlights the significance of founder-led sales for startups. The founder must understand how different personas frame the problem they are solving, as there could be various versions of the problem. This understanding is crucial in developing an appropriate sales pitch for each role. Customer feedback obtained through founder-led sale…
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In this episode, Duane Dufault, talks about the process of going from an inbound, product-led growth SMB type of company to outbound and upstream. He explains the six primary steps to do that, starting with heavy segmentation of the internal customer base to figure out who fits the criteria of larger customers. He also talks about the importance of…
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The episode emphasizes that customer success is the most important department in a company. While acquiring new customers is important, it is equally important to focus on keeping existing customers. The revenue generated from a customer who stays with a company for a long time is exponential compared to the revenue generated from a customer who on…
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This episode also stresses the importance of self-awareness and intuition for entrepreneurs. Martin believes that self-awareness is the most valuable trait he possesses as an entrepreneur, as it allows him to know when he is doing the right thing and when he is not. He advises trusting your gut 100% when making decisions and suggests that intuition…
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The conversation shifts to entrepreneurship and the mindset of problem-solving. Duane emphasizes the importance of being a problem solver first and foremost, and how this skill can lead to finding business opportunities. They discuss the obsessive behavior that comes with solving problems and the challenge of determining which problems to prioritiz…
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The conversation covers the use of trust to accelerate sales cycles and create new opportunities. A strategic sales rep might use the same approach to expand into new buying centers or a customer success rep might use it to retain customers by doing a relationship audit. The user experience has been reimagined with an introduction request into some…
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This conversation discusses the use of AI in sales and how it can help automate and scale the process of identifying relationships and crafting messages. It is stressed, however, that AI should be used to prepare the sales rep to take action and not to overpersonalize emails at scale. It is acknowledged that AI without human intervention is not as …
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Some of the conversation between Duane Dufault and Dan Goodman talks about how to identify red flags when selecting a new company to work for. Dan suggests that one red flag is if the CEO is adamant about only having themselves talk to the Board of Directors. He suggests that this is a sign of the CEO's narcissistic and egotistical attitude. Duane …
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The conversation discussed the importance of focus when it comes to marketing and gaining customers for a business. It was noted how companies often go too broad and try to market to everyone, leading to unrealistic growth numbers. It was advised to find a repeatable process to gain customers and build a product that solves an important problem. An…
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In Ton Dobbe's book, he has connected business with sports and used an anecdote of his own experience of visiting Nazareth in Portugal and witnessing the enormous waves there. He then explains how he used this experience as the basis for his story in his book. He then goes on to explain how he used big wave surfing as the theme and storyline behind…
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Enablement plays an important role in any organization, as it sets the strategic vision, demystifies success, and helps equip people to go to market in the best way possible. Revenue enablement, as it is now termed, supports the entire organization, not just go-to-market teams. It educates the entire organization on the importance of their role and…
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This conversation is about how to use the data from sales pipelines to increase success. To do this, one needs to find the wins in the sales pipeline. This can be done by looking at the conversion rate from connected calls and scheduled meetings. Additionally, one should track the total calls, successful calls, and follow-ups to see what is working…
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Part of their conversation is about the biggest challenge a non-technical, non-product founder faces when building software. The founder has been doing this full time since July, and their main concern is to make sure that the software they are building does not become employee tracking software. The founder has learned that the implementation, set…
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Duane discussed the importance of conducting regular funnel analysis for marketing and sales. He suggested that this should be done at least once a month and could be done as often as once a week, depending on the sales cycle and the number of exposures for the marketing and sales cycles. Additionally, he mentioned that there is a version of this a…
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The conversation is about the toxic working environment found in many businesses. Dan Goodman, who has heard many stories from people in confidence about their experiences with toxic workplaces, Since their experiences have frequently left them feeling defeated, the people who are telling these stories are searching for sympathy, understanding, and…
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In this episode, Duane defines go to market and funnel as the steps in customer acquisition, starting from lead to churn. Duane then explains why it is important to do a funnel audit and a customer audit to understand where to focus time and resources. This can help determine if the company has product market fit, message market fit, and go to mark…
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The conversation between Duane Dufault and guest Sarah Filipiak focuses on effective leadership and coaching. Sarah believes that in order to unlock someone's potential, a leader needs to understand their individual motivation and create a holistic approach to coaching. They discussed that while some may say a lack of skill is holding someone back,…
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This conversation emphasizes the importance of having a clear product-led growth strategy when launching a product. PLG is a great way to establish product-market fit, but it requires a well-defined messaging strategy and a clear activation path that is easy to follow. The product team, product marketers, UI people, and data analysis people are all…
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Mark Kosoglow discusses how the traditional approach of acquiring new customers using large amounts of money and resources is no longer viable in the current climate. Instead, Mark suggests investing in existing customers to improve retention, increase referrals, and reduce deal cycles, as well as lowering marketing budgets. This 'friends and famil…
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Hiring a new sales rep for a startup can be tricky. It's important to have the proper process and foundation in place before doing so, or things can quickly go wrong. The whole company may have fewer than ten employees, and most startups don't know what questions to ask to scale. A sales rep needs leads, a market to call into, a CRM, and a sales pr…
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The conversation discussed the core fundamentals of management and how they can be improved. He then discussed how there are two core aspects to management: team meetings and one-on-one meetings. Nick noted that at large companies, it was difficult to get managers to show up for one-on-one meetings as they prioritized customer meetings over them. N…
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The conversation discusses the stages of a SaaS sales process. The first stage is Connect, which involves the sales team, automated outreach processes, or product-led growth strategies. The second stage is discovery, which is different from qualification, which happens during the connect stage. Discovery is about understanding the prospect and thei…
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Katie discusses the gap in her experience when transitioning from college to a sales role, having spent her time in college singing and dancing instead of studying a tech or business background. She learned that it was okay to ask questions during sales conversations, even if they didn't have the background knowledge that the person they were speak…
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This conversation is about vanity metrics and how to identify them. Duane explains how they were looking at the trial of a SaaS business, and the motto was more trials equals more revenue, but that wasn't the case. Therefore, understanding what drives the best customers and optimizing those KPIs and metrics are the keys to success. Duane emphasized…
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Mark suggested that sales reps need to give a bit back to the prospect to balance out all the questions they are asking. They can do this by sharing an article or study that is relevant to the conversation or by asking the prospect if they have seen any of the trends mentioned. In this way, the sales representative can avoid feeling like they are i…
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The key is to find a balance between the two methods. Paid marketing can be used to quickly drive traffic, and organic marketing can be used to create relationships and build trust. It is also important to measure the success of each method and adjust your strategy accordingly. In the end, the best strategy is to combine both paid and organic marke…
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Jonathan Mahan says that you should focus on certain parts of a role play to make it more realistic and help you practice it better. They suggest breaking down the role play into key moments and practicing them individually, such as focusing on the response to a trigger phrase or particular questions to ask. They suggest focusing on the tone and th…
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