Sales

🧙 While we all hate selling when we are the ones being sold to, it’s undeniable that the power of persuasion is key to our own success. Copywriting pro Jason McBride put together an entertaining write up on what makes sales copy successful, looking at 3 of the most charismatic professions: politicians, con artists, and magicians. His secret to powerful sales copy is not the writing itself, but to preach to the nearly converted. Instead of writing to your general target market, he urges marketers to write to the reader who is already looking for a solution so you avoid wasting time on the skeptics. He also explains that effective sales copy needs to show empathy in order to prove that you understand and “are one of them”, before giving them the facts they need to justify their choice.

☎️ B2B SaaS demand generation is a hard game, so teams are willing to try every and all avenues to find what brings in quality leads. Cold calling exec decision makers is one tactic that often pops up, but in 2021 can we finally call telemarketing dead? The Bridge Group, Sales Hacker, and Modern Sales Pros partnered to create a survey on today’s sales methods to answer the question, and here’s what they found – only roughly 50% of execs still used office phones (no surprise) and 60% had a negative reaction to someone calling their mobile, even if the number was in their email signature. 21% still noted that a phone call was the best way to grab their attention, so there is a minority that will always appreciate a dial, but we expect that number will continue to dwindle.

🦖 Strategic pricing can give you an edge in competitive markets, but at some point undercutting becomes predatory – companies who are able to bite the bullet on initial losses can price at big discounts, forcing others out of the market. Once the competition is gone, they go right back to original pricing. You rarely see SaaS businesses affected by this dynamic because the cost to service software is so low, but you do see many companies racing to the bottom in an attempt to win on price alone. Our take – buyers who prioritize pricing above all else are the most fickle, and pricing based on the value your product offers will lead to more enduring customers.

🔔 When founders start to build their sales team, the biggest hurdle is often not knowing how to properly incentive reps. David Sacks broke down some simple math on how you can set your team up, along with the key elements per position and standard rates of you will find today. It has a great chart of the average base salary and quota by territory (for example, SMB vs mid-market or Enterprise) and what expected OTE should look like. It also answers some of the heavily debated sales structure questions, like if reps should get credit for expansions (he suggests giving expansion credit during the customer’s first year) and renewals (should also get credit here, at a much lower rate).