To support our family of portfolio companies navigate these turbulent times, we have been hosting a series of webinars and roundtables, focused on sharing business fundamentals and best practices for c-level executives. We recently brought together members of the TCV family for the quarterly TCV Sales Ops Roundtable featuring Ronnie Gurion, COO of Clio, Matt Cox, VP of Rev Ops at FinancialForce, and Fred Sanders, VP of Rev Ops at OneSource Virtual.
We gained some great insights. Here are our top 10 takeaways:
- Early in the Go-To-Market planning process, push for the key strategic pillars. This will allow the rest of the teams to march in unison. Unless there are fundamental shifts in the business, 70 to 80% of strategic pillars should carry over year over year.
- Planning is an expansive process, but too often it becomes sales-centric. You often see account expansion get the short straw of resources, and you often miss some of the biggest opportunities for growth through in-app or product opportunities. Often, the latter have a bigger impact than the sales-centric approach, so be aware.
- The most effective way to kill a sales team is through a poorly thought through sales comp plan. And to insert nails further in the coffin, deliver that plan late.
- We often see companies rolling out new product and simply telling Sales, “Here’s your new quota.” But adding quota or new product targets to sales teams in this way does not create alignment. We find the most competent and most confident resources in the company are the best set of resources to use in introducing new product. It also works as a learning tool when you more broadly introduce the new product, as it sorts out all sorts of operational issues and gives your top resources visibility into the management team in a new way.
- Rather than having annual budgets, we optimize on a few metrics like LTV/CAC or percentage of sales team above quota. That gives leaders a pathway to invest more in Sales in an uncapped way.
- When you look at your win-rates, model it out by stage. What moved the needle from stage to stage? Do you know? How closely did your propensity to buy models align to win-rates? Do the same for losses as well to make sure reps are not just warehousing deals.
- If you are part of a private equity team, make sure to connect with your peers at other companies. We have found it useful to run meet-ups with specific vendors that have a center of gravity in the portfolio where they can share what the best companies are doing. It’s always useful to learn where companies are hitting obstacles as well, of course.
- Many companies build propensity to purchase models primarily focused on new logo growth. Don’t forget to model out propensity to spend for your existing accounts as well. That is just as important in your planning and prioritization process, but often given less focus by sales leaders.
- If you are trying to become a platform or moving off a single product, the hot question is going to be bundling. Prototype this out well in advance.
- When interviewing sales op talent, the best candidates are the ones that did research about you and your addressable market prior to the interview. Make sure you ask candidates about what they know, and where they see potential opportunity to add value based on what they have learned.
TCV runs quarterly roundtables across executive roles to surface best practices, drive networking and road test ideas. We are looking forward to the Q2 TCV Sales Ops Roundtable, where we’ll focus on sales management team best practice, cadences, as well as share the insights of our ever-growing network of battle-tested leaders.
