Whether you’re a startup or a scale up, repeatable sales processes are key to building on past successes and laying the groundwork for future growth. But it can be difficult to know when to start, how to start, and how to know which pieces of the funnel to lock in or improve. Without processes you might have a dozen reps that are going it alone, with no way to replicate success. Ross Rich knows something about sales processes as the CEO and co-founder of Accord. Accord is a customer-facing collaboration workspace for B2B sales, onboarding, and success. In the past, Ross was one of the first sales hires at Stripe (which now has over 500 reps), so he knows about what it takes to build reliable sales processes at every stage of growth.
It’s not what you start with, but when you start… When you’ve got about 10-20 customers, that’s the right time to start thinking about processes. It’s not before then when you’ve got one person paying you. And it’s probably too late when you’ve got 50-100 customers, and every rep is doing something different.
Ross Rich
Often, it’s the CEO that’s closing the first deals, but knowing which kind of sales leader to bring in next can be the key to building out repeatable sales processes. Ross says, “the process starts with the person.” SDRs or junior AEs typically won’t have the experience necessary to create repeatable processes, and neither will a more VP type who has management experience but none with your product. When you find the balance and hire the right person, you can start to outline your customer journey, test, and iterate on processes.
In this episode of SaaS Open Mic, Ross and I discuss creating repeatable revenue processes and:
- Customer journey mapping
- Improving the funnel
- Positioning and sales/marketing alignment
- How to know when to iterate on your processes
- Personas and PMF
- Revenue generation responsibilities beyond the sales organization
- Relationship building
Hope you enjoy this SaaS Open Mic episode!
