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Use Triangulation Forecasts For Improved Forecast Accuracy and Better Conversations

Use Triangulation Forecasts For Improved Forecast Accuracy and Better Conversations

By Dave Kellogg on May 2, 2021

Ever been in this meeting? CEO:  What’s the forecast? CRO:  Same as before, $3,400K. Director 1:  How do you feel about it? CRO:  Good. Director 2:  Where will we really land? CRO:  $3,400K.  That’s why that’s the forecast. Director 1:  But best case, where do we land? CRO:  Best case, $3,800K. Director 2:  How do […]

Posted in Business, Featured Posts, Startup Lessons | Tagged Forecasting, Pipeline, Pipeline coverage, SaaS, sales, salesops, scaling, startups, To-go coverage, Triangulation forecasts

The Holy Grail of the Repeatable Sales Process:  Is Repeatability Enough?

The Holy Grail of the Repeatable Sales Process: Is Repeatability Enough?

By Dave Kellogg on January 12, 2021

Most of us are familiar with Mark Leslie’s classic Sales Learning Curve and its implications for building the early salesforce at an enterprise startup.  In short, it argues that too many startups put “the pedal to the metal” on sales hiring too early – before they have enough knowledge, process, and infrastructure in place – […]

Posted in Business, Featured Posts | Tagged Culture, Enterprise Sales, process, repeatable sales process, revenue ops, sales, Sales process, salesops, Silicon Valley, startups

Marketing Exists to Make Sales Easier

Marketing Exists to Make Sales Easier

By Dave Kellogg on May 18, 2020

Many moons ago when I was young product marketing manager, I heard a new VP of Marketing speak at a marketing all-hands meeting.  He spoke with a kiwi accent and his name was Chris Greendale.  What he said were six words that changed my career: Marketing exists to make sales easier While this has clearly […]

Posted in Business, Startup Lessons | Tagged Management, marketing, marketing mission, marketing police, mission, sales, sales marketing alignment, startups

Does Enterprise SaaS Need a Same-Store Sales Metric?

Does Enterprise SaaS Need a Same-Store Sales Metric?

By Dave Kellogg on March 3, 2020

Enterprise SaaS and retailers have more in common than you might think. Let’s think about retailers for a minute. Retailers drive growth in two ways: They open new stores They increase sales at existing stores Opening new stores is great, but it’s an expensive way to drive new sales and requires a lot of up-front […]

Posted in Startup Lessons | Tagged ARR, Metrics, sales, sales productivity, salesops, same-rep sales

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10 Charts That Will Change Your Perspective Of AI In Marketing

By Louis Columbus on July 14, 2019

Top-performing companies are more than twice as likely to be using AI for marketing (28% vs. 12%) according to Adobe’s latest Digital Intelligence Briefing. Retailers are investing $5.9B this year in AI-based marketing and customer service solutions to improve shoppers’ buying experiences according to IDC. Financial Services marketers lead all other industries in AI application adoption, with 37% […]

Posted in Business, Featured Posts, Technology / Software, Trends & Concepts | Tagged AI, Artificial intelligence, Louis Columbus' blog, machine learning, marketing, sales

Research Report: Improving Go-to-Market Results with Constellation’s ACF

Research Report: Improving Go-to-Market Results with Constellation’s ACF

By R "Ray" Wang on January 16, 2019

Apply the Account Categorization Framework to Succeed in Account-Based Strategies An account-based strategy model needs to focus on re-establishing relationships. With a very-well-defined list of business-to-business contacts, the go-to-market strategy requires a disciplined approach to re-engage with customers. Unfortunately, most field organizations are saddled with tech-laden complexity. Constellation Research suggests that clients put human relationships […]

Posted in Business, Featured Posts, Technology / Software, Trends & Concepts | Tagged account based strategy, account categorization framework, Apps Strategy, best practices, Business Transformation, C-Suite, CDO, CEO, CFO, Chief Collaboration Officer, Chief Creative Officer, Chief Customer Officer, Chief Data Officer, Chief Digital Officer, Chief executive officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief HR Officer, Chief information officer, Chief Information Security Officer, Chief Innovation Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, Chief People Officer, Chief procurement officer, Chief Revenue Officer, Chief Sales Officer, Chief Security Officer, Chief Service Officer, Chief Technology Officer, CHRO, CIO, CMO, Constellation Research, COO, CRM, Digital Business, Digital Disruption, digital marketing, Digital Strategy, Digital Transformation, DigitalBiz, digitaltransformation, enterprise applications, enterprise apps, Enterprise apps strategy, enterprise software, experience management, growth, innovation, jump start growth, Leadership, R “Ray” Wang;, Research Report, rwang0, sales, sales effectiveness, sales strategies, Software Insider, SoftwareInsider, trends, vendor strategy

10 Ways Machine Learning Is Revolutionizing Sales

10 Ways Machine Learning Is Revolutionizing Sales

By Louis Columbus on January 3, 2019

Sales teams adopting AI are seeing an increase in leads and appointments of more than 50%, cost reductions of 40%–60%, and call time reductions of 60%–70% according to the Harvard Business Review article Why Salespeople Need to Develop Machine Intelligence. 62% of highest performing salespeople predict guided selling adoption will accelerate based on its ability rank potential opportunities […]

Posted in Business, Featured Posts, Technology / Software, Trends & Concepts | Tagged Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, Artificial intelligence, Eightfold, HubSpot, Louis Columbus' blog, machine learning, MARKETING ANALYTICS, Marketing Automation, sales, salesforce, Salesforce Einstein, Salesforce State of Sales Survey, selling

That Super-Successful VP of Sales.  Great?  Or Just Lucky?

That Super-Successful VP of Sales. Great? Or Just Lucky?

By Jason M. Lemkin on February 18, 2015

I get sent this resume to review all the time.  Director+ of Sales at Yammer / Salesforce / Successfactors / Pick Your Brand Name SaaS Company.  Took Hot Start-Up from $0 to $30m as VPS from Day 0.  Was there “early” through IPO and did amazing things. That all sounds impressive, for sure.  But was […]

Posted in Business | Tagged Building a Sales Team, Entrepreneurship, Hiring & Retention, SaaS, SaaStr, sales, startups

Why CAC is Usually Irrelevant in Early-ish Stage SaaS Companies (vs. B2C Where It’s Critical)

Why CAC is Usually Irrelevant in Early-ish Stage SaaS Companies (vs. B2C Where It’s Critical)

By Jason M. Lemkin on January 30, 2015

I recently meet with a very high-growth “XaaS” company.  Not software as a service, but one that provides some version of humans-as-a-service.  And after huge top-line growth, they were struggling now with CAC.  They’d fueled their hyper growth with a combination of Adwords and Groupons and Facebook Ads and Twitter Cards.  And when that party […]

Posted in Business, Featured Posts | Tagged Entrepreneurship, Marketing & Partnerships, Metrics & Operations, SaaS, SaaStr, sales, startups

How to Ensure Your First 2 Sales Reps Actually Work Out

How to Ensure Your First 2 Sales Reps Actually Work Out

By Jason M. Lemkin on January 28, 2015

A long-time reader, first time caller recently wrote in to ask a question that pretty much everyone asks some variant of: If you had to force rank these items in terms of what we should primarily be looking for in these first sales reps, how would you rank them? – has sold SaaS before (as […]

Posted in Business | Tagged Building a Sales Team, Entrepreneurship, Hiring & Retention, SaaS, SaaStr, sales, startups

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