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Welcome to the Sales Transformation Podcast, the definitive stop for leaders driving change in the sales world. Hosted by Kevin Warner, we dive deep into the minds of Founders, CEOs, VPs of Sales, and Sales Development Leaders from trailblazing startups to industry-leading public companies.
Our mission is simple: to illuminate the path to extraordinary sales leadership. We explore a broad spectrum of sales territories, from the intricacies of Founder Led Sales and Outbound Sales to the transformative potential of Technology in Sales and Social Selling. Whether it's mastering your CRM, optimizing conversions, scaling sales teams, or engineering a complete Sales Transformation, our conversations are set to challenge the status quo and redefine sales success.
With a new content every day of the week, we bring you unfiltered interviews with the luminaries of sales, people who have not just succeeded but transformed the way we think about sales. Kevin Warner also shares sharp, tactical sales tips every week, packing decades of sales wisdom into bite-sized insights.
So, if you're ready to rewrite the sales rulebook and learn from the best in the business, the Sales Transformation Podcast is your ticket. Write us a review, share the show, and join us on this journey of sales evolution. Let's transform the way we sell, together!
Welcome back to another episode of sales transformation brought to you by Leadium. In this episode, we've got Jeff Torbeck back on the show to discuss the importance of making data driven decisions in driving revenue. Colin, the mic is yours.
Collin Mirchell:Alright. Welcome back to another episode of sales transformation brought to you by Leadium. I'm your host, Colin Mitchell. And today, we've got Jeff Torbeck on. He is back for a second time.
Collin Mirchell:And the last time we had, Jeff on, we talked a little bit about how the good old days of revenue at all cost does not work. And today, we're gonna dig into something, a little bit different. But before we do dive in, Jeff, why don't you give people a little bit of background?
Jeff Torbeck:Awesome. Thanks, Colin. Good to be back on. Yeah. I'm the VP of revenue at Gun.
Jeff Torbeck:Io. I've been in marketplaces for the last 10 years with stints at LinkedIn, hired, build a go to market platform at Betts, and then, a nursing platform at clipboard. And now I'm back in the tech space. And so, I'm really looking to grow the marketplace space because I think it's the the nice meeting in between, you know, doing it yourself or having to pay agencies for every single hire that you do.
Collin Mirchell:Yeah. And you've got quite the experience and background in marketplaces specifically.
Jeff Torbeck:Yeah. I I keep getting pulled back into it. I really wanna find one that we can take to the moon and and really kinda make a difference because I do think hiring in general can be a better experience for both sides. Right? Companies can see less resumes.
Jeff Torbeck:Candidates can, you know, either get to the no faster or at least start having conversations with companies, because I think it's especially through 2023, it's very frustrating to see a lot of people not have jobs for 9 months, reach out to a 1000 people or a 1000 job posts never hear back. So it would be great to have a better way for people to find the opportunities that they really want.
Collin Mirchell:Yeah. Yeah. Well, last time we talked about, you know, kind of how the landscape has changed a lot. And today, we're gonna dive into something that I know that, you know, you have a a lot of information to share on, but it's about making, you know, data driven decisions, you know, which I think is something that everybody's kind of leading towards as there's not just this, you know, revenue at all costs, which we talked about in the last episode, where we can just hire more people, you know, do more outreach, and hopefully get those, you know, single digit conversions that everybody's hoping for. Yeah.
Collin Mirchell:So just kinda curious. Your thoughts. What are what are some of the data that should be looked at in order to make good decisions for driving revenue?
Jeff Torbeck:Yeah. That's a great question. I think when you think about the way I think about data driven decisions is and why it's so important today is we're seeing the shift to smaller teams. Right? You don't really see companies that are like, hey.
Jeff Torbeck:We're hiring 50 AEs to make our team this big. It's really like, we wanna hire 20 or we wanna have an AE team of 10 or 15. And to be able to do that, you have to understand what your true metrics are. Right? If you're inbound heavy or you're outbound heavy, how many leads are you really gonna get, and can you feed everybody in the organization?
Jeff Torbeck:Because there's there's 2 sides to this. Right? Like, you gotta have enough leads and and opportunities coming in, and, obviously, you gotta convert them in a good enough rate to get to your number. But you also gotta give people enough opportunities and people being your the folks that work for you, enough opportunities that they have a path a clear path to their number. Right?
Jeff Torbeck:And I think what we're gonna see over the next year or 2 or things like that is a shift away from, like, the revenue at all cost motion where the old school model was if 60% of your team hits quota, that's great. I mean, I remember that at LinkedIn and Salesforce and things like that. And I think we forgot that, like, well, then you have 40% of the org that is unhappy. Right? And you can start to create these, like, toxic backroom chats about how they're not happy, they're not being fed, they have bad territories, blah blah blah blah.
Jeff Torbeck:And so it's when you lean into the data, it's really looking into how do I give them a very clear path to be successful. Right? One of the one of the things I like to do is say, if you're gonna raise quota or you're gonna lower quota, are you gonna change how you calm people? Can you back it up with data to show how that doesn't affect them that much? Right?
Jeff Torbeck:Obviously, there's change and, like, when you raise quota, yes, it should be technically harder to get there, but you should be raising quota, like, when you know your ACV is going up. You don't have to double the amount of deals that you get and things like that because is that really realistic for your organization to get? Right? That's gonna help you with profitability. Everybody's focused on CAC and all this other stuff to get there.
Jeff Torbeck:And early on, like, your CAC is usually pretty bad because you just gotta spend like crazy to get out there, but the goal should be to lower that, right, to make that number as small as possible, whether that's through branding like we talked about on the last call, social, building in building in public, or, you know, the network ways where it's like you're building something so good that people are referring you to others. Hey. We really love this product. You should chat. That's how you can start to really lean in to this, like, multichannel approach, but you have to have the data to say, like, how can we take advantage of these?
Jeff Torbeck:And then are the changes that we're doing, whether it's to your inbound, whether it's to a referral program, whether it's to, like, networking for outbounding, is it actually changing how we're working? Right? And whether you look at that month over month, quarter over quarter, you can't just look at it at the end of the year and be like, hey. We're gonna give this a year to run. Like, you gotta be able to have that data to understand when we need to make changes.
Collin Mirchell:Yeah. So there's a lot to dig into there. I guess I think the question probably most people would have is, well, how the heck do I track all this data? Like, do you have some suggestions on how you do it? Tech stack recommendations, you know, things they could build out in the CRM?
Collin Mirchell:What's kinda let's say, if we were to go basic level, and then kinda take it from there.
Jeff Torbeck:Yeah. I think the first thing is figuring out a way to get your CRM updated as good as possible. And I think we've all been salespeople before, and I see us. We hate putting all the information in. I think there's, like, this big push to automate everything, but then automating everything doesn't really tell the whole story.
Jeff Torbeck:So I think the first thing is, like, whether you're using a Salesforce or HubSpot or whatever, that's gotta be updated because you can't start to slice the data that you're going from. Right? If you sell an app that pulls data into it so, like, for us, for example, our marketplace is an app, so that pulls data into HubSpot. It also pulls data into tools like Metabase and things like that that help that can help us run better reports to really understand, you know, what is the flow, what's our conversion rate, things like that. I think for, like, basic level, it's like a c r some sort of CRM that's working well and then a way for your reps to really input the data correctly.
Jeff Torbeck:And one of the things I've used at a bunch of different companies is Scratchpad is very good. Basically, automates the way that you put in data. You can also set up a bunch of triggers so that you can understand, did a close date change? Did, you know, this change? Did your forecast change?
Jeff Torbeck:It it automates a little bit on that side. I think the other way to, is you can start to build a lot of stuff out in Gong. Right? Gong's got a great deal page for you to be able to put in, you know, whether you're training people on MEDDIC, whether you use Sandler, really to understand are the data points being there, and then can you track those through the process. I think those are probably the simplest as you go through.
Jeff Torbeck:And then some sort of call recording. Right? Gong's, you know, great. I love Gong. We use Gong at Gunion.
Jeff Torbeck:I've used it at the last three companies I've been at. But there's great tools out there like Fathom, which is cheap. It's free right now. We'll see how long they do that for. But it's a great way to record your calls and then give you summaries so that you can then take those notes better.
Jeff Torbeck:So you're not just on a call just feverishly writing those down, and you're not actually engaged in the call. I think that's some of the biggest changes that I've seen when I was in AE. I mean, I remember the, like, pages of notes I used to take Yeah. Early in my sales. And now it's, like, Gong cuts through most of it.
Jeff Torbeck:Fathom catches most of it. You can ask them to summarize it for you. You're like, oh, that's really interesting. I know a bunch of information that I didn't get. So I think those are pretty simple tools to start with.
Jeff Torbeck:But I think it goes back to if you don't have the data accurately in one place, you can't start to parse data out. And if you haven't identified the data that's important to make sure that you're and and and you've you haven't defined that to your team of why it's important that you're doing it, they're not gonna do it. Right? I remember early in my sales career, it was always like, oh, they just my manager just wants me to update Salesforce because it makes their job easier. And, like, some truth to that, but the reality is that's how people at higher levels are actually making the decision because they can't be in a call every time like you are.
Collin Mirchell:Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, just to kinda recap, table stakes is having your CRM set up properly. Right?
Jeff Torbeck:Yep.
Collin Mirchell:Getting your reps to actually utilize it. Good luck with that. But there is tools that can make that easier, conversational intelligence tools like, you know, Scratchpad. And I think there's even others, that can do a lot of that stuff that, you know, reps typically just don't wanna do. Yep.
Collin Mirchell:That's gonna, you know, get all of the data in the CRM, which is the the biggest hurdle. But then, you know, what are some things that you should be looking at to be making decisions, you know, on, you know, what the next path forward is, as far as for your organization? Right? I think the thing that we can maybe dig into a little bit where I see teams struggle is not properly, you know, having good still sales stages and exit criteria. Mhmm.
Collin Mirchell:Because that's you know, that data is gold as far as why you're, you know, where your reps need help, maybe where they're getting stuck. Or for example, you know, there could be a particular ICP that you're targeting that's always getting stuck at a certain stage, and maybe you shouldn't be targeting. You know, having good sales stages mapped out with good exit criteria, I think, is, at any level, can be very important because there's a lot of, data there that can validate the decisions you make forward.
Jeff Torbeck:Yeah. I think that's, like, spot on, especially because I think reps hold on to deals longer than they should because it makes them feel good to have a big pipeline. And I always tell all my teams, like, I'd rather have a smaller pipeline where, like, most of it closes. Right? I don't need to have, like, some crazy inflated number.
Jeff Torbeck:I know, like, the easiest way to forecast is, like, just have 3 x of your number. Right? That's that's, like, 101 from 10 years ago of of how they looked at it. And to your point, the stage's exes are really good, but I think it's like this push to discovery and really understanding, like, what truly makes it out of discovery. And can you disqualify deals faster to your point based on, is it outside your ICP?
Jeff Torbeck:Is it in your ICP? Are we just hoping this is gonna close, or do we really have kind of a framework, which is why I like to use, like, MEDDIC or something like that to really understand, do we truly understand what we're trying to solve? And then if we do, do we understand how we can kinda get this over the line? And do we understand the people in there that we need to work with to get us over the line? I always say, like, when you're selling through champions and things like that, you need to have the will and the skill of that champion.
Jeff Torbeck:Right? Everybody's typically pretty willing if they're a true champion that they wanna get it done, they see the value. But getting it done, actually asking for something out of budget, getting it approved, being able to present it to maybe your CFO that won't get on a call or something like that, that's the stuff that you really need to kinda lean into. And if you track those with, like, the right staging methodologies or the right, you know, medic setup or something like that, then you can work with your rev ops team to really understand, okay, where are we missing mostly? Are we losing a lot of deals after discovery?
Jeff Torbeck:Are we losing a lot of deals after demo? Why? And then you can start to work on training. Right? And I think we've seen this, like, big flourish of sales enablement being important again, where forever most people didn't really lean into sales enablement.
Jeff Torbeck:But you need to be constantly training your team and having somebody there that can take the findings of the data and help you create the right trainings and then stay on top of these people consistently, that's a huge gap that I think is closing very quickly. And I think we're gonna see and we've already seen it. Like, rev ops is ridiculously important versus what it was 5 years ago. And I think we're gonna see the same thing with sales ops or sales enablement to where they realize, like, managers and VPs and directors, they don't have time to train every rep every week. They definitely wanna be involved in it, but you really need these folks that are really good at training to really help people understand the concepts and then be able to execute them really well so that your current team levels up their ability quarter over quarter, year over year.
Collin Mirchell:Yeah. I mean, especially with this more of a trend of, you know, operating with leaner teams. Right? Like, your people are your most important asset. And so it makes a lot of sense to invest in, hey, let's make sure we're analyzing the right data to see where they need the most help and then enable them to make sure that they get that help.
Collin Mirchell:Right. So that we can increase things like win rates. I mean, it still blows my mind that most companies think, hey. 20 to 30% win rate is actually good. You know, that means you're saying, hey, we can lose 80% of the time.
Collin Mirchell:And that's Yep. That's, that's that's, you know, good, or even great in some some, orgs, you know, which is ridiculous. You know, if if you had properly documented sales stages and you had good, you know, disqualification criteria, you wouldn't have all this fluff in your pipeline, which ultimately spins your wheels and waste a lot of time so that you ain't end up actually losing deals that you shouldn't, that you could have won because you're spending all this energy where you shouldn't. Thanks for tuning in. Please don't forget to like and share so we can help more people transform the way they sell.