If you’re a sales manager, you were likely chosen for the job because you had great success as a salesperson. Management is confident you know how to sell and figures you’ll share your secrets with your reps. And you do your best, but end up frustrated when most don’t meet their quotas. Sound familiar? Here’s the hard truth: being a star salesperson differs from teaching others to be star salespeople. In fact, they’re totally different jobs.  ..read more

As a sales manager, you’re responsible for shepherding your reps to success. After all, if they don’t meet their quotas, you have to answer for the hit to their numbers. The problem is that you’re often not given a clear path to help your salespeople improve.  After all, most sales managers used to be star salespeople.  The C-suite often believes that you can magically transfer your skills to your salesforce. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy!  While you can’t wave a magic wand, the best alternative is implementing a strong L&D program that empowers sales reps to meet their ..read more

Companies are working harder than ever to increase sales—only to see a plummeting payoff. People used to say that technology was going to replace sales reps, but this prediction hasn’t come true. On the contrary, all companies—even those with massive tech stacks—are hiring more salespeople than ever before.  Despite all these tech investments, employees are working harder, doing more, spending more, and taking more risks. Clearly, something isn’t working ..read more

At Lift, we believe that user stories are invaluable growth tools that help us zero in on the purpose of every project or implementation. That’s why we lead every engagement by writing them—but we often discover that most clients aren’t familiar with user stories’ benefits. If they are, they usually think of them in terms of software development, where user stories originated.  However, we’d argue that user stories are invaluable across all RevOps functions for a number of reasons: Reducing the complexity associated with innovation and change  Increasing the velocity and alignment o ..read more

Human beings make a lot of decisions—up to 35,000 each day. If you’re trying to influence a “decision-maker” at a B2B company, they may be making even more decisions than that. If we had to use our conscious mind for each one, we’d curl up into a fetal position, completely overwhelmed by the mental load of making choices.  That’s where the subconscious brain comes in. It handles 99 percent of decisions; it also does the groundwork on the remaining one percent before handing off the relay baton to the conscious brain ..read more

Sustainably growing a business is fucking hard. It will test the mental fortitude, resilience, personal relationships, and flat-out endurance of those who lead or drive meaningful contributions to the organization’s growth. Even when things are going well, it’s not easy. I often share with friends that I’m never sure I’ve got the tiger by its tail or if it actually has me. So far, luckily, there are no visible scars ..read more

In 2015, HubSpot launched a new CRM to complement its existing marketing automation and sales applications. Moreover, they announced with great fanfare that the CRM would be free.  It was a bold, disruptive move. One that I have cheered for almost nine years. Since that announcement, they often reinforced that the CRM would be free forever. As the great Inspector Jacques Clouseau would say, "Not anymore ..read more

Recent research shows that the average SaaS tech stack has 291 tools—and while there’s year-to-year fluctuation, the overall number continues to climb. That makes sense, given that the number of available tools increases exponentially each year ..read more

Houston, we have a problem. A recent Bain & Company survey revealed that 62% of B2B companies didn’t get the payoff they expected from a CRM implementation.  The survey revealed that a much lower percentage of employees at dissatisfied companies used the CRM in ways that supported existing customers and the sales process. In other words, these companies struggled with poor CRM utilization, which stands in the way of revenue growth, growth velocity, and higher margins. As this RevOps Show episode explained, lack of utilization can be linked back to an overly complicated CRM implementat ..read more

  If you’re making a list and checking it twice and don’t know what to get your RevOps team members — who are definitely on the nice list — you’re in luck! We polled our team to see what’s on their holiday wish lists — and they have thoughts. They compiled a list of things they’d like to receive this year, along with well-considered, thoughtful recommendations for a few things they already own and love. If you have a special RevOps person in your life, read on for recommendations for tech, subscriptions, workspace items, and some items that are just plain fun ..read more