I had the pleasure of remodeling a sales team for the first time almost 8 years ago. Back then, I had the benefit of a VP of sales to guide me along the way. The second time around, I had another VP of sales help me build a sales team from scratch. By the third time, I was the VP of sales. My father often says, “It is easier to be wiser in retrospect.”. Every time I moved on from one challenge to another, I introspected: and I like to think that I improved each time. As I am about to complete my third year in Hiver, I have had time to look back on what lessons building sales teams from scratch ..read more

This blog post is meant for customer success leaders, enthusiasts, and managers alike. If you have never heard of an NPS survey or have never been involved in the process of managing an NPS survey: this blog post is not for you. Now that I have that out of the way; and you are still reading this blog post. Let me ask a question? What do you do after your NPS survey? If you are like most customer success teams, scrambling to engage your detractors asking them why they rated you so low. Once that is done, you will move over to your passives and ask them how you could get a higher rating. By the ..read more

Discounts are the proverbial ‘double edged sword’. Discounting is without a doubt a powerful tool in the right hands when used sparingly. Having worked with so many organisations in the past, we have discovered that discounting is largely misused and can cause more harm than good. If you are a sales leader and wondering if your team is using discounting correctly, here are 3 signs that might point to misuse of discounting. Your team is using discounting as a closing technique Are you coming across more and more deals where the deal closed because your team member ended up giving a 10% discount ..read more

Closing deals is an art, how many times have you heard that line? Do you agree? I don’t. Closing deals is a science, it’s about knowing your market and above all standing your ground. Before I dig deep into this post, I want to give you a quick disclaimer: Some of the tips I am going to pass out might be specific to SaaS sales. Having said that, I believe it might help you become a better sales individual overall! With all the above said, let’s dive in and see if I can help you become a better sales individual! You don’t know your competition well enough How many times has a prospect said “Wel ..read more

Long time no post! Things have been busy and work has started on an e-book. Here is an excerpt from the upcoming e-book, watch the space!! How the internet changed selling The first real revolution that changed sales forever was the internet. Before the internet, sales individuals held the power of product knowledge and market knowledge. Google and other search engines changed that. Your buyers are more informed, know their options and above all know who your competition is. Imagine a car salesman before the advent of the internet. The car salesman knew exactly what model had what and you wou ..read more

Most SaaS based organisations will go through multiple iterations of pricing during their lifetime. This means, you are looking at customers base on different pricing plans and with different product plans. To make sure that everyone is on a single pricing plan, you might need to migrate your legacy pricing plan customers to newer pricing, this process is usually called ‘grand-fathering’. Needless to say, it is a delicate process. Here are a few pointers on how you can grand-father existing customers onto newer pricing. Step 1: Communicate It goes without saying, you cannot move all legacy cu ..read more

Ever been in a situation where your services go kaput and you are faced with a barrage of customers/prospects? Well, situations like these will always test your mettle as a sales individual or as a support agent. What you do in a time of a crisis is not just a reflection of your skillset but also an accurate reflection of your company’s support/service philosophy. Depending on what kind of support infrastructure you have in place, your SOP (standard operating procedure) will vary. However, here are 4 things you must do to make sure you reassure your customers/prospects. Step 1: Keep calm and t ..read more

Product walkthroughs are an amazing opportunity and probably your biggest stumbling block as a sales individual. Let that statement sink in. Yes, no amount of phone calls, cold calling, emails or product information can compete with the instant impact of a product walk-through. However, very few sales individuals are adept at doing a good product walkthrough. Before we start talking about how to make sure your product walkthroughs are engaging. A quick caveat, not all products are ‘walkthrough’ friendly. So if your product is one of those, you might want to device an alternate strategy to get ..read more

At insdieselling.org our speciality is the inbound process. An essential in the inbound process is making sure that account executives engage prospects in conversations. Most modern day products are designed to be ‘self-service’ but are really not! The role of a sales individual is vital when it comes to complex products or products that might easy to use but are powerful under the hood. Before we start talking about how we tailored our emails, there are a few things that will help you achieve greater success with your emails. Major factors include timing, relevance and persistence. To talk a ..read more

Sales process design is a challenge. Every SaaS product has its own nuances and specific selling methods that are never the same for each organisation. Add to that, the different sales team structures that are thrown in, you have a puzzle with a thousand small pieces to fit in! While designing a sales process, we always believe in keeping scale in mind. Some of the most essential processes that allow sales teams to scale are usually overlooked when designing a sales process. This ranges from HR software to software that makes the sales team’s life simpler. Here are 3 essential software that w ..read more