Compass Conversations: Current State of Revenue Performance

March 27, 2024

EVENT RECAP

For many companies in 2024, the "growth at all costs" mindset has been replaced with goals around profitable growth. In many cases, that means making adjustments to sales compensation plans, and the overall level of sales staffing. In this session, Mercato's Justin Edwards SVP of Revenue is hosting a conversation with Amy Volas, the Founder of Avenue Talent Partners, to talk through different tactics for decreasing sales costs, and how to avoid hobbling your go-to-market motion. Both Justin and Amy are sales veterans with 20+ years of experience, including through multiple downturns. Compass Conversations are a series of digital salons, hosted by Mercato, integrating their perspectives with industry thought leaders.

Ideal for: Revenue and CEOs/Founders

Join to discuss:

Current state of performance and attainment
Team size and structures
Managing reductions in sales headcount
Quota and compensation trends in 2024
How to keep your salesforce's morale and motivation high

Slides

3.27-–-Slides-on-Compass-Compass-Conversations_-Current-State-of-Revenue-Performance-March-2024 Download

Key Takeaways

Shift from Growth at Any Cost: Moving away from the standard playbook of growth at any cost, companies are now focusing on more nuanced strategies and frameworks rather than relying solely on playbooks.
Importance of Outbound: Outbound is not dead and is considered a strategic weapon for many companies in the current sales environment.
Enablement Segmentation: Segmenting enablement based on performance levels is crucial. Top performers should not be subjected to the same training as those who are struggling.
Organizational Design: There are various ways to design sales teams, including by inbound vs. outbound, SMB vs. enterprise, and full-cycle vs. specialized roles.
Changing Selling Environment: The selling environment is evolving, and traditional approaches may no longer be effective. The popular formula for growth and sales team structure is changing.
Value-Based Selling: Sellers should focus on more than just solving problems. Understanding buyers’ goals, helping them get better, pinpointing blind spots, and reducing risk are all important aspects of value-based selling.
Mental Health and Morale: The mental health of sales reps is crucial, with 70% reportedly struggling. Maintaining motivation and morale, especially after reductions in headcount, is essential.
Communication: Effective communication is key, both internally and externally. Investing in communication training can help sales teams have more meaningful business conversations with buyers.
Compensation Trends: Sales compensation plans should incentivize desired behaviors and outcomes. Clear communication about compensation plans is crucial to avoid misunderstandings.
Cost of Poor Communication: Poor communication in business can cost companies $1.2 trillion annually. Clear and effective communication can save time and improve productivity.

A Founder’s Guide to Navigating Difficult Decisions

Every CEO and Founder faces innumerable high-leverage decisions, and without a framework for making them, they can make missteps weighed down by emotion. Benoy Tamang is the Founder and CEO of BlueRiver Direct, a high-performance CEO coaching firm. Previously, Benoy served as the CEO of eFileCabinet, ShoppingNanny, and Sapha. In this guide, Benoy walks through how to approach difficult decisions as a CEO from a position of clarity rather than unconscious incompetence (fear).

What It Means To Be a CEO

Angie Franks is the CEO of Kalderos and the former CEO of ABOUT and RetraceHealth. This guide, derived in part from insights during Angie’s talk on “What It Means to Be a CEO” at Mercato’s 2023 Investor Offsite, offers advice from Angie for first-time CEOs, seasoned CEOs, and investors, on how to be more effective in the CEO role and in support of CEOs.

Identifying and Understanding Your Target Customers

Justin Edwards leads the Revenue Practice at Mercato Partners, and has previously led sales at Adobe, Oracle, and InsideSales.com. In this guide, he walks through researching your target customer, building ICPs, and deploying them in your sales and marketing efforts.

Setting Entrepreneurial Strategy

Greg Warnock, Ph.D., is a co-founder and Managing Director of Mercato Partners, where he has served as a Director on the boards of Skullcandy, Stance, Fusion-io, Goal Zero, Mediconnect, Domo, Cradlepoint, and others. In this guide, Greg walks through setting entrepreneurial strategy, informing your strategy with customer insights, and making strategic adjustments.

Designing and Executing a Board Meeting

Greg Warnock, Ph.D., is co-founder and Managing Director of Mercato Partners, where he has served as a Director on the boards of Skullcandy, Stance, Fusion-io, Goal Zero, Mediconnect, Domo, Cradlepoint, and others. In this guide, Greg walks through the composition and creation of a Board of Directors, and how to design and execute a board meeting.

Setting Optimal Pricing and Packaging

Josh Christensen is a Principal at Mercato Partners where he helps software and consumer product companies scale. Previously, he was a management consultant at Cicero Group, and over the course of his career, Josh has led dozens of pricing studies. In this guide, he walks through setting optimal pricing and packaging for your product, including questions to ask in your research, structuring your study, and creating buyer personas.

Leveraging a Fractional Finance Team

David Lasky is the Managing Director at ScaleNorth, a NetSuite Solution Provider & Outsourced NetSuite Accounting firm. In this guide, he discusses how growth-stage companies can leverage technology and outsourcing partners to transition from a full-time to a fractional finance team.

Leveraging AI and Automation in Recruiting

Destiny Lalane is the Founder of the Recruiting School, providing training for recruiters and embedded recruiter services. She’s worked with FAANG companies, YCombinator and Techstars-backed companies like DrChrono, Ashby, Laudable, and Propagate and later-stage companies like Affirm and Chainalysis. In this guide, Destiny walks through the different ways that recruiting orgs can incorporate AI across the recruiting process, from designing a role to taking it to market and evaluating candidates.

Building a Product-Led GTM

Dave Boyce is a go-to-market-focused advisor and board member with over 20 years of experience leading SaaS companies. Dave is the author of Product That Sells Itself, the forthcoming book from Stanford Business Press. Previously, Dave was the Chief Strategy Officer at InsideSales.com, CEO of ZenPrint, and the GM Consulting and PLG Practice Lead at Winning by Design. In this guide, Dave walks through the different approaches to building product-led growth and outfitting teams and your product to support self-service sales, renewal, and onboarding.

Setting Up and Administering an Employee Equity Plan

Miguel Chavez is the founder of Einstein Equity, an equity compensation advisory business that helps companies manage equity plans on Shareworks. Previously, Miguel led efforts helping companies manage their equity at Pave, Option Impact and Shareworks. Miguel has helped 3,000+ VC-backed companies manage their compensation and equity programs. In this guide, Miguel walks through setting up and administering an employee equity compensation plan, including how much equity to give and to whom, reporting on equity, and managing changes.

Aligning Your Customers’ Success With Customer Journeys and a Customer Capability Maturity Framework

Michael Allenson is the Founder of Empact Partners, a Customer Journey and Maturity Framework advisory firm. Michael has worked with over 50 companies to build customer journeys and has built nearly 20 customer capability maturity frameworks. In this guide, Michael walks through creating a customer journey map, as well as building a customer capability maturity framework. Each of these activities helps organizations better align their success with the success of their customers, leading to accelerated growth, lower attrition, and long-term customer loyalty.

Guide To Strategic Product Planning

Prodify helps teams apply Vision-Led Product Management best practices to accelerate both shareholder value creation and product career development. They have worked with 75 companies over the last 7 years. This guide to strategic product planning provides a framework for creating and monitoring a strategic product plan.

Building a Product-Led GTM

Dave Boyce is a go-to-market-focused advisor and board member with over 20 years of experience leading SaaS companies. Dave is the author of Product That Sells Itself, the forthcoming book from Stanford Business Press. Previously, Dave was the Chief Strategy Officer at InsideSales.com, CEO of ZenPrint, and the GM Consulting and PLG Practice Lead at Winning by Design. In this guide, Dave walks through the different approaches to building product-led growth and outfitting teams and your product to support self-service sales, renewal, and onboarding.

Strategic and Tactical RevOps Planning for the New Year: The Fiscal Year Flip

Sean Lane is the former Head of Revenue Operations at Drift and a founder of BeaconGTM, providing scalable revenue strategies for start-up and scale-up companies. In this guide, Sean walks through the steps to build a strategic and tactical plan for the new year including building an operating plan, quota and headcount planning, territory planning, and compensation planning.