B2B Product Sales 101 for Startups - Long version, aimed as a support deck for a one day workshop. The overall sales process overview for B2B early stage to market fit Startups . Enjoy and contact me if you have any questions !

1. B2B PRODUCT SALES FOR
STARTUPS
PRESENTATION SUPPORT DECK
BY @LUCBOILLY

2. B2B PRODUCT SALES FOR STARTUPS
PRESENTATION SUPPORT DECK
▸ The aim of this deck is for the presenter to support the presentation of B2B
Product Sales for Startups
▸ So not to be presented as such ! ;), still I made it available to Slideshare for the
purpose of sharing
▸ The presentation was made for Accelerators to educate early stage startups
about the different aspect of B2B sales
▸ Contact me here
LUC@ROCKSVENTURES.COM
@LUCBOILLY
LINKEDIN
ANGELLIST

3. STAGE
LET’S SALE ! :)
▸ Wait , let’s set the stage first !
▸ GO TO MARKET STRATEGY
▸ VALUE PROPOSITION

4. STAGE
GO TO MARKET STRATEGY
▸ is your product is horizontal or vertical Market?
▸ What is your market target SOM, SAM, TAM ?
▸ Which Segments , the first one aka Beachhead ?
▸ What are your Marketing channels ? (landing, email , social, PR,..)
▸ Who is your ICPs (Ideal Customer Profile) ?
▸ What is your revenue target ?
▸ Which sales channels : Self Service ; Direct : inbound, outbound;
Indirect : partners

5. STAGE
“WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME” ?
▸ This is the answers to your customer
▸ WIIFM : What’s In It For Me
▸ JTBD : Jobs To Be Done
▸ A product’s value proposition is composed of :
▸ Functional benefits (solution, utilities providers)
▸ Self-expressive benefits (act of using)
▸ Emotional benefits (results of using)
▸ delivered by your brand that provides value to the target customer
▸ Then is it a Gain or Save

6. VALUE MANAGEMENT

7. VALUE MANAGEMENT
HOLISTIC VIEW
▸ Value Management is an approach to align
▸ Product Management
▸ Marketing
▸ Pricing
▸ Sales
▸ Other business functions
▸ Goal is to create a sustainable and profitable revenue growth

8. VALUE MANAGEMENT
VALUE IN B2B
▸ Value is relative to an alternative
▸ Value is composite and decomposable in value drivers
▸ Primary value in B2B is economic but can be also
▸ Emotional
▸ Environmental
▸ Social
▸ Value should be quantified per use case adapted to the target

9. VALUE MANAGEMENT
B2B VALUE SHIFT
▸ Shift to a Customer Value Orientation

10. VALUE MANAGEMENT
VALUE FOR THE CUSTOMER
▸ Competitive advantage
▸ Time to market
▸ Increase revenues
▸ Business Process improvement
▸ Savings
▸ Value is always relative to an alternative !
▸ Competitor
▸ Current solution (software or/and human process)
▸ Building in house (software or/and human process)
▸ Doing nothing

11. VALUE MANAGEMENT
ECONOMIC VALUE
▸ Customers now do the Math !
▸ Understand Customers Math and speak their language
▸ The Economic Value is seen
▸ For the Buyer as ROI and TCO
▸ For the Seller as EVE
▸ Still keep your communication aligned and simple !

12. VALUE MANAGEMENT
EVE : ECONOMIC VALUE ESTIMATION

13. VALUE MANAGEMENT
CREATION OF VALUE DRIVERS
▸ Direct impact on a customer financial metric or KPI
▸ [Financial Metric] * [Impact Measure]
▸ Impact on a non-financial customer metric or KPI
▸ [Non-Financial Metric] * [Impact Measure] * [Dollars]
▸ You may add to both, factors as time,..

14. VALUE MANAGEMENT
FROM THE CUSTOMER VIEW
▸ It is not always a 1 to 1 translation !

15. VALUE MANAGEMENT
YOUR VALUE PROPOSITION VS BUYERS

16. PRICING

17. PRICING
STRATEGIC ROLE OF PRICING
▸ Pricing is the integration point of your Go-To-Market
▸ Encapsulate your Value Proposition
▸ Communicate your Value , your Brand
▸ Position you to the Customers and Markets
▸ Position you within your Competition
▸ Last but not least , make your revenues and investment !
▸ And Use pricing to scare away the customers you don’t want ;)
▸ Pricing Power !

18. PRICING
PRICING IS PARAMOUNT !
▸ What’s your average selling price?
▸ Intersection of supply and demand which measures external factors
▸ customer value
▸ competitiveness
▸ while it constrains operational metrics like
▸ Costs
▸ Volume
▸ Risk
▸ Your ASP places a ceiling on your CAC, which in turn draw sales model(s)

19. PRICING
PRICING SCHEME
▸ Customer financial view : OPEX vs. CAPEX
▸ Transactional : License fee plus annual maintenance fees -> CAPEX
▸ Subscription based as SAAS - > OPEX
▸ Do not leave money on the table !
▸ Professional Services, Training, Certification
▸ Accounts Up Sell , Cross Sell . Partnerships
▸ Discounts management
▸ Freemium ? (e.g Box, Dropbox)

20. PRICING
PRICING <- REVENUE MODEL <- STRATEGY
▸ What’ s your Pricing Strategy
▸ Value based pricing is based on product benefits
▸ Competitor Pricing is based on being below, at, above competition pricing
▸ Cost Plus pricing is based on cost to plus margin
▸ Gain vs. Save and Vitamin vs. Painkiller , ROI and TCO
▸ Start with a Value Based Pricing aligned with your GTM and value position
▸ Identify your discounts policies, pricing structure by segments, compensations
▸ What’s your CAC and LTV ? does it allow you to be sustainable and grow ?
▸ And likely , you are undercharging !

21. PRICING
MARGINS , PROFITS
▸ Net sales = Gross sales – Discounts, Rebates
▸ Gross profit = Net sales – COGS
▸ (e.g : 80% in SAAS , 20% in eCommerce)
▸ Operating Profit = Gross Profit – OPEX
▸ Net profit = Operating Profit – taxes – interest
▸ Total and Segment these

22. PRICING
TIERED PRICING
▸ STARTER - PRO - ENTERPRISE e.g
▸ Typical for SAAS
▸ Revenue advantage over Volume Pricing
▸ Segmentation , tiers fences
▸ How many customers you expect to enter at each tier
▸ How many customers you expect to upsell over what period of time
▸ How much churn you expect at each level
▸ Discount for yearly , multi year contracts with payment upfront

23. PRICING
DISCOUNTING
▸ Why do you discount ??
▸ Investment in a Logo, references
▸ Contract length
▸ Competition, Market
▸ Deal size
▸ Because…..
▸ Your pricing should take in account discounting upfront
▸ Make sure that there is a ROI for you
▸ Align with your Revenue Management
▸ Draw the red lines per segment, channels
▸ Do not accept upfront discount asked by a customer, acknowledge and reframe it to your value first
▸ Beware of not dragging down your overall pricing , get a return in exchange
▸ Beware of payment terms which should be discussed upfront prior negotiation

24. PRICING
ADVANCED MODEL

25. B2B SALE

26. B2B SALE
3 QUESTIONS
WHY BUY ?
WHY YOU ?
WHY NOW ?

27. B2B SALE
LEVERS IN A B2B SALE
▸ Timing
▸ Contract Length
▸ Deal Size
▸ Payment Terms
▸ Expansion
▸ Referrals

28. B2B SALE
SALES IS A HUMAN PROCESS
▸ Beyond methods, metrics, decks
▸ “Your Solution is not my F* Problem!”
▸ First , it is a human relationship
▸ Be yourself
▸ Be a problem solver
▸ Be a partner

29. B2B SALE
FACTORS OF THE COMPLEXITY OF B2B SALES
▸ STAKEHOLDERS NUMBERS
▸ C-level , Executive , Users, IT , Procurement, Legal,….
▸ INFORMATION GAP
▸ Educate, Evangelise your product value proposition
▸ THE PRESENCE OF CHOICES
▸ You versus Competition, substitutes, in house, doing nothing
▸ CUSTOMER-SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS
▸ Map it to your Product Management still focus first on the value proposition
▸ LACK OF TRACK RECORD
▸ Brand building, Trust building , Reach, Testimonials and customers use cases , PR
▸ RFP : Request For Proposal

30. B2B SALE
SELF SERVICE
▸ Low Complexity Low Price
▸ Sales
▸ None
▸ Marketing
▸ Full revenue responsibility, creating awareness, educational content and
automation capable of driving business through the entire purchase process from
awareness to close. Inbound
▸ Technical Support
▸ Provides automation and tools for easy on-boarding, plus templates and
educational content that allow customers to resolve any issues they encounter on
their own.

31. B2B SALE
TRANSACTIONAL MODEL
▸ Low Complexity , High Price
▸ Sales
▸ Inside sales reps supported by online content and automation, tools, training, incentives and
metrics that enable high efficiency and many transactions per rep.
▸ Marketing
▸ Feeds highly qualified leads to the sales team to build pipeline and improves efficiency by
removing roadblocks through educational content and automation that drive complexity out of
the purchase.
▸ Technical Support
▸ Inside support reps that meet a range of SLAs from limited pre-sale support through premium
post-sale support with tools, training and metrics that enable high efficiency and many
transactions per rep, complemented by customer self-service tools, templates and educational
content

32. B2B SALE
ENTERPRISE SALES
▸ High Complexity , High Price
▸ Sales
▸ Territory-based sales reps focused on a narrow set of target prospects directly
supported by product marketing and sales engineering resources at a deal level.
▸ Marketing
▸ High-end marketing that facilitates brand awareness, education, relationship building
and trust, complemented by direct support of the sales team, including telemarketing
speeding access to target prospects and detailed sales tools such as product
roadmaps, ROI calculators, etc.
▸ Technical Support
▸ High touch support up to onsite issue resolution complemented by educational tools
and training tailored to the specific needs of individual customers.

33. B2B SALE
SOME RULES
▸ Expect long sales cycles, budget for it and select
▸ Are you addressing their top 3 problems
▸ Decisions are made by stakeholders, not "the company”
▸ Sell to multiple stakeholders
▸ Deals might fall apart even if you done right
▸ Don't underprice
▸ They have budgets for each FY and some others bucket available
▸ Even you “negotiated” with the buyer, procurement could negotiate again

34. B2B SALE
CALL HIGH VS CALL LOW
The aim in both case is to have
▸ A champion who will help you take ownership for your
success
▸ The air cover of a senior executive
▸ A buyer who has influence and authority

35. B2B SALE
CALL HIGH
▸ Reach the highest level appropriate and get him refer to
the person making decision
▸ Get Higher priority
▸ Avoid gate keeper
▸ Avoid time wasters
▸ Learn internal “politics”
▸ Sales support

36. B2B SALE
CALL LOW
▸ Find a BU leader with a positive and quantifiable impact
▸ Run a quantifiable pilot , better payable ;)
▸ Make this BU leader a champion if this is the one
▸ Provide data and proof in hand for the Sr Exec.

37. B2B SALE
B2B OUTLIERS
▸ Good marketing replaces the need for sales
▸ Good branding replaces the need for marketing
▸ Product virality make the brand story
▸ Bottom up from the users to the management
SaaS Kills Sales People? thoughts by @Steli @hajak
@LucBoilly via @saascribe bit.ly/1UawRA2 #sales #SaaS

38. CUSTOMERS

39. CUSTOMERS
ICP : IDEAL CUSTOMER PROFILE
▸ It all start with your ICP
▸ What type of companies
▸ Which companies fit that mold ?
▸ What are they buying, where are they buying it, what are
they spending? What other products might they be
using?
▸ Who at that company is the decision maker, user, buyer

40. CUSTOMERS
CUSTOMERS SEGMENTATION
▸ Segment by group of Customers , ICP
1. Market
2. SMBs , Enterprise ?
3. Getting the same value
4. Same Buying process
5. Act as references to each other
6. See your differentiated value as high

41. CUSTOMERS
IDENTIFY YOUR STAKEHOLDERS
▸ Identify analyse each stakeholders
▸ Identify the buying process
▸ Identify a champion , the mobiliser
▸ Identify Showstoppers, Enemies, IAs, NINAs
▸ Do not forget the Technical experts, Security folks

42. CUSTOMERS
MAP YOUR CUSTOMERS
▸ Model and visualise all your stakeholders with relations between them
▸ Quantify their Influence
▸ Quantify their Authority
▸ Quantify willingness to pay
▸ Quantify the time to purchase
▸ Scoring : SQL
▸ BANT (Budget, Authority, Needs, Timeline)
▸ GPCT (Goals, Plans, Challenges, Timeline) and BA (Budget Authority)
▸ MEDDIC (Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain,
Champion)

43. CUSTOMERS
B2B CUSTOMERS SHIFT
▸ More people (5.4) than ever before are involved in the
decision-making process
▸ Diversity of stakeholders has changed
▸ The customer is far more informed than before
▸ The customer know, do not know or ignore their pains
▸ The informed customer can engage you at a later stage in the
sales
Still no shift on risk adverse for the incumbents

44. CUSTOMERS
BUYERS VIEWS

45. CUSTOMERS
CROSSING THE CHASM

46. SALES PEOPLE

47. SALES PEOPLE
CORE SALES ROLES
Farmers
AM
CS
Hunters
AE
Sales
Qualifiers
SDR
BDR

48. SALES PEOPLE
SALES ROLES
▸ Qualifiers
▸ Outbound SDRs
▸ Inbound SDRs
▸ Hunters
▸ Inside Sales
▸ Account Executives
▸ Farmers
▸ Account Managers
▸ Customer Success Reps

49. SALES PEOPLE
OUTBOUND SALESPEOPLE PROFILES
▸ 5 Profiles depending on your product positioning

50. SALES PEOPLE
SDR AND SALES REP
▸ 1. Revenue Target ÷ Average Deal Size = Number of Deals
Needed
▸ 2. Number of Deals Needed × Conversion Rate of SQLs to
Closed Deals = Number of SQLs Needed
▸ 3. Total SQLs Needed ÷ Individual SDR Quota = Number
of SDRs Required
▸ 5. Optimal ratio for SDR to Sales Rep (AE) is 1 to 3 still
often 1 to 1

51. SALES PEOPLE
EARLY STAGE ENTERPRISE SALES
▸ First sales person should be one of the founder
▸ Then hire a first Sales person as a Closer/Hunter, not an Sales VP !
▸ Consultative, Evangelical
▸ Do sales together
▸ Then hire a SDR to generate leads to the first sales person when this one is spending
more than 20% on Lead yen
▸ When an SDR spend more than 20% on inbound lead qualifications , time to consider to
split the Outbound and Inbound roles
▸ Hold on partnership until you have a sales machine in place ; unless this is your core
sales channel
▸ Align from the start Marketing and Sales !

52. SALES PROCESS

53. SALES PROCESS
HOW TO CREATE YOUR SALES PROCESS
▸ Sell process should be aligned with your customers buying journey
▸ Observe your previous deals (won and lost), identify
▸ Steps
▸ Touchpoints
▸ Timelines
▸ Map your observations to a workflow with steps (6 to 10 max)
▸ Define prospect actions to move from step to another

54. SALES PROCESS
SALES FUNNEL
Lead Nurturing
LEAD PROSPECT CUSTOMER

55. SALES PROCESS
INITIATION
▸ KYC
▸ Identify the Customer Champion which will support you
▸ Identify the Customer Mobiliser
▸ Sell by teaching, tailoring
▸ Control the sales process
▸ Build credibility by relevant data or insight.
▸ Reframe the conversation
▸ Teach the customer that their current view is not optimal
▸ Prove the Business Case
▸ Involve emotionally by story telling where the pain points are identified and come to believe that his
view needs to evolve
▸ Paint the new way forward in which your solution, product has a key role

56. SALES PROCESS
BASIC SALES PROCESS
▸ Leads
▸ Prospect : Source leads or gather leads from your marketing (MQL)
▸ Qualify : Leads match with your ideal customer persona (SQL)
▸ Prospect
▸ Connect : Call, email, social , meet the prospect
▸ Identify Pain and Needs : Ask prospect questions to understand their issue
▸ Buying process : identify stakeholders and buying process , timeline
▸ Present : demo , presentations to stakeholders
▸ Handle Objections : Address any doubts of your prospect
▸ Issue Proposal : Deliver a proposal and present it to stakeholders , negotiation
▸ Customer
▸ Close : Close the deal
▸ Deliver Product/Service : Onboarding , support, consulting
▸ Customer success : measure the customer experience, identify opportunity and churn
▸ Upsell/Cross-Sell : AE to follow up and expand the account

57. SALES PROCESS
SALES TIMELINE ON AVERAGE
▸ 1. Deals < $2,000 in ACV should close on average within 14 days
▸ 2. Deals < $5,000 in ACV should close on average within 30 days
▸ 3. Deals < $25,000 in ACV should close on average within 90 days
▸ 4. Deals < $100,000 in ACV should close on average within 90-180
days depending on # of stakeholders and gates
▸ 5. Deals > $100,000 in ACV will take on average 3-12 months to close.
Of course, some faster, some shorter
Depending also on the business process change and if within an RFP

58. SALES PROCESS
CHECK-UP

59. SALES PROCESS
BUYER’S JOURNEY
▸ Stage 1: The customer becomes aware of a business problem. Alternatively, the salesperson
creates a pre-stage 1 opportunity by introducing an idea or challenge that is not yet on a
customer’s agenda, or raises the visibility of an issue the customer has underestimated.
▸ Stage 2: Customers are doing their homework and assessing how much of a priority the issue
is, determining their options, and developing decision criteria and decision process. It takes a
knowledgeable and skilled salesperson to learn and add value at this stage.
▸ Stage 3: Customers research, compare solutions, narrow down choices, and refine decision
criteria. The salesperson must differentiate, focus on business outcomes, and prove value.
▸ Stage 4: Knowledgeable customers make selection and negotiate. Involvement of
procurement prior to this stage.
▸ Step 5: Customers make the purchase. You support implementation and follow-up.
▸ Step 6: Customers are in an evaluation mode. In the post-purchase stage, customers
implement, measure outcomes, and evaluate performance against the sales promise

60. SALES PROCESS
BUYING AND SELLING PROCESS EXAMPLE LINK

61. SALES PROCESS
PROCUREMENT
▸ Large companies have dedicated Procurement service
▸ They have Procurement playbook
▸ They manage the product and services purchase portfolio
▸ They have relationship with Legal
▸ They have a power to negotiate your contract
▸ Understand the pricing thresholds , DOA and process
▸ First and not last get your champion to prepare the ground

62. SALES PROCESS
MARKETING AND SALES : FRIENDS OF FOES
▸ Mark Roberge from Hubspot puts it well in his book, The Sales
Acceleration Formula
▸ “Marketing sits in one corner of the office, harboring the perception
that the sales team is a group of overpaid, self-centered brats who fail
to see the big picture strategy.
▸ Sales is in the other corner of the office thinking the marketing team
sits around doing arts and crafts all day, and has no idea what qualified
leads look like.”
▸ Obviously, Not good !

63. METRICS

64. METRICS
MEASURING YOUR SALES PROCESS
▸ Usual suspect ! “If you can’t measure, you can’t manage”
▸ Measure the time for each prospect spent in each step
▸ Measure the prospects move across each steps across the
timeline
▸ Do not delete the Lost deals ! Analyse Win/Loss !
▸ Get the Not Now into nurturing
▸ Use a CRM / SFA / Analytics

65. METRICS
SALES KEY METRICS
▸ AVERAGE SIZE OF SALE
▸ SALES CYCLE TIME
▸ CONVERSION RATE
▸ CLOSING RATE (“WIN RATE”)
▸ SALES FUNNEL LEAKAGE
▸ PIPELINE VALUE
Set , refine your metrics goals , and segment
Analyse the datas to refine your processes and targets

66. SALES VELOCITY
▸ Let you identify predictable revenue
METRICS

67. METRICS
S&M COST EFFICIENCY METRIC
▸ Customer Acquisition (Customer Acquisition Cost)
▸ CAC = Sum of S&M costs / Number of Cust. acquired
▸ Ratio CAC: CAC / LTV
▸ Customer Retention (Customer Retention Cost)
▸ CRC = Sum of M/CS/AE costs / Number of Cust. retained
▸ Ratio CRC : CRC (Customer Retention Cost) / Retained-Renewal LTV - Churn
▸ Customer Expansion
▸ CEC = Sum of M/CS/AE costs / Number of Cust. expanded
▸ Ratio CEC : CEC (Customer Retention Cost) / Upsell Cross-sell LTV
▸ Again average and segment ! and LTV > 3X CAC Months to recover CAC < 12 months

68. METRICS
MORE COMPLETE SALES METRICS
▸ Sales Metrics
▸ SAAS Metrics

69. SALES CONVERSATION

70. SALES CONVERSATION
CONVERSE
▸ Asking , listening, teaching
▸ Questions help to engage , connect, relate, collaborate
▸ Open ended Questions from the seller help the buyer then to clarify
their objectives , challenges, objections, priorities,
▸ Open-ended Questions : Answer are lengthier
▸ How, Which, What, Why …
▸ Close-ended Questions : Answer are a Yes or a No , or X or Y
▸ Can, Do, Are…

71. SALES CONVERSATION
LEADS TO PROSPECT
▸ Create a playbook, scripts
▸ Call , Email, Social content and structure
▸ Touches Cadence
▸ Per lead Average of 8 touches in 2-4 weeks
▸ Answer within 5 minutes
▸ Triple touch : Call, Email, Social
▸ Call length under 10 minutes
▸ Always plan for the Next Step

72. SALES CONVERSATION
CUSTOMER DISCOVERY CALL
▸ For ICP non-BANT SQLs
▸ Call structure
▸ 30 second value proposition
▸ Discovery questions
▸ Buyer personas (BANT)
▸ Use cases relevant to the ICP
▸ Recap and set next step

73. SALES CONVERSATION
PROSPECTING
▸ Create a Playbook, scripts, objection handling
▸ Quality of your sales depends on the conversation quality
▸ Find the time Balance between you and them
▸ Adapt to culture
▸ Always plan for the Next Steps
▸ Lead the process, cadence

74. SALES CONVERSATION
HOW TO HANDLE NON-EXISTENT FEATURE REQUESTS
▸ 1. Ask why Certain Capabilities Are Important
▸ 2. Ask Them to Prioritize Features in Order of Importance
▸ 3. Find Out Who is asking for This Feature
▸ 4. Challenge the Customer
▸ 5. Be Wary of Competitors

75. SALES CONVERSATION
HOW TO HANDLE OBJECTIONS ?
▸ Buyer’s Reasons
▸ Lack of knowledge
▸ Warranted concern (e.g Price)
▸ Hidden agenda
▸ Perception issue
▸ Risks working with you
▸ Not clear on their interests or priorities
▸ Not the right stakeholder or change in company

76. SALES CONVERSATION
HOW TO HANDLE OBJECTIONS ?
▸ Be Grateful to receive an objection
▸ Be Empathetic
▸ Restart the discovery
▸ Ask, Probe, Confirm
▸ Show the value
▸ Back It Up With Proof and Customer References
▸ Reframe – Turn a sales objection into an opportunity
▸ Objection Chunking – Take a step back and look at the big picture
▸ The Best Friend Formula (Relate - Bridge the gap - Ask again )
▸ Curiosity – Gain Their Interest By Asking new Questions

77. SALES CONVERSATION
BUT WHEN A DEAL WILL CLOSED ?
▸ Strong Business Case
▸ Painkiller / Vitamin
▸ Gain / Save
▸ Timeframe driver (urgency)
▸ What is their project timeframe
▸ What is their urgency
▸ Buying process
▸ Identify Initiator, Influencer, Decider, Buyer, User, and Gatekeeper (Procurement, legal, ..)
▸ RFI, RFQ , RFP
▸ Customer’s Workflow to purchase , budget threshold and management
▸ P.S : Technical fit
▸ Make sure that there are no technical showstoppers to integrate your solution ;)

78. SALES CONVERSATION
CLOSING
▸ Use Champion
▸ Relationship
▸ Persistance, resilience
▸ Negotiation pressure on timeline
▸ Circle back and reposition on a “No”
▸ Do not force a fit
▸ Establish closing question

79. CUSTOMER SUCCESS

80. CUSTOMER SUCCESS
LAND AND EXPAND
easier and cheaper to expand within your customer base

81. CUSTOMER SUCCESS
CUSTOMER JOURNEY

82. CUSTOMER SUCCESS
MEASURE YOUR CUSTOMER HEALTH ?
▸ Relevant data points help your diagnosis and actions

83. CUSTOMER SUCCESS
OBJECTIVES
▸ Measure Customer happiness
▸ Measure usages and patterns
▸ Grow your revenue
▸ Reduce Customer Churn
▸ Achieve Negative Revenue Churn
▸ As more you grow , replace churn with new booking
become harder

84. PARTNERSHIPS

85. PARTNERSHIPS
THINK OF IT LIKE A MARRIAGE
▸ Do not expect your partners to do all the heavy lifting
▸ The most productive partnerships require effort from both parties
▸ Good fit Partnerships
▸ my partner’s products or services should complement mine, and vice
versa
▸ My partner should also possess skills or resources I lack
▸ Build and maintain a healthy relationship
▸ Provide them with the right tools: Empowered with the right training,
resources and tools

86. PARTNERSHIPS
PARTNERSHIPS TYPE
▸ Co-marketing partnerships
▸ cross pollinate audience
▸ Reseller Sales
▸ Value Added Resellers , System Integrators
▸ When product require heavy implementation
▸ Refer clients
▸ Product Partnerships/Integrations / OEM
▸ Cross sell
▸ Marketplaces
▸ Yours as an ecosystem via your API , Platform
▸ Others ones (e.g : Salesforce )

87. PARTNERSHIPS
MISCONCEPTIONS
▸ Leverage for growth otherwise we do not scale ?
▸ Maybe , still it depends on the Partner size
▸ Easier and less expensive than direct sale?
▸ Wrong , it is hard to build your own direct sale, harder to have an indirect sale
▸ Partners want to sell your product
▸ Well, you may just end up in their catalog if too few sales success, or interest
conflicts
▸ I need a build channel
▸ Well, only if it satisfies your customers needs and reach (e.g : geography ,
specific markets)

88. PARTNERSHIPS
INDIRECT SALES ECONOMICS
▸ Consider the costs associated with a direct sales team
versus the overhead for an indirect sales team
▸ Indirect Sales means you provide a Commission which
should be part of your Pricing and Revenue strategy
▸ Commission are in average between15% to 45%
depending of the deals
▸ Take in account the cost overhead to manage the
partnerships relation, content, marketing and operations

89. THANKS YOU !
CONTACT ME AT
LUC@ROCKSVENTURES.COM
@LUCBOILLY
LINKEDIN
ANGELLIST

90. CREDITS AND REFERENCES
▸ Pictures by
▸ https://unsplash.com/
▸ Content Source references
▸ http://www.saleshacker.com/
▸ http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/
▸ http://www.inflexion-point.com/
▸ http://www.bridgegroupinc.com/
▸ http://www.rainsalestraining.com/
▸ http://www.saastr.com/
▸ http://www.priceintelligently.com/
▸ http://www.totango.com/