Nobody Buying? 3 Data-Backed Steps to Pivot Your Sales Strategy
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It’s pretty obvious that we’ve entered into a new territory of selling. A lot of sales teams are charting unknown territory (being in the midst of a pandemic & all). The sales team at PandaDoc is no different. Yet, somehow, they recently recorded their best month ever. Want to know how? Nate Gilmore, PandaDoc’s CRO, tinkered, toiled, and eventually pivoted their sales strategy (in only 3 steps). Things moved pretty quickly from there. Learn from Nate as he walks us through that exact 3-step process, so you can pivot your sales strategy too (and hit your number in no time).
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Nobody Buying? 3 Data-Backed Steps to Pivot Your Sales Strategy
- 1. Nobody Buying? 3 Data-Backed Steps to Pivot Your Sales Strategy August 6, 2020
- 2. Today’s Speakers Jim Donovan Vice President, Global Sales, PandaDoc Scott Barker Head of Partnerships, Sales Hacker Mike Paladino Head of Global Sales, PandaDoc
- 3. Webinar Housekeeping Try using the dial-in option as the phone line might be more stable than the internet connection. Having trouble with your audio? Don’t be shy with your questions, we want to hear from you. We’ll devote the last 15-20 minutes to questions. Ask your questions whenever you want We’ll email you a link to this recording as soon as we’re able to. Typically we have that ready a few hours after we finish. We’re recording this for you right now. Like what you’re seeing on these slides? We plan to send you a PDF version of the deck too. We’ll share the slides with you too. 🔇 💬 🎥 📬
- 4. Overview: 1. Revelations from our recent report found 3 major insights 2. Find industries still growing 3. Get customers to your product faster 4. A.B.T. so you can remain A.B.C., always be training so you can always be closing
- 5. State of Deals Summer 2020 Data from March 2020 Percentage increase in the number of deals at the end of June. 38% The current number of doc viewers has decreased by 3 people. 5 → 2 The highest average completion rate PandaDoc customers have ever seen. 67% Winning Deals in a Time of Uncertainty
- 6. Changes in PandaDoc’s strategy Free Product 🆓New Industry 🆕 People first 🏆 Update process 🔄 Tens of thousands 15% of CW in June/July COVID-19 😷
- 7. Find adjacent industries still growing ● For us it was education and healthcare ● Drop what’s not working, double down on what is ● Listen to the sales team, listen to your funnel, be relentless to the finish ● Only one small requirement away from a fantastic accident (FERPA, HIPAA)
- 8. Poll: How many *new* verticals have you connected with since COVID? ● At least one ● More than one ● About the same ● Not sure
- 9. Get customers to see product faster ● Toll free number on website for hot prospects ● Free eSign expedited to meet needs of SMBs ● Implementing texting
- 10. Poll: How are you increasing deal velocity during the pandemic? ● Monitoring (& improving) speed to lead ● Automating processes with digital workflows ● Improved lead scoring or implementing lead scoring ● Creating new communication channels with prospects (chat, text, toll-free number)
- 11. Drive activity to find more customers ● Relentless focus on activity ● Paying attention to inbound made us better at outbound ● Fracking ● Tracking activity better manufactures your month 🐼 🐼🐼 🐼🐼🐼
- 12. Poll: How many trainings and role plays are you doing per month? ● 0 ● 1-5 ● 6-10 ● 10+
- 13. Always be training ● Consistent training, no matter the role ● Drives conversions and dollars ● Rigorous amount of role plays ● Scenario bases sessions of 50-80 people with real-time feedback ● Training turns startups into more professional sales cultures
- 14. Questions to ask to overhaul your strategy Free Product 🆓New Industry 🆕 Remember: People first 🏆 Update process 🔄 What industries are outside your ICP that are still growing? How can you get your product to customers faster? How can you drive more activity to find more customers?
- 15. Sales Hacker Community A pulse on what other sales leaders are up to ✅ Supporting Remote Teams: 5 Steps to Keep Your Team Thriving ✅ Virtual Selling Is Here To Stay: 3 Benefits of Remote Sales ✅ How Do You Manage Your Sales Team From Home? ✅ Closing deals when companies don't want to commit to new expenses 👋 🤝👩💻 👨💻
- 16. Questions?
- 17. Assets & Takeaways ● [COMING SOON: August 18]State of Deals Summer 2020: Winning Deals in a Time of Uncertainty ● [Blog post] 10 benchmarks for comparing your business document workflows against PandaDoc customers ● [Case Study] 150,000 free meals feed to NHS frontline workers ● [Case Study]Reduced doc create-to-send from 3 days to 30 minutes ● [LinkedIn Connections] Jim, Mike, Scott
- 18. Thank you 101 California St #3975, San Francisco, CA 94111, United States ! 🎉
Editor's Notes
- Instantly put the sale team first Kept them super safe How many new verticals have you connected with since COVID would you add, or the same, or don’t know How are you increasing deal velocity, new products, speed to lead, automating processes, lead scoring are they creating any new comms channels chat. text Number of trainings and role plays amonth that you are doing with your sales team 1-3 4-7 8-10 10+
- We recently completed an update to our State of Deals report and found three big things: 1. The number of deals tanked in March (they were down 13%) but recovered quickly and the number of deals jumped to 38% by end of June. 2. The average number of doc viewers fell from 5 to 2, meaning its likely fewer decision makers are being involved in buying processes due to needing to make purchase decisions quickly and out of necessity. 3. Our customers saw the highest completion rate ever, 67% likely due to a streamlined and efficient process but it shows buyers are still making purchases even in a tumultuous time. Our customers successes have fueled us to look at our sales process internally at PandaDoc differently. There were 3 big steps we took to record our best month ever. Can’t wait to share. We had to take risks, we had to act fast, and thought since our customers saw success, and we saw success, you could benefit from our success.
- When the pandemic hit, it forced us to take a look at our own sales strategy and try to prepare how this would impact our business. We have to admit, these three items were already in process but COVID accelerated our plans. 1. We quickly identified new personas and industries that now had an immediate need for PandaDoc. Education and healthcare have recently been added to our rotation after working tirelessly to quickly become FERPA and HIPAA compliant. 2. We were planning to launch a free product at some point in late 2020, or even early 2021 but product pushed through and expedited our free eSign plan so that we could target businesses who were suddenly forced to transition to remote work but were on a budget. 3. When you introduce new products and new leads, sales processes have to change. Lead routing, scoring, training, everything has to turn on a dime so that you can still continue to run an efficient process that closes deals fast.
- We’ve noticed a number of dentist offices, emergency care, and at home health services now needing touchless technology to execute patient forms, insurance docs, and more. Healthcare doesn’t have the time to learn new tech and are deeply concerned about a patient confidentiality. We quickly identified the use case, perfected the pitch, and even became HIPAA compliant to meet the needs of doctor’s offices large and small. We’ve seen a lot of school districts come in with a wide range of needs. Employment documentation. Student registration and enrollment. Sending out marketing materials. This forced us to ensure FERPA compliance so that our educators could safely and securely create, send and share docs now that many districts were moving to remote learning.
- Instantly put the sale team first Kept them super safe How many new verticals have you connected with since COVID would you add, or the same, or don’t know How are you increasing deal velocity, new products, speed to lead, automating processes, lead scoring are they creating any new comms channels chat. text Number of trainings and role plays amonth that you are doing with your sales team 1-3 4-7 8-10 10+
- How sales can work with product team to expedite a product to market to build an audience while also helping businesses with what we know and do best? Researchers at Harvard estimate that nearly 110,000 small businesses across the country had decided to shut down permanently between early March and early May. PandaDoc offers a free product for business to stay afloat and keep dollars coming in the door. Get customers to see product faster Toll Free Then get leads to team and product faster Free esign Both activities get leads to sales team and product faster to close more and continue to gather feedback and develop more product
- Instantly put the sale team first Kept them super safe How many new verticals have you connected with since COVID would you add, or the same, or don’t know How are you increasing deal velocity, new products, speed to lead, automating processes, lead scoring are they creating any new comms channels chat. text Number of trainings and role plays amonth that you are doing with your sales team 1-3 4-7 8-10 10+
- PandaDoc’s RevOps team worked with revenue and data science teams to improve the lead scoring/grading process to help sales reps prioritize and simplify lead scoring to drive more focus on the most likely to convert leads in response to COVID-19. They used a host of different factors like type/volume of activities, industry, and geographic parameters. This new process sits on top of our traditional grade and score fields and appears as panda bear icons ranking 1-3.If a lead has 3 panda icons, it’s the highest likely to convert. This allows a rep to quickly know where to focus their efforts. Because as we know more focus = more dials, and more personalization
- Instantly put the sale team first Kept them super safe How many new verticals have you connected with since COVID would you add, or the same, or don’t know How are you increasing deal velocity, new products, speed to lead, automating processes, lead scoring are they creating any new comms channels chat. text Number of trainings and role plays amonth that you are doing with your sales team 1-3 4-7 8-10 10+
- PandaDoc’s RevOps team worked with revenue and data science teams to improve the lead scoring/grading process to help sales reps prioritize and simplify lead scoring to drive more focus on the most likely to convert leads in response to COVID-19. They used a host of different factors like type/volume of activities, industry, and geographic parameters. This new process sits on top of our traditional grade and score fields and appears as panda bear icons ranking 1-3.If a lead has 3 panda icons, it’s the highest likely to convert. This allows a rep to quickly know where to focus their efforts. Because as we know more focus = more dials, and more personalization
- When the pandemic hit, it forced us to take a look at our own sales strategy and try to prepare how this would impact our business. We have to admit, these three items were already in process but COVID accelerated our plans. 1. We quickly identified new personas and industries that now had an immediate need for PandaDoc. Education and healthcare have recently been added to our rotation after working tirelessly to quickly become FERPA and HIPAA compliant. 2. We were planning to launch a free product at some point in late 2020, or even early 2021 but product pushed through and expedited our free eSign plan so that we could target businesses who were suddenly forced to transition to remote work but were on a budget. 3. When you introduce new products and new leads, sales processes have to change. Lead routing, scoring, training, everything has to turn on a dime so that you can still continue to run an efficient process that closes deals fast.
- Joined the Sales Hacker community. Loved the blog content. Loved the real-life questions and advice even more.