Field Guide 1:3 Chapter 9 Sales Methodologies

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Chapter nine Sales Methodologies, Sales Pipeline Management and CRM tools. In this next chapter, we'll dive into sales pipeline management and the CRM tools that are essential for tracking and advancing deals through the sales process. As S E A C plus TS professionals, it's important to understand how deals move through the pipeline and how CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot are there to help manage those deals effectively. When I first started in these roles, I remember how overwhelming it felt to try and track every moving piece of a deal, especially when there are so many stakeholders involved. But once I got the hang of sales pipeline stages from no commit, pipeline, upside, forecast to commit, things started to click. You see, each stage is critical to understanding where the deal stands and where to focus your efforts. The beauty of using CRM tools is that they allow you to track where each deal is in the pipeline. You'll be working with partners, product engineers, account executives, and even CSMs, customer success managers, to help move the deal from upside to commit. It's all about communication and collaboration. In the next section, I'll break down how Salesforce and HubSpot provide key features that help you do this, such as opportunity health. This report will help you see where each deal stands and how likely it is to close. Deal velocity. Knowing how fast deals are progressing through the pipeline helps you gauge whether you're on track. Win rate. This will help you track the success of your efforts and the sales team's efforts. The importance of aging reports. Aging reports are one of my favorite tools for assessing the health of a sales pipeline. I know this might feel like a bit of a squirrel moment, a quick detour, but it's an important one. These reports offer a clear view of how long deals have been sitting in the pipeline, and you'd be amazed at how old some of them can get. While many deals age six to nine months, I've seen others linger for two or even three years, celebrating birthdays, as I like to say. During QBR's aging reports are invaluable for accountability. They prompt critical questions. What has changed to move this deal forward after sitting idle for so long? Is this deal still viable or is it clogging the pipeline? More often than not, deals that have lingered for years are distractions, and it's important to call them out to maintain realistic forecasts and focus on active opportunities. Why aging reports matter? One, pipeline hygiene. Aging reports help clear out stagnant deals, ensuring a cleaner and more actionable pipeline. Two, accountability. They hold reps and SEs accountable for justifying why deals remain in the pipeline. Three, forecast accuracy. By identifying stale deals, you can improve the reliability of your forecasts. A practical example. When I joined Ensemble, one of the first things I did was create an aging report. Their CRM didn't have this feature, so I exported the data into JSON, processed it through Elasticsearch, and calculated the age of each deal. The results revealed several deals that had been in the pipeline far too long, prompting important conversations about pipeline hygiene and resource allocation. Since then, they have added this and many other features to their CRM. Final thoughts. Aging reports may seem simple, but they're a powerful tool for maintaining focus and accountability within the sales team. While we'll explore them in more depth later, for now, just remember this the age of a deal tells a story, and it's up to you to ensure that story leads to action. Conclusion. You'll also learn practical ways to hold AEs accountable for involving you at the right moments in the sales process. Sometimes it's as simple as setting up alerts or triggers in Salesforce that notify when SEAC plus TS involvement is required at key stages, ensuring that the technical side is properly addressed before deals get committed. Remember, the goal of this chapter is not to replace deep resources like books or in-depth courses, but to get you started on the right foot. I'll give you just enough information to begin leveraging these tools in your day-to-day work. As you gain more experience, you will want to dive deeper into the systems and methodologies, but this will be your starting point. Diving deeper into sales methodologies. Once we've set up a solid understanding of how to track and manage the pipeline, the next step is diving into sales methodologies. These methodologies, BMANTER, MedPIC, and the three W's, why now, why anything, why us, have been my go-to frameworks throughout my career. They provide a structured approach to sales, helping you qualify opportunities, conduct deep discovery, and ensure your solutions align with the customer's needs. In the next section, we will explore each of these methodologies in more detail. I'll walk you through how to apply them in your role as an SEAC plus TS professional and give you practical tools to qualify opportunities and move deals forward. These methodologies are all about relationship building, so it's important to know how they work, how to use them effectively, and how they'll lead you to success in your role. Sales Methodologies, a guide for SEAC plus TS professionals. Sales methodologies are the frameworks that guide how we approach sales and customer engagement. While different methodologies may have their unique steps, techniques, and terminology at their core, they all focus on one thing: building relationships. Whether you're using MedPIC, BMANTER, Spin Selling, or Solution Selling, the end goal is to develop a relationship with the customer, understand their needs, and offer a solution that provides value. From my experience, it's important to recognize that while these methodologies provide structure, they are not one size fits all. Over the years, I've come to see these frameworks not as rigid processes, but as tools to understand the customer better, build trust, and align the solution with their business needs. It all starts with the relationship. The framework just helps guide the conversation. Overview of common sales methodologies in the tech industry. Here's a quick rundown of some of the most widely used sales methodologies in the tech industry today. Each of these methods serves as a guide to the sales process, and while the terminology and approaches may differ, they all aim to achieve the same thing understanding the customer's business, addressing their needs, and positioning the solution in a way that solves their pain points. One, medpic, metrics, economic buyer, decision criteria, decision process, identify pain, champion competition, paper process, used by Salesforce, Oracle, Microsoft, Impact on S EAC plus TS. I can't tell you how often I've leaned on MedPIC throughout my career. Back at Oracle, this methodology was indispensable in qualifying deals, especially when dealing with large, complex sales cycles. It provided me with a roadmap for where the client was in the decision making process and helped me avoid wasting time on deals that didn't have the right fit. MedPIC helped me understand who the economic buyer was, the pain points, and how the competition was positioning themselves. For me, it always came back to asking the right questions at the beginning to get the deal moving forward. Second BMANTor, budget, method, authority, need, timing, risk, used by many legacy companies, including Oracle and IBM. Impact on SEAC plus T S. For me, B Mantor was the foundation. It's a simple but effective methodology that I've relied on in my earlier career. I always start with budget and need, getting a sense of the customer's pain points, their budget constraints, and their timeline. At Oracle, I had to quickly assess whether we were dealing with a real opportunity or just someone kicking the tires. Once I got clear answers on these, I knew whether to move forward or not. Third spin selling, situation problem implication need payoff, used by IBM Xerox. Impact on SEAC plus T S. I remember my first experience with SPIN selling. It felt like a game changer. This method really opened my eyes to the power of discovery and uncovering hidden pain points. It taught me how to ask the right questions to uncover not just the technical issues, but also the business impacts that the client was facing. This methodology has been invaluable for me, especially when engaging with line of business leaders who need to see how the product will solve their business problems, not just technical ones. Fourth solution selling used by SAP Salesforce, impact on SEAC plus TS. The solution selling methodology really aligns with my approach to pre-sales and solution design. It's not just about selling a product, it's about solving a problem. At Elasticsearch, we used this approach a lot. We didn't just sell search capabilities, we understood the business problem and how search could fit into a larger data architecture. It helped me position our solution as part of a broader strategy rather than a standalone product. The Challenger Sale, used by CEB, now part of Gartner, large enterprise tech firms. Impact on SEAC plus TS. I've always believed in the power of teaching and challenging assumptions. I saw this in action at Elasticsearch when we were trying to break into a new vertical. The Challenger Sale approach helped me position our solution by teaching the client something they didn't know about their own data challenges. It was about bringing fresh insights and offering solutions that made them rethink how they were approaching their problems. Sixth, value-based selling used by many SAS companies. Impact on SEAC plus TS. Value-based selling resonates with me because it's all about showing the ROI. When I was working with Salesforce, it became clear that business leaders didn't just want a product, they wanted a return on their investment. As SEAC plus TS professionals, we must focus on demonstrating the business impact of our solutions. Value-based selling teaches you to translate technical features into clear business outcomes, which is essential when talking to C-suite executives or LOB leaders. 7. Snap selling. Keep it simple, be invaluable, always align, raise priorities, used by companies selling to busy buyers, impact on SEAC, plus TS. I think Snap selling is incredibly relevant today, especially as we deal with more time-pressed executives and decision makers. You've got to keep things simple and focused on what matters most to the customer. In my experience, clients don't have time for a lengthy pitch. They want to know how your solution helps them prioritize their goals. Snap selling taught me to streamline the sales cycle by aligning with the customer's urgent priorities. Which sales methodologies are trending today? From a SEAC plus TS perspective, the most commonly used in trending methodologies are one, medpick. Due to its ability to thoroughly qualify opportunities, this methodology is increasingly popular in the tech industry, especially for complex enterprise level deals. It's especially effective in high value sales where multiple stakeholders are involved. Two, the challenger sale. In the age of SaaS and cloud computing where differentiation is key, the challenger sale is gaining traction. It encourages sales engineers and solution consultants to challenge the customer's thinking and offer unique insights. Three, solution selling. While it may seem traditional, solution selling is still highly relevant today, especially for product-led growth companies and tech vendors offering products that can be tailored to solve specific customer problems. How these methodologies impact SEAC plus TS professionals. Each methodology has its strengths, but here's how they can actively apply to your role. One, MedPIC helps you qualify opportunities effectively and ensures you're talking to the right economic buyer and that you understand the pain points thoroughly. Two, the challenger sale positions you as a trusted advisor, enabling you to offer unique insights that challenge your customers' current thinking. Third, solution selling ties directly into your role as a solution designer, ensuring that the solution fits both the technical and business requirements of the client. Conclusion. In the next chapter, we'll dive deeper into each of these methodologies, exploring their key elements, how to implement them, and how success is measured with each one. We'll also provide you with practical guidance on how to integrate these methodologies into your day-to-day work as an SEAC plus TS from discovery to qualification, demo strategies, and measuring success with metrics that matter. Remember, while each methodology may have its unique structure, they all share a common goal to help you build strong, meaningful relationships with customers. And at the end of the day, it's these relationships that drive sales success and customer satisfaction.