Instructive post for sales leaders from Joe Morrissey on mindset, tool, and capability shifting sales teams to inject OUTBOUND into their DNA and daily operating rhythms.
(Outbound) can be a real shock to the inbound-driven, “create and close” culture of many growth stage startups. For most sales reps and frontline managers, building pipeline is the least fun part of the job, and very few account executives (AEs) or frontline managers will want to do the grunt work of cold outreach. As a result, just telling your sales team to “build more pipeline” can be a bit like screaming “get more goals!” at the scoreboard.
Your top sellers are already doing this...they did not become top sellers by order-taking on inbound leads. The requirement, in every kind of market is to set up the outboud flywheel mindset and practice for the rest of your driven sellers to adopt as their own. (Those sellers who don't adopt can become someone else's headache.) The following is an abbreviated wayfinding checklist from the full artcle for ensuring that your sales team is equipped to own and execute:
Create a playbook
Culture alone doesn’t make an effective outbound motion. You also need an outbound playbook so your team has a clear and consistent method and message when building pipeline. One of the best ways to create a playbook is to set up a tiger team with individuals from different key GTM functions to:
Prioritize: What are the top target accounts and buyer personas?
Research: What should SDRs be looking for, both internally in customer and intent data and externally in annual reports and 10Q forms, when researching accounts on their list?
Tools & KPIs: What, if any, new tools will the team need? What activities, by channel, will they be measured on each day, week, month, and quarter?
Outbound messaging and sequences: How will you ensure messaging is relevant, timely, and targeted?
AE & SDR partnership: How will AEs and SDRs work together? What information do SDRs need to provide in their pre-meeting notes for AEs?
Discovery process: What does a great discovery meeting look like? What high yield questions should we ask?
Qualification process: What’s the best way to uncover and test a potential champion? How will the customer determine success and what metrics will they use?
Execute: What constitutes a qualified business meeting?
Once you’ve outlined the playbook and reviewed all of the sections with the appropriate cross-functional stakeholders, it’s time to build the materials—messaging and sales enablement, account/prospect prioritization dashboards, account research templates, AE:SDR 1:1 templates, SDR qualification guides, and so on—to onboard and train your sales organization.
