Insights and Research for Marketing, Sales Development and Sales

The proliferation of sales development teams in B2B companies over the past decade has been unprecedented. While the sales development (SD) function has existed for at least 30 years, many great companies safeguarded their sales development process as a “secret sauce.” Today, sales development is considered a requirement for any normally functioning B2B sales and marketing organization, and SD practices have become virtually standardized across companies. In fact, TOPO’s research has shown that 100% of high-growth organizations have sales development organizations.

In nearly every TOPO engagement with clients who are launching an account-based GTM strategy, a common question we hear goes like this:

“How can we learn from others’ mistakes so we can realize the benefits of account-based (e.g., higher ACV, LTV) faster?”

We love hearing this question because we have, indeed, observed the habits of many clients as they implement their account-based programs. We’ve seen them get awesome results and we’ve seen them struggle, too. Here is a summary of their struggles, with recommendations for how your company can overcome them.

I get asked quite often for my learnings in launching TOPO. With 3 years of hindsight, I believe there were 4 critical tactics that allowed us to launch quickly into the market and grow our business out of the gate. For some context, TOPO was bootstrapped and Scott and I (the founders) made a “No Top Ramen” agreement, which meant that we would build this business to make money immediately. This pact drove urgency to get out into the market, and forced us to make quick but solid decisions that were also realistic since there was only two of us. There were some bad decisions, but there were four that stood out that any business starting out can execute.

Over 30 sales development leaders from the Bay Area’s fastest growing companies once again convened last Friday for TOPO’s Sales Development Council #15. These Councils offer a unique forum for sales development leaders from high growth companies to learn from each other and share best practices. Each Council features three speakers who share the processes, plays, organizational elements, and technologies they use to drive key revenue metrics.

The 2017 TOPO Summit is less than three months away! This year’s Summit will build on the success of last year’s, where over 650 sales leaders attended 33 different sessions and workshops to learn how the world’s best companies grow as fast as they do. This year, Summit will take place April 12-13 at Pier 27 in San Francisco, where you’ll be able to learn from, and collaborate with, over 1,000 sales and marketing leaders.

There is a movement underway to deliver more valuable engagement with buyers. TOPO’s ongoing research on sales organizations shows that sales leaders overwhelmingly rank “improving the quality of engagement with buyers” as their top priority. The key to achieving better quality engagement is to arm the sales reps for buyer-responsive selling.

In an earlier post on the TOPO blog, Sales Enablement Best Practices: Sales Process is the Foundation, author Robert Koehler describes the TOPO Sales Enablement framework. One of the key elements of the framework is content enablement, which will be the focus of this post along with the different types of sales content.

Over 25 demand generation leaders from the Bay Area’s fastest growing companies gathered last Friday for TOPO’s tenth Demand Gen Council. These Councils offer a unique forum for marketing leaders from high growth companies to learn from each other and share best practices. Each Council features three speakers who share the processes, plays, organizational elements, and technologies they use to drive key revenue metrics.

In a previous post, Sales Enablement Best Practices: Sales Process is the Foundation, we laid out the TOPO Framework for sales enablement. One of the pillars of sales enablement is skills development. The ideal skills development program has 5 key elements tied to each play in the sales process:

Over 25 sales leaders from the Bay Area’s fastest growing companies once again gathered last Friday for TOPO’s third Sales Council. These Councils offer a unique forum for sales leaders from high growth companies to learn from each other and share best practices. Each Council features three speakers who share the processes, plays, organizational elements, and technologies they use to drive key revenue metrics.