Going into the final weeks of 2021 and I’m guessing (like me) you’re figuring out how to 2-3x revenue for 2022... and hopefully taking a moment to celebrate some big wins from the past year 🙌
This edition of our newsletter focuses on:
- Driving more deals through collaborative selling
- Aligning your team for 2022 planning & goal setting
- Shared sales & onboarding learnings we’ve picked up along the way
Hope it’s helpful to my fellow founders & sales leaders out there! Plz hit reply with your thoughts or suggestions on what we should cover next :)
📣 Jam Session: How to Win More Deals with MAPs
Do we really need mutual action plans to win more deals?
If you’re looking for ways to increase win-rates, avoid key deals slipping, and create a repeatable B2B sales & onboarding process (or maybe you just thought, “Wait, what’s a mutual action plan?”) then this is for you!
We held a Jam Session last week with top B2B startup sales coaches Skip Miller and Alice Heiman, plus top Enterprise AE Aaron Cramer of Figma, and had an amazing discussion about how sales teams can win more deals and differentiate themselves with MAPs.
Keep reading for some great insights from the experts themselves, or check out the full post & video here!
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Turn a transactional relationship into a partnership
With MAPs, the buying process becomes collaborative. “My customer and I are aligned,” Aaron says. “They love the intention behind MAPs and the fact that I’m listening to them.”
Make it easy for the buyer to buy
Being a buyer is harder than ever. There are more choices, more decision-makers, and more risk. But a MAP untangles this complicated process and gives buyers a clear path to success.
Take back control over your deals
By using a MAP to set deadlines and hold both sides accountable, you’ll almost always know the right close date. “If you’re not using MAPs, you’re just guessing,” says Skip.
Differentiate yourself from other sales teams
“When you’re the only sales rep that does mutual plans, it almost guarantees that they’re going to buy from you,” says Alice. “How you sell matters – you make your buyer the hero!”
Keep reading for more tips + best practices for successfully implementing your MAPs.
👯 9 sales lessons learned since founding Accord
1. To build a repeatable process, start with unscalable tactics.
Whether you’re founder-led or already have your initial sales team, you should be quickly learning what does and doesn’t work in the market.
2. Tell a compelling story on your website’s “About Us” page.
I’m willing to bet your About Us or Team page is likely a top 3 most viewed page on your website… People buy from people – not companies.
3. Get away from pitching, and toward solution selling.
The right philosophy here should be “pique curiosity & prove ROI” – not a feature, functionality, and demo brain dump!
🎙️ On the Podcast
“Build something that you’re kind of embarrassed about and immediately try to sell it. See what people like, what they don’t like, where their jaw drops – and use that as your feedback loop on the product.”
Gil Allouche, founder of Metadata, dropped this and other words of wisdom on the latest episode of the From Vendorship to Partnership podcast this week!
Catch up on all recent episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher.
📚 What We're Reading
With end of year planning upon us, we’re revisiting our fav operational frameworks & decision-making resources!
RAPID: Bain’s tool to clarify decision accountability - Does your team suffer from uncertainty about who is responsible for what? Use this framework to clarify each person’s role in the decision-making process so you can make the right choices faster.
The Secret to a Great Planning Process – Lessons from Airbnb and Eventbrite - A great overview of the “W Framework” and how we approach annual and quarterly planning at Accord.
❗️Accord: The Customer Collaboration Platform
Capture all customer engagement events and get an unbiased view into your pipeline.
Two words for you… engagement insights.
Not a mind reader? You don’t need to be. Accord tracks every single buyer action in real time to help you understand which deals are real and which deals need help.
View a history of your buyer’s engagements in the Engagement Tab, or receive Engagement email notifications the minute your buyer logs in, views a resource, or takes any other action in Accord.
Real world feedback
"One of our Enterprise AEs didn't hear back from their buyer for over a month, but they kept getting notifications about their buyer engaging in Accord. Normally they would have moved the deal out of forecast, but because of Accord, they kept it in the pipeline and the deal closed."
– Manager, Enterprise Sales
Ross Rich (CEO and Co-founder)
P.S. If you like this newsletter and want to support it, you can:
1. Tell a colleague about Accord
2. Simply forward this email to a friend with an invitation to subscribe
