Updating Sales-Led Growth for the Age of AI

About the Author:

Deirdre Sommerkamp (LinkedIn) is the Chief Solutions Officer at Skillibrium, founder of Creative Sales Academy, and founding member of the WomenTech Network. She has over 20 years of experience helping organizations from $20M to $20B accelerate revenue growth by fostering a culture of coaching and building emotionally-intelligent, high-performing teams.

Introduction

My love for improving sales productivity and maximizing revenue growth began when I was working for a $6B org and ran a sales effectiveness initiative as part of corporate marketing. I got to shadow field sales reps, sales leaders and specialists, and each seller was spending two plus hours every week to create reports they sent to corporate every Friday, but corporate never looked at those reports. Talk about a waste of time and energy. It also took away two hours of selling time each week. That was my, “ah-ha,” moment, and my love of helping sales teams began. 

Customer Experience is Key

At that same organization, I led a global customer satisfaction initiative, and we were early adopters of customer experience and Net Promoter as a methodology. I had lots of data and saw a direct correlation between customer experience and our early touch points with the Sales team, so being able to improve customer experience through better Sales experiences was also top of mind.

Now more than ever, customer experience is a key differentiator, and an area of opportunity for most organizations. 63% of buyers say their customer experience falls short of what they know to be possible mainly because it’s fragmented and disconnected (Salesforce Research). This is an enormous source of frustration and churn. To get ahead of this, customer-centricity is key. 

A Sales-led approach prioritizes the buyer/customer journey and relationship. As trusted advisors, SC and Solutions teams are key to that process, as is having a #oneteam approach. 

Defining Modern Sales-Led Growth

First, let me explain what I mean when I say, “Sales-led” growth. 

It’s when the Sales leader, typically a CRO or Chief Sales Officer, partners with the CEO, founder and/or Board and says, “I can deliver X number in revenue,” and quotas for the team are not more than 5 percent of the plan number. The whole organization – product, marketing, post-sales, operations, HR, etc. all rally around the Sales team to ensure they have what they need to meet or exceed that revenue number. The Sales or Revenue leader protects the Sales team from being unnecessarily interrupted with non-revenue producing asks, and there’s a strong enablement or field operations function in place to make sure that sellers have what they need to be successful.

In a Sales-led company, the product isn’t really the product, the Sales people in the company are the product, and the Sales leader is continually building a bench of “A” players who are willing and able to achieve the results they committed to. It’s very important that this team has integrity, humility and transparency. They need to be able to accept the influence of others and be coachable themselves. 

Implementing a #OneTeam Approach

In many companies today, a Sales leader is given a number and told, “Make it happen.” In a Sales-led culture, there’s no broad over-assignment of quotas to “protect” the company at the expense of employees paid on their sales performance. Now, the intent isn’t as malicious as it sounds, but it’s not a favorable environment for Sales contributors. The company wins while sellers lose the opportunity to exceed on-target earnings (OTE). Sales-led growth, where everyone gets behind the mission of revenue and is in sync, is more relevant now than ever. 

Over the past decade, we’ve seen the needs of buyers and customers continually change. We’ve also seen Sales and Revenue teams make business decisions that haven’t led to great customer experiences. For example, SDRs are testing out cadences – trying to get people on the phone or by email to take a meeting with AEs. They’re using all sorts of messaging that may or may not be aligned to the company’s brand. An appointment is set. The AE says they want to “triangulate” the info from the SDR or they want to hear it with their own ears, so they ask the buyer the same questions. The buyer repeats themselves and that’s annoying. It’s a buyer friction point. Many companies – in an effort to, “make the number,” have introduced buyer and customer friction points. In this recent model, execution is outdated and definitely not up to par. It’s focused on short-term gain where few people win. Many win when creating and executing based on strategy. 

The #oneteam approach is about reducing buyer and customer friction and frustration. If you internally are operating as one team instead of in silos and fragmented, what the customer sees and experiences will be seamless and an overall better experience. The Sales-led approach prioritizes customer experience as the central tenant. It includes aspects of product-led growth (PLG ) in execution, but the core is customer experience. Companies that understand and anticipate the needs of buyers and customers the best will win, and they will have a massive competitive advantage.

A Sales-led culture is highly collaborative and incorporates role-based learning (skills), leadership courage, objective performance assessments, a simple sales process/sales playbook, coaching, and a repeatable operational cadence. Everyone practices, together and alone. Everyone is engaged, and there is unprecedented mutual respect. This culture of collaboration is focused on a “we first,” not a “me first,” attitude. 

The Role of AI

While AI plays a crucial role in augmenting sales processes/sales playbooks, it’s vital to remember that it does not replace human touch and ability humans possess to personalize based on authentic connections. AI is best used for administrative tasks, web scraping, and providing data insights, allowing Sales to focus on building genuine relationships with buyers and customers. 

Conclusion

When this approach is implemented properly, seamless internal experience translates externally to buyers and customers and everybody wins.