By Lihi Pinto-Fryman, co-founder and CRO and Gal Aga, VP of Sales at Syte.ai, a visual search startup and Remagine Ventures portfolio company
Working from home, banning travel, and limiting the movement of people. Social distancing measures are in place for an indefinite period, and sales teams have to quickly adapt to reach customers and prospects solely through virtual meetings and channels.
Inside sales is a method that primarily sells remotely, rather than meeting in person. Sales reps prospect, engage, and convert leads to customers over the phone and web. While the lines between inside and field sales are blurring, the situation today calls for a more inside sales approach to selling.
At Syte, inside sales has always been our focus. As field sales temporarily took a back seat, our inside sales engine proved to be effective and is helping us cope with this health and economic crisis. We compiled this blog post with all the lessons learned from running a high performing inside sales department in the past two years.
How we built our inside sales team and how to start yours
1. Define a go-to-market strategy
Go-to-market strategy (GTM) is an orchestrated plan that defines the process of bringing your product to market and reaching your customers. It should target the right pain point, have the right messaging, use the right channel and time, and implement the right sales and marketing process.
We formulated and answered a lot of questions to help us finalize our GTM. Here are some of the key elements you have to address:
Target market
- Who is the target market? How do you define it?
- Is your product for small and medium businesses (SMB), enterprises, or both?
- Do you start from one segment or do you look further beyond the other?
Pricing
- Is using a freemium model feasible?
- Would you consider selling more of the same product to the customer (deep selling) or more transactional?
Team structure
- Do you do field sales in combination with inside sales (hybrid) or just inside sales?
- Are you inbound, outbound, or both?
- What is the appropriate team structure?
Product
- What is your competitive advantage that can make prospects switch from competitors?
- Do you plan to land and expand? Or is it mostly a new business?
We approached inside sales as a whole organization. Everyone made a contribution. In the beginning, the founders gave demos all day. Marketers and sales reps focused on outbound tactics. Product and customer support shared insights from development and existing customers. Getting everyone on board was crucial and it helped a lot to make the plan successful.
2. Build an initial sales plan
After the GTM, we started formulating our sales plan. A sales plan often includes overarching targets, specific revenue, and performance goals for a given period. It entails the specific strategies and procedures that can help achieve your sales goals.
When you create your sales plan, here are a few questions that guided us:
- How much can you close?
- What is your win ratio?
- How much pipeline do you need to reach your goals?
- How much can one enterprise business development representative (BDR) bring?
- What is your annual contract value (ACV)? What factors do you include in calculating its value?
- How fast can you recruit and train?
- What does your ramp up process look like?
We started from the bottom up. Our goal for the first year was to build a strong foundation before scaling significantly.
3. Conduct analysis and create a second-year sales plan
Evaluation is a critical step in any strategy, especially so for your initial sales plan. It can help you determine and understand what works well, identify things to improve on, and pinpoint the best way to move forward based on data and evidence.
In the second year, we formulated conclusions and the target was very clear. We had to triple our revenue. So, we calculated our top down program this time. It included the following:
- Structure
- Recruitment
- Channels
- Confidence intervals
- Weekly, monthly, quarterly goals
- Performance indicators
- Budget
- Process stability and management
We made sure all of these elements were in place and that our overall infrastructure was scalable before we clicked the scale button. Everyone in the organization knew about the changes in strategy. We made sure we were all in sync, moving towards the same mission.
It took some time. But in the end, we straightened out and found the formula in everything. Eventually, it all ticked like a lubricated machine.
Now, after going through our second year, every bolt sits in place, ready for the extra triple in revenue. We now have 30 insides sales team, made up of account executives (AEs), sales development reps (SDRs), BDRs, presales, directors, and team leaders.
How we created our sales plan and strategy after the second year and how you can develop yours
4. Build the pipeline creation machine before increasing your sales lineup
How do you envision the journey your prospects have to make to purchase your products or services? How many opportunities does your organization have to pursue to close a certain number of deals?
Creating a pipeline helps visualize the sales process. It shows the status of each prospect and sales activity. It not only identifies what works but it also adds a layer of accountability. A sales pipeline should make your goals easier to track and achieve.
Our sales pipeline has the following elements. Look through and see what you can adapt considering your existing and future sales strategy:
- Outbound machine. Our outbound system has a win rate of over 20%. When selling to enterprises, an outbound approach is not necessarily harder or longer. You just need to know how to do it. What are the benefits of doing outbound sales? It is predictable. There is no competition. You will also have the possibility of communicating directly to the decision maker who can create a budget and set the rules of the game of the decision process.
- Events. Not during this time but attending events is one of our key pipe generators. As events are moving to virtual conferences soon, we will definitely participate. You should too!
- Partnerships. We have a 45% win rate here! It is just a gold mine. Syte has partners such as Microsoft, SAP, and resellers in Japan who function as outsourced BDRs. It works great in France and other non-native English markets as well. Leveraging resellers is a great strategy to have an inside sale machine while being able to “be everywhere” and reach the markets.
- Inbound, Inbound, Inbound. Our SDR team works closely together with Marketing to constantly optimize performance. We do content marketing such as webinars, guest posts, thought leadership pieces, press releases, and more. We also do social media marketing. LinkedIn is a mighty engine for us. It also took a while, but we got there.
- Expansions. We “deep sell” to our existing customers. And since it works well, we made it a method. We are proactive. We connect with our customers every quarter and try to upgrade. Our win rate here is over 50%!
5. Create a sales playbook
Organizations with an up-to-date, comprehensive sales playbook see many benefits. From onboarding new sales reps to evaluating performance. A sales playbook provides a structure for closing deals, describes the roles and responsibilities of every member of the sales team, and identifies metrics for success and improvement.
Our sales bible has been with us since day one. We constantly document and update it. Every little thing goes to the playbook. We now have 150+ pages which are built as a presentation to make it easy for everyone.
What’s inside our sales playbook and what to include in yours?
- Steps for presales, sales, outbound, inbound, partnerships, and more. Why? So you can learn and find your magic formula. Of course, along the way, it also helps teach and inspire others.
- Best practices of every stage. Sales process, Salesforce process, and success stories.
- Boot camp on every chapter of the playbook. That is how all the training at Syte is structured. It is clear to everyone what to learn and where it is at.
6. Foster an environment where you recognize and leverage the entire organization for the benefit of transactions
Sales team morale and the whole work culture can have a huge impact on overall quota attainment and performance. Today’s crisis, joined with an existing competitive landscape, requires an inclusive and thoughtful work environment (even virtually). One that will boost your sales reps’ satisfaction and engagement to impact the bottom line.
Stay connected
For us, gone are the days when founders and even VPs are in the field daily. However, the most important thing is to keep connected. Feel, help, set an example, and keep learning about the people, the market, the product.
Otherwise, you will become irrelevant. You will lose grip. You will not understand your sales team. If you don’t know the essence of your organization, then how will you help when issues arise?
Streamline communication
The same is true of the other areas and key functions in other departments. Everyone in your organization has a part to play and expertise that will help sales, nurture prospects, and engage customers.
For instance, these are the specific contributions of the different teams we have:
- Customer success engages in the presales process
- Product talks about future offerings
- CEO brings company vision, gives confidence, and helps to promote big customers
- Customer support provides input for product development
Aligning not only sales but also across departments provides visibility. As a result, it will become easier and faster to solve problems, create more growth channels, and enhance customer confidence in your products or services.
7. Work on the team’s DNA all the time—this is the key!
What is the secret to sales success and a strong inside sales team? A winner mindset embedded in the team’s DNA.
Having a mindset of “everything is possible” and “dream big” is the most important muscle for a sales rep. You can teach a sales rep everything about the product and industry. You can also coach and improve his or her skills. But the most difficult to train is the sales rep’s attitude and psychology. It doubles the power.
At Syte, we tell sales reps to work on themselves more than they work on anything else. We recommend getting up early and practicing meditation. We also suggest setting life goals and tuning in to them every day.
In the history of the department, we broke a lot of records and reached new heights we thought were unimaginable before. We strongly believe the above approach was key in achieving them.
8. Always look for growth
SaaS sales is a profession. There are a million courses, blogs, opinion leaders, and methods to follow to build yourself and your sales team from scratch.
Part of the culture we constantly cultivate is that if you do not grow, you are noble and dead. There is no benefit to merely standing in place. You must constantly grow personally and professionally.
Routine is our biggest enemy. What do we do to make sure we are constantly improving? We line up every quarter. Every manager needs to make cross-sectional conversations with their staff. We set growth goals for individuals and a common team plan for improvement.
9. Don’t start too fast, know what works first
You may have heard it too many times. Slow but steady wins the race. Taking the time to find the right formula for each sales role is another crucial element in building an inside sales powerhouse.
The most significant thing for us was finding AEs, BDRs, and managers that fit our strategy and culture:
- AEs and BDRs. It is clear that we need cannon people for these roles. Those with crazy hunger, who are very intelligent, and successful. Those who move fast and make things happen. We always prefer talent over experience. When we see that someone has really learned and recognized it. When he or she sees SaaS sales as a profession, that itself is already a pro.
- Management. Finding team managers and bringing in people with the potential for management from outside is very difficult. If possible, we would just like to promote from within. And that is the direction we are going for. Our sales director was an awesome AE and now a team leader. We also promoted a team leader in SDR.
In general, though, we are still experimenting with it. We are combining people with enterprise experience, and people with experience freelancing who can do retraining. We also include in the mix, people who were SMB stars in serious companies.
Sales reps know how to sell themselves well. They speak all the concepts and know how to win people. But in the end, it will always be difficult to get really good people that match what you are looking for—even though there is a big market out there. So, patience. Promise, it will be worth the wait.
10. Build your sales organization, or your startup with unrelated mission
If you approach sales management with only an “exit” goal, you can easily lose the human side of what you do. The tendency is to just focus on what affects your successes the most, without regard for anything else.
But if you desire to build people and an environment where they can feel at home and find a personal development path, the results will be meaningful. These are two of the most significant lessons we’d like to share with you:
- First, when you focus on people, you will get huge satisfaction in the job. For us, it feels like coming to our second home every day, with tremendous fulfillment and desire to devour the world.
- Second, your people will also feel this way. As a result, your successes will be even greater.
The health crisis we are going through right now is truly one of a kind. As we tread uncharted waters, developing or pivoting to inside sales has benefits that not only can help you ride the waves of uncertainty. If successful, it can also provide your people a new challenge and an opportunity for growth.
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Lihi Pinto-Fryman
Lihi is the Co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer at Syte, the leader in Visual AI for Retail. Lihi has over 15 years of experience in entrepreneurship, finance, and investment banking. At Syte, Lihi leads the Marketing, Sales and Customer Success teams. Under her leadership, Syte has ascended to the top 1% of SaaS companies in terms of revenue growth. Lihi is an experienced speaker and thought-leader in the retail-tech industry, speaking at conferences such as Shoptalk, and interviewing for publications such as TechCrunch, Hubspot and more. Before Syte, Lihi was VP of Private Banking at Bank Leumi (UK).
Gal Aga
Gal is VP Sales at Syte, the leader in Visual AI for Retail. He has over 10 years of experience in the enterprise SaaS Sales industry, with expertise in international field and enterprise inside sales. At Syte, Gal built and trained the global sales team of enterprise AEs, Sales Engineers, Directors, SDRs, BDRs, Channels and Operations. His leadership significantly contributed to Syte’s success, reaching a 300% YoY revenue growth. Gal is a skilled coach who is passionate about helping people grow and creating top winning teams with a strong culture and mindset. Prior to joining Syte, Gal was Director of Sales at Sisense
I'm a former general partner at google ventures, head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google's first physical hub for startups.
I'm also the founder of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read. Since inception in 2012 we've built 11 schools and 50 libraries in the developing world.
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