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The Nearbound Daily is now officially the ELG Insider Daily!
Welcome to the ELG Insider Daily — the #1 newsletter in the world keeping thousands of GTM professionals on top of the latest Ecosystem-Led principles, tactics, and trends. Join the movement here.
SHARE YOUR INSIGHTS
The Future of Revenue survey
As a GTM leader, your experience and insights are crucial to understanding the direction of revenue strategies in our industry.
We’ve partnered with Pavilion to survey GTM leaders, and we’d love it if you could take 7 minutes to share your thoughts.
It’s completely anonymous, and you’ll get early access to the report before its official release this fall.
Take the survey here.
PRINCIPLES
The key differences between high- and low-performing sales teams
HubSpot’s 2024 Sales Trends survey included the question “Which aspects of internal sales culture are most important to keeping you or your team motivated?”
According to the report, the top three differentiators for high-performing teams were:
- Prioritizing trust among reps: 24% of high-performing sales teams highly rank the importance of building a culture of trust among reps. Only 13% of underperforming sales teams have done the same. Some may see sales as a dog-eat-dog profession, but really it’s about lifting together. Model how reps need to trust one another to look out for one another’s best interests. Create a sales team culture that shows that if one of us wins, we all win.
- Collaboration and knowledge sharing: 20% of high-performing sales teams highly rank the importance of collaboration and knowledge sharing. Only 14% of underperforming sales teams have done the same.
- Providing transparent performance data: 17% of high-performing sales teams highly rank the importance of making performance data available. Only 11% of underperforming sales teams do the same. Transparent performance data, that’s accessible to all, can help sales pros stay motivated and on track to hit their goals.
These winning principles of trust and transparency apply just as importantly to external partners as they do to internal colleagues. Succeeding together is fundamental to Ecosystem-Led Growth, and it’s most effective when partners have mutual trust and share data and intel with one another to drive deals.
The companies that have been most successful with ELG know that it’s not a distraction or competitive risk to work deeply with partners to learn about and serve their shared ICP — it’s what drives deals and sets them apart.
TACTICS
A quick-start guide to Ecosystem-Led Sales
Ecosystem-Led Sales (ELS) is a strategy in which sales teams look to partners in their Ecosystem and second-party data (“partner data”) to generate high-quality leads, accelerate sales cycles, and drive account expansions.
With second-party data, sales reps have insight into the tools their prospects are using in their tech stacks and which partners can help them close the deal. Sales reps use second-party data to write sales outreach mentioning their prospect’s tech stack and relevant integrations.
They also collaborate with partners to get valuable intel about the account, team up to sell their joint solution, and get warm intros.
Compared to cold outbound and direct sales, Ecosystem-Led Sales has led to higher quality leads, faster sales cycles, and more account growth. A few industry averages, from the State of the Partner Ecosystem report:
- Ecosystem-Led Sales contributes to 46% faster sales cycles
- Deals are 53% more likely to close when a partner’s involved
- Partners contribute 32% of total pipeline, on average
- Integration users are 58% less likely to churn
A few success stories from companies like yours:
- At TalentPop, leads from partners were nearly 40% more likely to book a meeting with a sales rep than cold leads and had 2x the close rate.
- Highspot saw a 60% larger deal size when co-selling with partners, and partners contributed 58% of the revenue generated by Highspot’s top sales reps.
- Freshworks saw a 50% faster time to close when swapping warm intros with partners.
Now, let’s cover three Ecosystem-Led Sales tactics you can start using right away.
Tactic #1: Include tech stack insights in your sales outreach
Knowing which tools are in your prospect’s tech stack can help you hone in on specific product features and integrations relevant to your prospect’s tech stack and existing workflows. With this intel, you can finetune your sales pitch and your demo to show your prospect value right away.
If your product integrates with your prospect’s CRM software, you can speak directly to how their GTM teams can get more value from using your product with their CRM. You’ll help your prospect envision your product as part of their tech stack and as an integral part of their existing workflows.
Second-party data enables you to see which prospects you have in common with your partner’s customer base. If you see that your tech partner Hextall & Co. has your prospect as their customer, that’s a signal that your prospect is using Hextall & Co’s software.
If your GTM team uses Crossbeam, you can view second-party data directly in your Salesforce account dashboard using Crossbeam Copilot.
Tactic #2: Swap intel with your partner
You’re no stranger to looking for mutual connections between your prospects and your LinkedIn network. Think of swapping intel with partners as the “turbo-boost” version of LinkedIn networking, where your partners expect you to reach out for help, likely have valuable intel about your prospects, and can help you accelerate the deal.
Your partner could have valuable intel about:
- Who’s the stakeholder with the most buying power
- Who would be the practitioners using your product every day
- Your prospect’s buying timeline and budget
- What your prospect’s buying process is like, including about their legal and procurement process
- Whether or not your prospect is ready to buy and adopt your product (and when they might be in the future)
- Your prospect’s existing tech stack and business goals
- Any competing products your prospect’s considering buying
If your partner has a close relationship with your prospect and if it’s the right time to buy, your prospect may also make a warm intro for you or put in a good word for you with the prospect.
Tactic #3: Team up with your partner to sell your integration
If your partner is in an existing sales cycle with your prospect, it could make sense to team up to sell your joint solution or integration. If you’re both in the opportunity stage, it would make sense to show the value of your integration to your prospect so they can optimize their workflow using your products together and achieve better results than they would using your products alone. In some cases, selling your integration could also help increase the deal size.
An example: Ella Monarch, Business Development Manager at Ryder Supply Chain Solutions, says the ideal second sales call always includes a partner. During her first call with a prospect, she focuses on listening to identify the prospect’s pain points, including pain points her own product may not be able to fix.
Then, she brings in a partner who can help alleviate the prospect’s pain points. When she has identified a partner who can help, she and her partner have a call to discuss their joint value proposition and establish a game plan. In some cases, this involves demoing their integration together for the prospect. As a result of co-selling with partners, 18% of Monarch’s sales pipeline comes directly from partners.
Learn more about Ecosystem-Led Sales.
Stuff you don't want to miss!
- September 10th — RevOps Playbook for High-Growth Companies — Tessa Whittaker, VP of Revenue Operations at ZoomInfo, and Mollie Bodensteiner, VP of Operations at Sound will share how to start and identify your RevOps approach. Organized by RevGenius. Save your spot here.
- September 12th — Building a Value-Based Partnership Strategy — Asher Mathew, CEO and Founder of Partnership Leaders, and Chad Quinn, CEO and Co-Founder of Ecosystems, will share how to strategically align with partners to drive value, optimize resources, and sustain competitive advantage in a cost-conscious market. Register here.
- September 17th - 20th — INBOUND 24 — Join us in Boston this September at INBOUND to meet the newly merged team, get the most up-to-date intel on the new merged Crossbeam x Reveal product, and attend the most fun after INBOUND parties. Meet the team at INBOUND.
- October 1st — SalesIntel Annual Summit — SalesIntel is organizing a 100% free and virtual summit where you will find specific tracks curated for sales, marketing, and RevOps and roundtable working sessions focused on sharing actionable ways to build pipelines and achieve growth goals. Save your seat here.
- October 1st - 3rd — RevCon — RevGenius partnered with Common Room, Sigma, Avoma, The Juice, and many more to bring you a 3-day virtual conference to reunite your sales, marketing, revops, and cs leaders behind to learn and discuss about the future of SaaS. Save your spot here.
- October 14th - 16th — GTM2024 — Join Pavilion at The Fairmont in Austin, TX to get ahead on your 2025 GTM strategy, learn about market trends, and boost your GTM strategy. Get your ticket here.
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