Predictable Revenue: Turn Your Business Into a Sales Machine with the $100 Million Best Practices of Salesforce.com Paperback – Illustrated, July 8, 2011

I definitely enjoyed the book Predictable Revenue and really like the author's style. Ross did an amazing job helping Salesforce.com generate its opportunities, and this book tells his story of building the lead generation function from scratch and gives some great examples of his leadership style.I would have liked it to have been more specific, but it still fully deserves a 5 star rating for being the course on "Bay Area Lead Gen Scaling 101." Having built and managed a 5+ member lead generation team from scratch exactly like the author, here are my thoughts on the book:Ross' Vision:1) Don't let the so-called "reality" stop you. (Love this comment)2) Subteams and miniCEOs, cool idea for teams within companies. (Great vision, his best)3) Design CEOs and VPs of Sales out of the sales process. (Hmm, interesting. Agreed)4) The future of sales is on new user acquisition and important titles like VP of Lead or Demand Gen. (Agreed)5) Design self-managing teams. (Good)The 4 things Ross nails especially well:1) "Prospects should earn proposals." (This is the best line ever, I always say this)2) Always get prospects to talk about their business, not selling the product. Ask "why" 3x or more. (Great!!)3) In 6 months, follow-up on all past opportunities. (Important)4) Ask yourself in order, "what can I:"A. eliminateB. automateC. outsourceD. delegateSome facts:1) "Short and sweet" emails get over 9% open rate vs. sales-y at 0%.2) Responsibilities of VP Sales includes: goal setting, involvement in big deals, culture, etc. (See full list)3) Most inbound leads come from small businesses, not enterprises.Things I found interesting:1) "Send messages before 9am or after 5pm and avoid Monday and Fridays." (It would be interesting to see these stats in much more specificity)2) "Did I catch you at a bad time" is best intro line. (Hmm, maybe, need to think about)3) "Return on Salesperson's time." (Very interesting concept and would be interesting to track both to company and as an individual)4) Ross says: don't assume sales people will find deals by Rolodexes and cold calling. (Great!! Yes)Parts of Ross' Process:1) Define what companies are most similar to the top 5-10% of your clients. (Good)2) Voicemail and email combinations are effective. (Ok)3) Create a "success plan" for after product is sold. (Good)4) Always start high 1-2 levels above decision maker. (Maybe. Good rule of thumb, but I don't like the word "always." Finding influential people is key)5) Free trials - help create "what defines success" and make sure there is follow-through. (I like paid trials better)6) Track call conversations with DM's per day for sdr team. (Yes)7) Always set up a next step with qualified dms. (Very important)8) Need a market response rep for every 400 leads. (Ok, maybe)9) Metrics to track at board level: new pipeline generated per month. (Good)Some additional thoughts:1) Scaling is "not about hiring more salespeople." (Agreed. Ideally this process would be systemized and automated)2) Hubspot's suggestion on blogs: Participate with others' blogs, comment, and make it a 2 way conversation. (Very good!)3) The trends in sales & marketing are: more accountability on marketing budgets and lead generation teams on ROI. (Yes)Recommended products to check out:1) Landslide - design your sales process for free.2) InsideView3) Connectandsell.com - ondemand conversations4) How Marketo uses Marketo:a. Lead scoring breakdown. Very cool!!b. An email is sent 11 min after web form..Suggestions for improvement:1) Would have likes to have seen more specific examples of success at Responsys, HyperQuality or other clients rather than vaguely "tripled results."2) How important is predictable revenue? Is there a trade-off between predictable revenue and more revenue? I wonder. Maybe, maybe not. I know that I've seen AEs (ClearSlide is one example) incentivized to sandbag to hit 120% of monthly quota rather than have wild swings of 300% ten 40%. That's terrible.3) Didn't include: process for data management, recommended software for deduping, or how leads and accounts were structured.Connect with me at LinkedIn.com/in/caseydkerr or on Twitter @drcaseykerr

This book is a good mix of strategy and tactics. Ross provides several principles for success and then backs it up with a lot of implementation detail. The fundamental problem he addresses is how to turn a haphazard and unpredictable sales process into a visible, manageable, and predictable revenue generator. There's a lot of detail in the book about sales metrics, roles, pipeline phases, hiring, and executing marketing programs. He also covers usage of sales force automation tools.If you're looking for an effective sales philosophy as well as actionable steps, this book will deliver. It's written for sales leaders and would be a good for an environment where more structure and visibility are needed.Much of this book is a counterpoint to old school sales techniques ("Always Be Closing") which hope that brute force cold calling and cajoling customers will result in big deals. Ross believes that carefully designing a sales pipeline with associated metrics, investing in the sales team and focusing on the customer relationship will yield predictable revenue. He includes "selling selfishly, rather than solving" as one of his "how to make things worse" bullet points.Ross tackles several common misconceptions about sales: hiring more sales people will result in more sales, account executives should be cold calling, and sales teams can take care of themselves.Throwing more people at the problem will not help. Creating predictable revenue requires creating a metrics driven sales process. Key metrics must focus on lead scoring and defined phases. He emphasizes the role the process and planning take in creating predictable revenue. He contrasts this with old school “Always Be Closing” which favors the close at the expense of everything else. Ross is a proponent of solution sales and says that sitting with your customer to craft a joint vision of success is much more powerful because it establishes a partnership focused on business outcomes rather than order document.He counters the second issue by creating a separate team with a very specific role and process to conduct “cold calling 2.0”. The key to effective Cold Calling 2.0 is to screen all prospects against a well defined ideal customer profile.Finally, effective sales requires investment in the team. This includes hiring, training, incentives, and executive support.

Great book. I love the coaching style. This is a great guide for sales teams, technologist and managers leading digital automation such as sales force automation in todays turbulent business world. The key to business growth is a foundation built upon predictable and repeatable processes. This in turn leads to self managing teams that drive business value through greater scalability and specialization.

A key takeaway was the concept of sending out a few emails and then spending time following up with those who opened and clicked. I used to send out several thousand emails at once, and every time I did that, new orders came in. But those were orders from my existing customers who already knew the company and were reminded of me.With this process, we send out a few hundred, and then call the 50 or so people who've actually clicked and investigated our services. Then a few days or a week later we send out a few hundred more. The personal contact has brought us quite a few new customer opportunities. If I tried to call all the clicks/opens on the original email blast of thousands, it would be hundreds of people and I'd never have time to make those calls. But I can have a part time person work a day or two a week and easily call 50-75 interested prospects. this process is definitely bringing in new customers. I can use the old newsletter method to inform and remind our existing long time customers.