Setting up and optimizing b2b sales process for high growth companies

Group	Teacher	Department	Language
Year 1	Georg Volwahsen	Dirección General y Estrategia	ENG

Prerequisites

In B2B, Sales is the most crucial department in any company! And it is not only about creating the cashflow that will allow you to develop your product! Sales will tell you if you have a product market fit, when you should scale and what evaluation investors are willing to give you. It is Sales KPIs you will be diving into to determine your market focus, developing your product roadmap and when you negotiate with investors.

Modern revenue organizations move away from Hollywood style lone wolves romantics to a systematic and scalable methodology, using tech and data to boost conversion rates and create market insights - the foundations of your business.

We have implemented this modern methodology in over 40 B2B Tech startups in Europe where it is used on a daily basis for any strategic and tactical decisions. The great news is that you can learn this framework and its dynamics, right here in this course!

We offer you a hands-on course which will teach you the strategy, structure and tactics you need to start your own sales machine. This course is for entrepreneurs that start their own company or that want to accelerate any other revenue organization to a triple digit growth!
What are the processes, formulas and benchmarks of a successful startup, and how will you reach these?

Building on real battle stories we have lived through, we will guide you step by step to create your organization, develop the playbook and get your first sales! When you leave this course you will know exactly which steps to action and how to make decisions based on your sales conversations.

In order to join this course, you need the curiosity and passion to join us on a journey to uncover the black box of a successful B2B startup. To go into the nitty-gritty details of how to get your customers, not just one at a time but repeatable!

Workload distribution

SESSION 1: THE SALES MACHINE OF A B2B SAAS
- The different types of B2B SaaS companies
- The functioning of a B2B SaaS sales machine
- The different roles in a B2B sales team and where to find them
- Differences between inbound and outbound

SESSION 2: SALES PLAN, COSTS AND HIRING PLAN
- Sales plan design
- Dimension the sales team
- Hiring plan design
- Calculation of customer acquisition cost and payback time
Group assignment: Develop the sales plan for a company of your choice

SESSION 3: MARKETING FOR B2B SAAS
- Marketing team roles, metrics and objectives
- How to create a content plan
- Main channels and how to create a campaign
- New trends in B2B marketing
Group assignment: Create a marketing content plan for the company of your choice

SESSION 4: HOW TO GET SALES OPPORTUNITIES
- How to select your target market
- How to identify your buyer personas
- How to get contact information
- Pitch, email and LinkedIn templates
Group assignment: Write the pitch for the company of your choice

SESSION 5: FROM OPPORTUNITY TO CLOSING
- The phases of sales closing
- How to convey the vision of your solution
- How to make a demo
- How to prevent and react to objections
- How to generate urgency
- How to establish the pricing and negotiate

SESSION 6: METRICS AND SALES TEAM MANAGEMENT
- The most important metrics of the Sales Development Representatives team
- The most important metrics of the Account Executives team
- How to manage your team with three weekly meetings
- Creation and continuous improvement of the sales playbook
Optional exercise: Create a free Pipedrive account, enter some sales opportunities and visualize the key metrics

SESSION 7: Presentation
- Final Team presentations

Optional reading:

- The Sales Development Playbook: Build Repeatable Pipeline and Accelerate Growth with Inside Sales, Author: Trish Bertuzzi
- Predictable Revenue, Author: Aaron Ross
- The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million, Author: Mark Roberge

Course Learning Objectives

This course is intended to prepare you for real world challenges:

1 Revenue Strategy - You will understand the revenue strategy as the alignment of target market, market maturity, solution offering, pricing and team composition. If you want to be successful you have to get this right - and we will show you how to.

2 Tactics & Tricks - Revenue You will learn how to engage in prospect conversations, which channels to use and what are the tricks to generate quality leads on low budget. You will know how to implement the tech stack and how to analyze and improve your results.

3 Revenue Playbook - You will walk out the classroom with your own playbook for marketing, prospecting and sales, a hiring plan as well as sales plan with precise activity and revenue targets. You will be empowered to set up a high performance sales organization from scratch. Not as a theoretical concept but as actionable steps. (Yes - if you have your own startup you will work on your own ideas!)

Methodology

To achieve the objectives of the course, the format of it would be based on case studies, group exercises and a mix of lectures and class discussions.
Case Studies. Generally, the first half of the sessions will be devoted to the analysis and discussion of cases. The case method is one of the most effective pedagogical tools to sharpen your analytical and decision-making skills, as it requires you to be an active participant in marketing decisions. Cases intend to give you practice in assembling data, supporting and discussing decisions. Moreover, the case method provides a vehicle by which to apply theories, concepts, and frameworks that we discuss in class or which you find in the assigned readings. Finally, the discussion constitutes an opportunity to defend your position and to learn from others, by listening to their comments and criticisms. Everything on a "safe environment?, where there are low risks when mistakes are made. Classrooms are our training environments to prepare you for business challenges.
Lecture/Discussion. The second half of the sessions follows a lecture/discussion format. These sessions are devoted to presentation and discussion of frameworks, concepts and theories that are useful for marketing practice. In general, these lectures are strongly linked to what we have discussed previously during case analyses.
Group Assignments. After specific classes there will be group assignments to put in practice the content of the sessions with a company of your choice. You can also choose to do them about your own (fictional or real) company. In the end of the course you will have developed a marketing and sales playbook for this company.

Assessment criteria

20% Class Participation
30% Individual Quiz
30% Team Deliverable (Your Playbook!)
20% Final Team Presentation

Class participation:
Grading class participation is necessarily subjective. However, we try to make it as "objective as possible?. Some of the criteria for evaluating effective class participation include:

1 Is the participant prepared? Do comments show evidence of analysis of the case? Do comments add to our understanding of the situation? Does the participant go beyond simple repetition of case facts without analysis and conclusions? Do comments show an understanding of theories, concepts, and analytical devices presented in class lectures or reading materials?
2
Is the participant a good listener? Are the points made relevant to the discussion? Are they linked to the comments of others? Is the participant willing to interact with other class members?
3
Is the participant an effective communicator? Are concepts presented in a concise and convincing way?
Individual Quiz:
You will be able to show all your learnings in an individual quizz at the end of the course.

Team Deliverable:
At the end of sessions 2, 3 and 4 there will be team assignments that will lead you into developing the sales playbook of your company, which you will deliver at the end of the course.

Final Team Presentation:
In the end of the course you will present the playbook in front of the class. We will evaluate the content and the delivery of your presentation. Your classmates will have some fictitious money which they will decide to invest based on the sales processes and capabilities displayed.

Type:	OPT	Curs:	1	Period:	S semester
ECTS Credits:	2 ECTS

Setting up and optimizing b2b sales process for high growth companies (2225.YR.014498.1)

General information

Type:

Curs:

Period:

ECTS Credits:

Teaching Staff:

Prerequisites

Workload distribution

Course Learning Objectives

Methodology

Assessment criteria

Timetable and sections

Timetable Year 1