timetovalue

Enterprise Account Executive

Valued Contributor

Ramp up Metrics for Enterprise SaaS Sales

I recently joined a series A SaaS startup company selling >$100k deals to the enterprise. The product is complex. We're a small team - me being the newest while the other few joined earlier and inherited most of their pipeline. The sales cycle is in the 6-12 month range. I joined in Q3 and the expectation is that I fully ramp by the end of December (6 months) in terms of quota. The leadership recently asked for my input on pipeline ramp KPIs, which I greatly appreciate, from this January through December. I'm contemplating my response very carefully.

For various reasons, the other reps who joined before me are not good data points and that is agreed upon by my company's leadership.What are enterprise ramp models that make sense in terms of pipeline (i.e. 3x quota per month starting at the end of month 6? Should it be quantity of opp. based? Deal sized/quantity of opps. based by month/quarter? Based on what I'm seeing, I'm concerned about overpromising on monthly pipeline numbers. Other points to consider: deal creation definition is very tight, quota is 7-figures, inbound leads are significantly lower than promised.

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Sunbunny31

Politicker

2

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

What % of your deals close? Do you have those metrics?

This can vary, but 3X quota in the pipeline is my goal, so I am constantly working on building and maintaining that level when possible. It can dip if a larger deal that is a bigger % of the quota either closes or is lost, so that's when you want to be sure that not all the deals in the pipeline are whales so that you're always, at a minimum, at 2X pipe. This is, however, very general, and I'm also not measured on this metric - it's just something I know is key to making quota. Is this going to be a KPI for you?

timetovalue

Executive

1

Enterprise Account Executive

Possibly - leadership is open to ideas. Should pipeline be at 3x quota on a monthly basis (at 100%) for SaaS enterprise at a Series A? What would be a more fair KPI?

Sunbunny31

Politicker

2

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

This is going to be hard for me to answer, because I don't like goals that turn into KPIs that can lead to short sighted decisions.

For example: if you, as a rep, have a KPI to get to 3X quota, you're now incentivized to inflate the value of deals in order to be compliant.

That's not great behavior if your management needs to report on those numbers to get a clear view of the business.

It's better to have pipeline growth as a goal, perhaps with a bonus for incentive, and also have incentives for accurate forecasting. You want all the reps to be constantly building and maintaining pipe so that there's always something in the funnel, of course. Sales 101. Quantifying it may end up leading to other internal growing pains.

KPIs should never incent behavior that's not ideal. So aim lower. If they have their hearts set on pipeline growth as a metric, go for 2X for the first year and see how it goes. I'd just hate to have it bite anybody on the butt if it's not workable or doesn't make sense.

jefe

Arsonist

1

🍁

@Sunbunny31is speaking the truth.

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