Horst_in_Luck

Enterprise Account Executive

What to focus on in your first quarter in a new role / territory?

Q2 will be my first full quarter in my new role and in a new territory (Enterprise SaaS). I have a few existing accounts wo work with and my SDR is still in onboarding. But overall how I set my priorities and distribute my time is very open. Any tips?

🔎 Prospecting

👑 Sales Strategy

💵 Finance

12 comments

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LordBusiness

Politicker

Chief Revenue Officer

Prospecting, prospecting, prospecting....the rest will come, but you need to focus the bulk of your time on creating opportunity and pipeline when jumping into a new gig

antiASKHOLE

Tycoon

Bravado's Resident Asshole

I would mention and say that prospecting is the go-to. Identify and list out whales in each vertical you market to, then go from there.

JustGonnaSendIt

Politicker

Burn Towns, Get Money

100% This.

The best way to keep management off your back when you're new is building pipeline. Imagine pipeline is both a measure of the risk of hitting quota, and as a measure of the total effort you're putting in.

Depending on your industry and product, a good goal initially is 3x quota in pipeline on a rolling 4Q basis. This ensures that you don't need a savage close rate to meet your numbers, and as you level up you'll start really making bank.

A good way to think of this in terms of day-to-day execution is to begin with a goal of spending 80% of your time prospecting and 20% on everything else. As you fill up that pipe, you'll notice you're spending more time selling and have less time to prospect. By this point your SDR should be able to take up the slack.

Include the SDR in all of your prospecting brainstorming and your overall prospecting process. I literally have a list of activities shared between my SDR and I, on a set cadence, and we have talk up meetings every week about the activities that each of us are doing to prospect that week.

E.g. SDR cold calls Monday, emails Tuesday, I cold call Wednesday and send a LI message Friday, all for Prospect List A, using call script #5 and email #2 and #3.

By spending time laying this groundwork and then applying the discipline to stick to it, you'll be crushing your number and feeling great about it on Sunday night before you realize it.

wHaTyAgOtCoOkInG

Catalyst

Solution Consultant

Know your top 5- this is your annual goal with your SDR. Tandem prospecting, multi threaded, ATL & BTL.

Know your top 20, these are for you to prospect- All ATL. This is where you begin from day 1.

Then your top 50. This is for your SDR to prospect, all ATL.

Regarding how you pick your top 50- this is up to you, your industry, your ICP.

Out of your 50 accounts: 30 with your sdr, 20 with you and 5 tandem.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

I came here to talk about Top 50, so same on that topic.

Run a report to see what, if any, opportunities are open. Are any valid? If so you may be able to salvage an opp or two.

I'd also drill down to date of last activity. Verify the contact information is correct and update as needed.

Horst_in_Luck

Good Citizen

Enterprise Account Executive

Amazing @wHaTyAgOtCoOkInG and @CuriousFox this is quite actionable advice.
I'm currently doing some work in that direction, but this will help me to clarify and narrow it down a bit more. Appreciate it.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Happy to help!

CadenceCombat

Tycoon

Account Executive

Not enough specifics to give you any meaningful advice.

What’s the product? ICP? What specific challenges are you concerned about?

Your question is way too broad.

Horst_in_Luck

Good Citizen

Enterprise Account Executive

Product is a training software. We integrate into existing tools (CRM, ERP, etc.). So the ICP is the application owner and/or the VP/Director/Head of Digital Transformation.

Main challenge I'm facing for this quarter is strategic pipeline creation so that I can hit my quota in the second half of the year.

I'm currently not fully booked, so I have some time that I can distribute on prospecting, account expansion, creating account maps, and so on. The advice I'm seeking is on how to prioritize/distribute this time.

Hope this clarifies.

CadenceCombat

Tycoon

Account Executive

I think you answered your own question: “prospecting, account expansion, creating account maps, etc.”

No one here is going to be able to tell you how to divide your time appropriately because we aren’t in a position to understand where the low hanging fruit is. It’s completely contextual on the business and what stones have been turned and which ones haven’t.

This is the kind of guidance your boss should be providing, and in the absence of guidance, start doing some A/B testing to see which activities yield the best results.

Horst_in_Luck

Good Citizen

Enterprise Account Executive

I was afraid, but also expecting this answer.

Will push a bit more for guidance from my manager and think about a good way to do some testing on my own. Thanks for your help.

CaneWolf

Politicker

Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract

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Horst_in_Luck

What to focus on in your first quarter in a new role / territory?

12 comments

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