🧰 Venture Tools #007: Sales Masterclass with the Fastest Growing SaaS in Europe
300+ Sales Tools & Resources
Trumpet is currently one of the fastest growing B2B SaaS companies in the world.
Within a few months they amassed a waitlist of more than 3,000 business users, and are currently growing revenue at 60%+ MoM.
Did you know that only 6% of cold outreach email attachments are opened?
Trumpet’s sales pods solves this problem for sales teams resulting in increased conversion rates and shorter sales cycles.
CEO Rory Sadler joins us this week to tell us more about their journey and to give us a masterclass on sales.
Readers of my newsletter can skip the waitlist for Trumpet and try it out free of charge. You’ll also receive 50% off their first 3 months if they convert to a paid plan.
Click link below & enter the beta key: jointheband
If you convert to a paid plan enter this at checkout: VENTURETOOLS50
Tell us about your background and how you came to be CEO of Trumpet?
The entrepreneurial bug has always been there, from selling sweets at school, to studying entrepreneurship at university. The course involved developing an idea to MVP and then pitching to angels. Being the only student that was offered investment really cemented my startup ambitions.
But I knew I wasn’t ready yet. I went on to last 10 months in the corporate world. The slow pace and bureaucracy quickly fuelled my decision to enter the startup scene and learn how venture backed businesses are built from the ground up.
Presenting was something I enjoyed so I was naturally drawn to sales roles and fortunately managed to become the first sales hire at Catapult - a gig economy marketplace and SaaS solution in the hospitality and retail space. We went on to raise Series A before Covid arrived. This led to me leading the European sales team at Hotjar (Acquired by Contentsquare 2021) - a bootstrapped market leader in the behavioural analytics space, competing against VC backed companies with several hundred million dollars of investment behind them:I learnt a tonne as you can imagine.
This equated to 5 years in B2B SaaS Sales and a deep understanding of the sales software landscape. I’d also experienced firsthand how complicated buyer journeys were becoming and the constant increase in sales cycle duration.. Fortunately, I’d reconnected with Nick and Andrew, exited founders of DesignMyNight, and together we dug deeper into this shift.
After interviewing over 200 salespeople and 100 buyers, trumpet was born.
What are the most frequent mistakes you see startups making in the B2B sales process?
There’s a bunch.
Implementing a CRM too late.
Avoiding founder led sales.
Recruiting sales too early.
But the main two I see are scripting playbooks too early and happy ears.
No week or month is the same in a pre-Series A startup. You’re still battling to find PMF and there’s most likely very little consistency in the logos you’ve onboarded. Which makes playbooks pointless in my opinion.
Logging learnings, recording demos and having an organised CRM with custom fields that are populated is more valuable than trying to create a repeatable process when nothing about your growth is repeatable - yet.
Then there’s happy ears - assuming every conversation is an opportunity and that there’s buying intent. Startups need to prioritise their own time so dig deeper, be direct and understand as early as possible whether there’s a fit - otherwise you’ll risk working on a deal that fizzles out after 6 months of work. This often means also putting all eggs in one basket - not realising the importance of top of funnel. I’ve seen startups burnt by being entirely reliant on a handful of warm conversations that never materialised.
What are your top tips for startups selling to businesses?
1. Implement a CRM as early as possible, create custom fields and keep it organised. Enriching data will also help you segment leads and implement ICP scoring.
2. Leverage social selling - email outreach has increased by over 70% in the last year but email response rates have dropped by 30%
3. When selling into enterprise, get your security and compliance requirements in order early.
4. Focus on buyer enablement - making a prospects journey as seamless as possible. They only spend 5% of their buying journey with salespeople so make it count and stand out from the competition by going the extra mile.
5. Invest in a conversational intelligence tool to record and analyse your calls: talk to listen ratio, number of questions asked, words per minute etc
How has the B2B sales process evolved in recent years?
Quite simply, buyer behaviour has changed but sales hasn’t.
We’re all one click away from receiving an e-commerce purchase at your doorstep, sometimes within hours.
This purchase ease means buyers want to self-serve more than ever. Competition, pricing, reviews and product info is a click away too.
Yet salespeople are still taught to apply a formulaic approach to every prospect. Instead, we should be meeting buyers where they are in their journey.
Which companies do you look up to in terms of their B2B sales process and why?
On one side Hotjar, as they had the perfect blend of Product-Led Growth with Product-Led Sales alongside some enterprise sales too. Experiments took place quarterly and they prioritised RevOps so data was intrinsic to every strategic decision. They were a well oiled machine!
Then there’s the likes of Dooly, Gong and Lemlist. Their approach to content and community is closely integrated with their sales motion, meaning it’s rare reps speak to a prospect that hasn’t heard of them.
When hiring sales people, how do you assess them? What should founders look for?
Digging deep into a deal they’re most proud of as well as a deal they lost should highlight to what degree they’re a team player, their ability to reflect and the importance they place on learning.
Doesn’t hurt to get them to pitch their current product to you either.
In terms of what to look for - energy, empathy and someone that leaves their ego at the door. You can’t teach these things. Embracing feedback and being resilient are equally as important as for every ‘yes’ there are ten ‘no’s.
We appear to be heading into a turbulent time for the world economy, how will this impact B2B sales? How can founders and their teams prepare?
More deals are going to get pushed back or scrapped altogether. The economic uncertainty means budgets will be tightened, indecisiveness will increase and businesses will focus on painkillers rather than vitamins.
To prepare, all focus needs to be on creating more top of funnel and quality of outreach, not quantity.
It’s too easy to drop 100 contacts into a cadence and hit send. Don’t do what everyone else is doing.
Focus on hyper-personalised outreach and standing out from the competition.
What’s the best email cold outreach you’ve received?
Flipping it slightly but it was on LinkedIn - I received a personalised Vidu Gif with my name and Manchester United’s badge alongside a 20 second voice note. The rep cut to the chase, made it relevant based on the stage of our business and asked “is this of interest” rather than “can we have a meeting”. It really doesn’t take much to stand out from the crowd.
What tools can founders use to improve their sales process?
Jiminny or Gong for conversational intelligence and analytics
Lavender to help you write effective sales emails.
Amplemarket, Lemlist or Outreach for email sequencing.
And trumpet of course, to accelerate sales cycles, book more meetings and give your buyers the seamless, personalised and centralised journey they deserve.
Trumpet have also put together a list of 300 sales tools and resources 🤌
Have a great week.