Sales Hacker and SetSail Join Forces For Lively Workshop

How to Solve the “Missing Data Problem” That’s Wrecking Your Forecasts

Sales Hacker teamed up with an all-star team of RevOps leaders for a workshop on solving the “missing data problem.” Alex Greer from SetSail (Sr Director of Sales Operations and Sales Development), Rachel Mae from A Sales Growth Company, and Aaron Hill from Winning By Design engaged in a vibrant discussion that led to a few key conclusions:

1. Build “critical event” checkpoints into your CRM and other sales tools

Every sales process should have a series of “critical events” built into it. To drive urgency in your deals, Aaron Hill suggests tying direct consequences to those events. Each event should be built into your CRM and other sales tools to help accurately forecast and reinforce your sales process to the sales reps.

2. Only forecast a deal to close if the rep has identified a genuine business problem

If a deal doesn’t have a genuine business problem identified, you can’t (in good conscience) forecast it to close. Rachel Mae clarified that the business pain shouldn’t be “the lack of our product.” It has to be a real pain that the sales rep has identified and captured in the CRM. 

3. Every contact in a deal should be in your CRM, not just the decision-makers

Connecting with the C-level is critical, but too often sales reps forget about the ancillary folks in a deal. The C-level might be the decision-maker, but your champion and the users are the ones to get the deal across the finish line, so the have to be in your CRM. As Alex Greer astutely noted, that often involves manual data entry, which sales data automation tools like SetSail can do wonders in removing.

You can watch the full recording below!