10 Simple Tips to Do Better This Quarter — With The Leads You Already Have

So you want to do better this quarter. Maybe last quarter was rough. Maybe it was fine, but you want to step up your game.

One thing you can do is spent a ton on new leads.  You can also totally change your sales team.  Or finally launch that critical feature.

But what can you do now, with the team you have, and the leads you have, to do even better?

A lot, it turns out.

My top 10 tips:

#1.  Drive Down Churn.

This isn’t easier, but 9 times out of 10, it sure is easier than finding brand new customers.  Here’s my #1 tip here.  If driving down churn isn’t a measured, quantified Top 3 goal in the company — try making it one.  If you do, churn will go down.  Almost always.  If you want to say, increase net retention from 100% to 105% this quarter, make that a Top 3 goal and talk about it every single week.  With everyone.

The wheels will turn, priorities will change, onboarding will improve, support will improve, features will shift … and churn will come down.

And driving down churn increases revenue just as clearly and surely as closing net new deals.  Without needing a single new lead, really.

#2.  Drive up NPS.

In a way, this is the same point as #1, almost — except you can recruit even more of the team here.  Every single employee knows something to do to make customers happier, and thus drive up NPS.  You can answer chats faster.  Pick up the phone.  The sales team can call back every single prospect, not just the good ones.  Customer Success can decrease onboarding times.  Marketing can better qualify leads — and qualify out churn-and-burn prospects.  And more.

Drive up your NPS from say 30 to 50, and watch upsells go up, and churn go down, and deal sizes go up.  Again, all without a new feature, lead, or hire.

3.  Be More Grateful.

OK this one is a bit softer than the rest, but as CEO being grateful is one of your top secret weapons.  Have you thanked a top performer this month?  Taken them to a Postmates Zoom lunch?  Promoted them?  Lauded them in the team meeting?  Said Thank You?

Try it, for real.  It goes far.

4. Zoom With 10+ Customers A Week.

This also always works.  Customers love, love, love to talk to the CEO.  Even of a 10-person start-up.  They love it.  So now that we can’t really fly anywhere, or visit in person, you have to take advantage and do 3x more customer “calls” than you ever did before.  Ideally, 10 a week.  At least 6.  This isn’t with new prospects.  This is with existing customers.

Again, do this, NPS goes up, upsell goes up .. and churn goes way, way, way down.

5.  Promote Your Star(s).  

We’ve talked a lot about this on SaaStr about retaining your stars.  But let’s go further.  If you promote your top 1-2 or so stars now, this week, this month — they will do even more.  They will rise to the occassion and the new title.  They will close more.  Deliver more leads.  Do more success calls.  Do more follow-up.  Ship that one extra feature.

The best respond to promotions and step-up.  Use that to do even better now.  This quarter.

6.  Less Spam, More ABM.

Enough of the endless, untailored cadences.  They work, but they don’t work well.  So ban them.  Force your AEs and SDRs to write a custom email, each time they do email.  To really understand who the prospect is, and how they might really benefit from the product.  To research who really to reach out to.

And watch your close rates go up.  Like magic.

You don’t like to get those canned emails, do you?  Neither do they.  It’s lazy.  And it works a bit.  But not all that well.

7.  Weekly Webinar.

Why, why, why don’t you do this?  Each week, without fail, do a webinar.  Invite both prospects and existing customers.  Do a 20 minute demo, or a customer presentation, or a deep dive.  Mix it up a bit each week if you want.  But do it.  Folks will come.  And the ones that do will care.  Even if it’s just 2 or 3 or 10, they will be some of your top prospects.

But you have to do it every week, without fail, to build up the skills and muscle memory here.

8.  Improve Lead Routing.

If you have even 2 reps, you can improve with rep gets which type of leads.  After even just 3-4 reps, this can be magic.  Start specializing then.  Who gets the bigger leads?  Who gets certain verticals?  Who gets how many leads per month?  Who will call back the smaller leads?  Do you have an SLA, to make sure everyone is called back ASAP?  Maybe even in minutes?

You can get a 20%-50% boost just making sure each lead is routed to the optimal rep.

9.  Improve Lead Scoring.

Are you really doing lead scoring?  Are you doing it well?  Across the right database?  Are you following up with every lead?   There are only 40-50 hours in a sales week.  Optimize how the AEs use that time.

10.  Talk to Every Single Prospect.

Please, please, please do this.  Your reps will stop doing this.  They’ll only want to call back the hot leads.  They’ll forget to call some back.  They’ll be lazy if it looks like a tough or small deal.

So give those leads to someone that wants them.  That is hungry.

Because there is money in those leads, too.  The B leads.  They didn’t inbound because they are bored.  They inbounded because they are interested.  Very few prospects want to waste their time talk to an AE about yet another SaaS product. Give those leads to someone hungrier.  And oftentimes … that rep becomes your top performer.  I see this time and time again.

Make it a rule someone on the team has to call back every single prospect that inbounds in less than 15 minutes.  And track it.