ChurnZero

JUNE 9, 2023

Good sales teams typically get the budget, headcount and tools they desire because the function is tied to revenue. As a result, CS teams often have to work harder to make the case for headcount, technology and even product requests on behalf of customers. How can CS leaders address this challenge?

Finance 98

Finance Metrics Customer Success Headcount 98

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 27, 2023

​Accurate sales forecasting is more critical to business success than most realize. Having a predictable pipeline enables more effective decision-making, from headcount planning to strategic investments in technology and beyond. This requires a very thoughtful and consistent cadence in how you look at forecasting so it drives action.

Forecasting 244

Forecasting SMB Technical Review Sales 244

Kellblog

NOVEMBER 23, 2022

Lack of organizational design : management fails to show the proposed high-level organizational structure and how it supports the strategy. But you should have a fairly small set – no more than 5 to 7 – and, again, management needs to show how they’re linked to the strategy. One year of forecast. A laundry list of goals.

Technical Review 118

Technical Review Software Review Forecasting Churn 118

Kellblog

FEBRUARY 6, 2021

They promise, among other things, to “make finance beautiful” and the whole thing strikes me as a product-led growth strategy for a new tool to build financial models outside of traditional spreadsheets. I can’t find them in Crunchbase, but their site shows they have seed capital from Coatue and Passion Capital.

Finance 87

Finance Forecasting Software Review Systems Review 87

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 2, 2023

Forecast prediction: Uses augmented analytics to offer insight on deals in the pipeline that sellers expect to close in a given period through an AI-driven predictive forecast recommendation at multiple levels of the sales hierarchy. Kyle Norton – SVP My main RevTech stack isn’t too complex.

AI 79

AI Revenue Scale ChatGPT 79

SaaSX

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

This INCLUDES headcount-related expenses. If you are utilizing Gusto or a similar payroll tool, your headcount expenses are likely coming into your P&L as one (or maybe two) line item(s). these figures are going to be WRONG because you haven’t properly accounted for your headcount costs in Sales & Marketing.

Finance 118

Finance Sales Hiring Headcount Scale 118

Valuize Consulting

OCTOBER 7, 2021

For example, in Sales, you can take your Annual Revenue Target, divide it by the Projected Revenue Attainment Per Headcount (factoring in some ramp time) and out comes a Headcount projection. This is the forecasted growth per customer, based on account planning. This includes downsells, churn and expansions.

Customer Success 52

Customer Success New CTO Scale Headcount 52

OPEXEngine

SEPTEMBER 9, 2021

Take this example of working with Sales on how many account executives to add in the upcoming year: “Our current sales headcount is 30% higher than the sales headcount benchmark for SaaS companies our size and growth rate, and our ARR per sales rep is 30% lower than the benchmark.

Benchmarks 52

Benchmarks Sales Hiring Headcount Customer Lifetime Value 52

OPEXEngine

DECEMBER 17, 2019

Working with your management team, you then develop a bottom up forecast for expenses. Bottom-Up Expense Forecasting. Benchmarking also provides useful data on spending levels across the major expense categories, i.e., COR, R&D, S&M, and G&A, and well as specific data on headcount for each team within these categories.

Benchmarks 40

Benchmarks Metrics Headcount SaaS 40

Intercom, Inc.

NOVEMBER 14, 2018

There are many parts to a high-performing sales organization – the right people, processes and strategy, to start. If you’re forecasting short on your global revenue target, do you know how you’ll make up the difference? Retention and expansion are key to our strategy for driving sustainable revenue growth.

Sales Hiring 188

Sales Hiring Metrics Revenue Sales 188

Sales Hacker

MAY 26, 2021

Forecast accuracy. They want to increase revenue through effective sales strategies. If you want to develop your sales operations skills to create new and impactful strategies, this is the team for you. This team is responsible for high-level planning and goal setting with a focus on data analysis and sales forecasting.

Scale 60

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Outsourced Development 60

InsightSquared

NOVEMBER 19, 2018

Pulling a rabbit out of the hat to close out Q4 is not a strategy. Track your “best cases” but don’t include them in your forecast. If you have open headcount for Q1 be interviewing in Q4. Behind headcount equals behind plan. Closing out the month of December strong is crucial, but not at the expense of your Q1.

Sales 78

Sales Headcount Sales Enablement Compensation 78

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 13, 2012

These meetings set the tone and strategy for the company for the upcoming year. A financial plan for next year including a headcount plan, a sales plan (if applicable) and a forecast for out of cash date and timing of next fundraise. These board meetings are often the most important of the year.

Startup 100

Startup Sales Hiring Headcount Compensation 100

The Angel VC

DECEMBER 12, 2018

It’s an important question, as your target growth rate determines your hiring plan, budget, and fundraising strategy. As I wrote here , trying to forecast what happens to your CACs if you 10x your sales and marketing spend is very difficult. The second issue is the timing of some of the major expenses.

Sales Recruiting 106

Sales Recruiting SaaS Payments Sales Hiring Scale 106

SmartKarrot

AUGUST 25, 2022

Accurately forecast effort for capacity planning and develop an accurate capacity model to ensure proper headcount throughout the year. Create and implement first-class sales strategies and processes to increase sales conversion across each stage of the sales funnel.

Customer Success 19

Customer Success Sales Hiring Outsourced Development Headcount 19

SmartKarrot

NOVEMBER 17, 2022

Work closely with Growth management to align on strategies, renewal forecasting, coverage plans, and account opportunities (i.e., Ensure internal alignment on account strategy by partnering with cross-functional teams to develop and execute account plans that result in customer references, retention and account growth.

Customer Success 19

Customer Success Development Team Review Systems Review Headcount 19

Unbounce

MARCH 30, 2023

How do I add AI to my marketing strategy? It doesn’t just get you better results—it also speeds up mundane tasks, reduces the need for additional headcount, and lets you focus on the big picture. With this intel, marketers can forecast sales, manage inventory, and push the right products to the right people. That’s gonna change.

AI Search 52

AI Search AI Artificial Intelligence Marketing 52

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 25, 2022

For product folks the pressure’s on to revise your roadmap and short-term strategy to account for a narrowing budget, and shifting customer priorities. If you’re short on time, here are a few quick takeaways: While short-term strategies are more into focus right now, don’t lose sight of the horizon. They’re quite probably outdated.

Sales Hiring 138

Sales Hiring Scale Interviewing Headcount 138

InsightSquared

JULY 8, 2020

Most companies miss the mark when it comes to sales forecasting — in more ways than you think. The chronic inaccuracy of sales forecasting is well-documented by SiriusDecisions , noting that nearly 80% of sales organizations miss their mark by more than 10%. Fortunately all of these can be addressed with AI-Driven Sales Forecasting.

Forecasting 62

Forecasting AI Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence 62

Point Nine Land

DECEMBER 12, 2018

It’s an important question, as your target growth rate determines your hiring plan, budget, and fundraising strategy. As I wrote here , trying to forecast what happens to your CACs if you 10x your sales and marketing spend is very difficult. The second issue is the timing of some of the major expenses.

Sales Recruiting 61

Sales Recruiting SaaS Payments Sales Hiring Scale 61

Baremetrics

JULY 25, 2019

If you’re like most SaaS founders, you’ve googled for a saas financial template you can use to forecast your subscription business. As of the writing of this post, a query for “SaaS forecasting” returns 2.8 Yet, while forecasting subscription businesses is a new frontier, it’s far from the state of the art.

Forecasting 88

Forecasting Scale Sales Hiring SaaS 88

ChurnZero

NOVEMBER 22, 2021

As a Customer Success leader, do you get anxious at the thought of asking your CFO or CEO for additional headcount? Using these models, you too can learn how to go toe-to-toe with your Finance team by presenting trade-offs to get the headcount you need. How to Build a Customer Success Budget for Headcount. Discovery Call.

Customer Success 98

Customer Success Sales Hiring Headcount Benchmarks 98

SmartKarrot

FEBRUARY 9, 2021

Re-organize current headcount to fit the needs of the company. Apply here: [link] Role: Customer Success Manager Location: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Organization: ReadyTech As Customer Success Manager, you will define strategies and activities to generate long-term and short-term customer success and business results.

Customer Success 10

Customer Success Scale Headcount Healthcare 10

Intercom, Inc.

SEPTEMBER 29, 2021

Here’s the strategy the team used to drive business impact and position support as a key value driver. Following Andrew and Marina’s analysis of their existing support journey and opportunities for improvement, they made the decision to roll out a new chatbot strategy and leverage Intercom’s Custom Bots to create a dedicated “courier bot”.

Scale 193

Scale Forecasting Headcount Trends 193

SaaStr

DECEMBER 3, 2020

Sam Taylor: So no matter what, I mean, Dropbox, no matter how you slice it, what function you’re in, was just insane from a growth perspective, headcount-wise, user base-wise, you name it. And so I think through your planning process, obviously, like any forecast, you’re going to have, “What’s your call?

Scale 173

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 173

ChurnZero

DECEMBER 2, 2022

If (nearly) missed targets are becoming the norm, it might be time for you to dust off and revamp your customer segmentation strategy. Alli: Sales projections were based on both white space and sales forecast. Alli: Customer employee headcount aligned well for us with contract value and customer revenue.

Headcount 98

Headcount Underperforming Technical Team Scale Outsourced Development 98

ChurnZero

DECEMBER 27, 2022

Throughout the year, the ChurnZero team has shared content that explores so many different aspects of Customer Success, from career growth strategies and team management frameworks to retention tactics and industry benchmarks. 6/ How to transform Customer Success into a profit center with metrics and forecasting. Not so much.

Leadership 90

Leadership Benchmarks Headcount Machine Learning 90

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 29, 2019

How quickly you’re able to accelerate growth depends on your ability to build a nimble sales org and develop a strong sales strategy. When I started, they had a big growth plan as far as headcount, but they were a little bit looser on processes and cadences and things like that framework I was talking about.

Scale 172

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Payment Services 172

SaaStr

JUNE 10, 2020

We’re going through layoffs and furloughs, recession planning and for me as the CMO, facing really massive cuts to marketing budgets and headcount. And then really thinking a lot about our blog content and our SEO strategy, what do we do with not a lot of budget? We’re looking at everything we do from software to people.

Travel 176

Travel Marketing Scale Outsourcing Services 176

Intercom, Inc.

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

And it doesn’t seem like next year is gonna be kinder, so you’re maturely forecasting better. Our NRR correlates perfectly with their PM headcount growth. Kill all activities that don’t support the strategy, even and especially the “harmless” ones. So maybe coming into this year you were feeling great, and you were dreaming big.

Engineering 151

Engineering Business Scale Sales Hiring 151

Clouded Judgement

SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

If you don’t want to manage all of the infrastructure around Iceberg (plus allocating headcount to do this!) As Frank Slootman (Snowflake CEO) said, “Enterprises are also realizing that they cannot have an AI strategy without a data strategy to base it on.” However, the two are intertwined together.

Data 130

Data Government Scale GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

Totango

APRIL 23, 2019

It is vital that you know how to calculate renewal rates and employ strategies that encourage your customers to renew time and time again. To account for that, you can insert potential and actual dollar values in place of the headcount: Customer Renewal Rate = Actual Renewal Value ÷ Potential Renewal Value X 100.

Headcount 70

Headcount Churn Subscription Payment Features 70

Sales Hacker

JUNE 16, 2021

The mandate for sales enablement is to increase the effectiveness of their go-to-market (GTM) strategy by providing coaching, training, and introducing sales enablement platforms and tools. Forecasting tools. Startup hurdle: headcount. What is sales enablement? Marketing automation tools. Prospecting tools.

Sales Enablement 100

Sales Enablement Scale Sales Hiring Technical Review 100

SmartKarrot

NOVEMBER 23, 2022

You will drive the Customer Success strategy and mentor the team on the best ways to support the clients from pricing to invoice and everything in between. Accurately forecast efforts for capacity planning and develop an accurate capacity model to ensure proper headcount throughout the year. Apply here: [link].

Customer Success 19

Customer Success Headcount Payment Features Forecasting 19

SaaStr

JUNE 16, 2020

Leveraging survey data from 66+ enterprise SaaS companies, Matt Garratt, Managing Partner of Salesforce Ventures shares the landscape of how businesses are shifting their sales & GTM strategies to react to today’s uncertain times. So everyone is adjusting their go to market strategy. I think it’s a bit of a strategy.

Sales Hiring 160

Sales Hiring Scale SaaS Payments Payment Services 160

Kellblog

JUNE 17, 2023

Executive Summary: Sales KPIs (Slide 5) Here we can see key metrics, cut by size, and grouped into five areas: growth & profitability, sales efficiency, retention & churn, GTM strategy, and sales productivity. Sales headcount as % of total headcount. CAC payback period (CPP) is simply not a sales efficiency metric.

Scale 104

Scale Sales Benchmarks Metrics 104

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 21, 2020

And now we’re covering everything on the operation side of things, reporting on individual metrics, team metrics, headcount, planning, forecasting – all that fun stuff. ” Kaitlin: You talked about spend there, and I think it’s helpful to share that in parallel with this automation strategy. Kaitlin: Brilliant.

Scale 221

Scale Sales Hiring Customer Support Metrics 221