Ross Rich on LinkedIn: One of the most rewarding parts of Founding a startup is being a part of… (2024)

Introducing Stakeholder Mapping via Accord!During my time as a seller, I hacked together my fair share of these via...- Sheets- Notion- Miro- Figma...the list goes on.Over the past few quarters I've chatted with 100+ enterprise leaders who are looking for a better way to build out org charts and power-map / multi-thread for key accounts.Which is exactly why, now via Accord you can:- Map key contacts across Accounts + Opportunties- Sync bi-directionally to your CRM (no more manually adding in SFDC or Hubspot)- Create placeholders for expected stakeholders on each deal- Add qualitative insights to every stakeholder with internal notes and sentiment- Get real-time notifications + engagement data and know exactly when your stakeholder viewed your pricing, legal, or security docs, how often they did so, and at what stage of the dealCurious what it looks like in the wild? Legendary CSM, Sanger on our team created this video for his clients to show off the new feature!

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The best sellers always 'Control the Controllables'Everything else? - inbound pipeline - product features - market conditions - buyer changesThey don't make excuses. They don't complain. They Get. It. Done.But these days, more variables than ever are beyond your sales team's control... and it’s easy to get discouraged when things don’t go as planned*Obsessing over inputs* as a seller helped me feel ownership and motivation – even more the case leading Accord these days.By narrowing in on the highest-leverage activities, there's ALWAYS a path to success.*Was an absolute blast talking winning mindsets, expectation setting, and operational rigor with one of the very, very best revenue leaders out there!Tune into the latest episode of 10/10 GTM, featuring Stevie Case, CRO at Vanta who breaks down this topic and more!!! 👇🎧

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From spending time w/ 100’s of CROs in '24, the term that defines their success has to be:A version of ‘flawless execution’ ‘execution excellence’ ‘operational excellence’.... with a side of ‘rigor’, ‘discipline’, and ‘urgency’ It's the heartbeat of every single winning revenue org in this market. How are the best teams driving the intensity + up-leveling their execution? Breaking it down into 3 buckets: * Setting clear Standards (Expectations) as to what great looks like * Holding their teams Accountable to said Standards * Enforcing excellence across their field… not settling for anything lessFor us, that’s been setting expectations like - we default to going onsite with key prospects / customers, always running custom demos vs generic product walkthroughs, finding a daily value-add touch point on deals, etc.What are other leaders driving towards to drive success this year? A few common themes I’m hearing: 1. Get much higher, much faster! 2. Ensure a value-based sales process 3. Rigorous Account Planning… and actually following through 4. Ensure every single member + step of the buying process is mapped 5. Re-thinking the entire customer journey vs silod Sales, Implementation, CS 6. Meticulously measuring field effectiveness, productivity, & performance mgmt^ all reasons I’m passionate about building Accord!!WHY? Most revenue orgs help people buy when they’re ready to buy. The leaders investing in Accord are the ones who want PROACTIVE SELLERS... not order takers.What does execution excellence mean to you in 2024?

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This isn't a humble brag...It's a... brag-brag? 🤷♂️Because I'm sitting here prepping for our next board meeting Incredibly proud of the HARD WORK, PASSION, and DEDICATION the entire Accordion team has been putting in 🙏 Why?Well after earning our best Q yet to kickoff 2024 –They rose to the challenge, following that up going +69% QoQ these past 3 months!This doesn't just happen with a new feature launch, or killer AE, nailing a new marketing channel, or whatever moment-in-time event...If you've really lived the rollercoaster of working an early stage startup – you know it only comes from:The right TEAMCONSISTENCY, day-in and day-out effort. Obsessing over each lead, deal, customer, end-user, support ticket.Years of narrowing in on a specific problem you can't stop thinking about.It comes from a CULTURE of sweating the small stuff. The Details. Compounding over time.But the reality of Sales, Company building, and Startups?We go back to 0 and have to prove it all over again in Q3... then Q4, then 2025.With even bigger expectations from ourselves, our customers, and investors.If that also energizes you, we're hiring! **Plz reach out --> DMs :)

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As a seller at Stripe, I treated my book of businessLike it was MY business!For the best AEs / Rev Leaders, I think it's the Autonomy + Ownership that draws people in.Personally, knowing I was in complete control of my own success or failure... and the pride I took in how I'd run my day/week/year was super motivating.How each input would directly impact my pay-check was pretty cool too 🤷♂️Fast forward to building Accord – The foundation a career in sales created (eg the mindset / processes / skills developed) translate into nearly everything I do... FundraisingRecruitingLeadingSellingetcSuper energizing conversation with Niki Phillips on 10/10 GTM re: the culture of Ownership, Expectation Setting, and Entrepreneurship as she dives into what's make her incredibly successful as a leader (and lessons learned along the way).Check out the full session below! 👇

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Appreciative for all the hard-working CDOs out thereon this International Dog Day#ChiefDogOfficers #IDD

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Am I being too harsh?!Or should the bar be higher for:- A prospecting software - Selling a new product ‘Prospector’ - With value prop “craft personalized emails”VS this going out as a mass email? 😬Sales is a craft. Technology should be used to elevated it. Who doesn’t want to book more meetings?Unfortunately it takes more than “given your role” in 2024 to do so. Someone please let me know if I’m off here, or you agree that we need to be raising expectations for B2B sales and how we engage across the entire customer journey? My personal take:It’s EASIER than ever to stand out these daysIf you truly take the time to listen, understand the problems your customers trying to solve, their business, their goals…Take pride in the craft of sales, create some luck, stay persistent, get curious, and the rest follows 📈💸🙌🏼

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It’s hard to do as a Seller...and 10x harder as a Founder who built the product from scratchBut selling on VALUE (real impact & outcomes) works *exponentially better* than focusing on your features!Despite personally having a GTM background, I honestly reverted back to the feature and product centric pitch in the early days at Accord… It wasn’t until we consistently figured out our value based pitch that we hit a major inflection point to really start scaling revenue.My top takeaway (even after years of sales @ Stripe and other startups) has been it matters FAR MORE how you’re positioning your product in the market vs the detailed features you offer. Especially up-market and in a non PLG motion.To share these learnings, I’ll be hosting a panel with 3 of the best revenue leaders out there (from MongoDB, Xactly, Freshworks) to dig into how to nail a value-based sales motion to win mid-market & enterprise customers in 2024.We’ll cover the basics, from selling value vs features, driving urgency, when to get on-site, and building exec alignment to ensure execution excellence on every deal, renewal, and upsell.When: TOMORROW, Tues Aug 20th @ 1p ETWhere:RSVP in comments (I’ll share the recording if you can’t join live)Hope it’s helpful to the sales community 🙌

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I was lucky to get my hands on 30MPCs first book! 🔥Kind of....International shipping isn't always on our side 🇨🇦🇨🇦, and while Nick and Armand sent me an early copy with a promise to make it the most actionable cold calling book I've ever read... it got lost somewhere on its route to Toronto.But as a lover of audiobooks, the 30MPC team got me sorted on Audible (btw you can buy “Cold Calling Sucks, And That’s Why It Works” on Amazon + it's $1 on Kindle this week)So why buy?Cold calling WORKS. But there's a massive gap all the way up to sr leadership in terms of HOW to do it well....And SDRs/AEs struggle because they aren't armed with the right playbooks/talk-tracks/skills to hit quota and enjoy the craft of going outbound effectively.This is exactly why the world needs this book and more tactical tips + tools from 30MPC. Execution Excellence for making it happen on the phones!Check it out meow.👉 https://lnkd.in/gCpM9MgZ

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