When talking about sales, understanding the strategies and best practices that drive revenue growth is essential for businesses to thrive.
In this interview, we feature Lisa Scotto, a seasoned fractional Revenue leader and sales expert who has over a decade of experience working with top brands, including the Happiest Place on Earth, Broadway, and Davos.
With her extensive experience, she has led sales strategy, identified new revenue streams, and designed creative partnership strategies that build audiences, boost brand awareness, and drive growth for blue-chip organizations.
Join us as we delve into the world of sales strategies, go-to-market planning, team alignment, and the evolving landscape of partnerships.
Tell me briefly what motivated you to become a fractional.
By being a fractional, I can help more than one company achieve its audacious growth goals. Being a Fractional Revenue leader allows me to maximize my impact.
What strategies have you found most effective in growing revenue for a business that is in its early stages?
Really honing in on your ideal client profile and doubling down on adding value there. There is a tendency to want to be all things to all customers at the beginning, my advice would be to refrain from this practice and be really intentional about your client personas. This allows you to orient all of your messaging towards an ideal client.
What challenges have you seen in companies that don’t have a go-to-market strategy or established road map to drive sales?
It’s a circus. It is hard to remain motivated without a strategy. Sales are hard — even if you have the best product or service.
Giving your team the playbook allows them to do their best work and work hard at making strides. Without this plan/strategy/playbook, your team will make assumptions and do what they think is right, not necessarily what is best for the business.
What advice would you give to business owners and founders about forecasting and aligning teams to this? Also, what are some best practices around setting a commission structure within your sales team?
Many (read: all) salespeople are motivated by winning, a.k.a. making more money.
If you haven’t structured things in a way where they can see a path to winning and achieving, you will cycle through salespeople faster than a client can say “no, thank you.”
In the beginning, it is important to be realistic about what success looks like for the team and the path to achieving this success. There are creative ways to do this like spiffs, delayed compensation, and spot bonuses.
Depending on your product or service, sales cycles and average price points will determine the best tactics to use.
What creative or best practices should a Business Development (BD) team consider when looking for business?
Research, research, research. Of course, everyone can google a prospect ahead of an upcoming call, but what about joining the company's annual meeting, reviewing job openings, or following the LinkedIn profiles of key executives?
Good BD people will go deeper to connect the dots of their product or service to the organization’s overarching goals.
How can the company also track ROI on many of these initiatives?
This research should be used to craft emails that get prospect meetings. This research should also inform the client presentation or demo and prospects' questions. Sales is a numbers game— the more quality calls and meetings you have the more likely you will sell.
Can you share your perspective on the evolving landscape of partnerships and how organizations can maximize these opportunities?
Partnerships remain a very important part of the sales process for many organizations. In order for this to work well, there needs to be communication, education, and a consistent feedback loop. Treat your partners as clients.
What red flags should you be keeping an eye on that can be trying to tell you that your sales tactic isn’t sticking?
The truth is in the numbers. If something isn’t working, whether it is a client persona, email messaging, case study, or even a new revenue model— cut your losses early
Definitely test and iterate, but don’t be too married to any one idea that it clouds your vision and wastes too much time.
When initially building a sales team, how have you approached this in the past?
When building a team it is important to ensure there is enough business to go around. My rule of thumb is to hire/expand the team when there is too much business for the current team to handle.
There is nothing worse for a salesperson to start a new job only to learn there are few leads, no process, and not a lot to sink their teeth into. Hiring after the demand is generated will be bumpy at the start but will ultimately allow you to grow the team in a more sustainable way.