Recently I read Predictable Revenue: Turn Your Business Into A Sales Machine With The $100 Million Best Practices Of Salesforce.com. This is a good book for startups with a B2B sales process and average lifetime values of at least $10,000. The general premise is that companies should have a dedicated person/team that is responsible for prospecting and generating qualified leads with quota-bearing sales reps exclusively focused on engaged leads (no prospecting).
Here are a few notes from the book:
- Targeted unsolicited emails are more effective than cold calls
- Use SalesLoft to manage the entire process
- Separate roles should be used for prospecting for leads (sales development reps), following up with inbound leads (market response reps), closing deals (account executives), and maintaining accounts (account managers)
- Delineated roles result in better results and specialization of skills as well as more measurable results
- A full-time sales development rep should create 10-20 qualified leads per month
- A full-time market response rep can handle 400 inbound leads per month
There’s too much talk of “Cold Calling 2.0” in the book which is literally cold information-request emails (legal spam) to targeted people within companies that fit the ideal customer profile. It does make sense that busy executives are more likely to respond to a short, relevant email that is highly targeted.
Overall, the book is recommended for startups with a B2B sales process that want a more modern perspective on consistent quality lead generation, and thus more predictable revenue.
What else? What are your thoughts on Predictable Revenue?
David Cummings on Startups 
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