Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
00:00:00 · Lenny Rachitsky, Jen Abel
[00:00:00] S0: So we're going to do something really unique with this conversation and basically go through the enterprise sales' lifecycle step by step. Let's set this up. [00:00:08] S1: Let's start with, "How do I even get the first meeting?" We are in this flood-the-zone moment of everyone trying to break into the enterprise, but what exactly are you solving for them as a problem that's level one, but most importantly, alpha? And it needs to be different. [00:00:22] S0: Step two is basically running the intro call. [00:00:25] S1: This is the most important call out of all of them. This is what I like to do. Super informal. Don't show them a demo. Don't show them slides. Focus on them. Have a one-on-one dialogue for 30 minutes. The whole game is to slow down to go fast. And by the way, do not bring a recorder to this call. [00:00:45] S0: What are the benchmarks for how often do you get through each of these stages? [00:00:48] S1: The win rate for enterprise is usually around 30 to 35%. If your win rate is higher than that, your price is too low. [00:00:55] S0: What are some signs that your salesperson is not doing a great job? [00:00:59] S1: The most successful salespeople are not trained salespeople. Fastest way to commoditize yourself is to go into some sales script like, "Budget authority need timing." That should be in the back of your brain. You never actually ask those questions. [00:01:10] S0: What percentage do you think are just doing it wrong? [00:01:13] S1: 90%. [00:01:14] S0: Wow.
00:01:14 · Lenny Rachitsky, Jen Abel
[00:01:14] S0: Wow. [00:01:15] S1: It's literally so fun, people read these sales books, go to these sales trainings. They try and take someone else's game and run with it and it never works that way. [00:01:23] S0: Most people think the sales process is five steps and we're already in step 10 and we're not even done. [00:01:28] S1: The worst thing you can do in the sales process is- [00:01:34] S0: Today, my guest is Jen Abel. This is her third time on the podcast. For those that don't know Jen, she's co-founder of JJellyfish, GM of Enterprise Sales at State Affairs, and most importantly, is the person that I've learned the most from about the art and science of enterprise sales. In our first conversation, we went deep on founder-led sales. In our second conversation, we focused on the $1 million to $10 million enterprise sales playbook. And in this conversation, we do something I've never seen anyone do on another podcast, we go step by step through the full enterprise sales cycle. Most people think this is a five-step process. It turns out it's closer to 15 steps. Most people ignore a bunch of these steps that you'll hear about. [00:03:01] S1: Round three, super excited to be here, Lenny.
00:03:01 · Jen Abel, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:03:01] S1: Round three, super excited to be here, Lenny. [00:03:04] S0: I'm even more excited. So we're going to do something really unique with this conversation. I've never done anything like this before. We're going to basically go through the enterprise sales lifecycle step by step. You'll talk about this, but many people think it's like five steps. You talk about how there's actually something like 15 steps. A lot of people ignore a lot of these steps. And the idea is I want to create a very concrete and tactical playbook for how to do enterprise sales. We've had conversations- [00:03:34] S1: Give away my secrets. [00:03:36] S0: That's the goal. Just suck them all out. Make everybody amazing at sales. It will be great. [00:03:36] S1: Awesome. [00:03:44] S0: And this touches on just why I think the podcast is really helpful to people and just the Valley vibe, even though you don't live in the Valley. Just there's so much win, win, win in helping people learn these things. It may feel like, "Why is she giving away all these things?" But maybe actually, let me ask you that. Just why do you share these things?
00:04:02 · Jen Abel
[00:04:02] S1: Well, it's so interesting because there's so much art to this that, even if you gave someone a 15-step playbook, there's so much of a feeling that you have to go off of. Sales is one on one, right? You're dealing with a variable, which is another individual. And if you ran the same flow every single time, it's going to probably not hit one out of every four times because everyone's different. Some people like to joke, some people like the small talk opener. Others want to jump right into it. Some are technical. Some are not technical. So everybody's so different that, even if I gave, even as we go through all these 15 steps while it's 80% of it, the other 20% is obviously the art of how you make someone feel, "Do they feel heard? Did you make it fun? Did you tell a good story?" That's also a huge part of this. Too much to cover today, so we'll stick to the roadmap of how to close these deals. But I think the interesting thing about enterprise sales is, even if you sell a $100,000 solution, it is the same exact process to sell a million-dollar solution. So that's why it's an interesting process because the enterprise organizations are more sensitive to the process you take them through from a sales motion than they almost are with demoing the product.
00:05:28 · Lenny Rachitsky, Jen Abel
[00:05:28] S0: Amazing. And I'll just give a plug for, if people want to continue learning, your Twitter feed is just the best. You share all this stuff constantly. And I think you talk about there's rational reasons to share this stuff, but I think it feels like there's just like, "I just need to get this stuff out. People need to-" [00:05:44] S1: It's like a diary and it also helps me keep it in my mind too. [00:05:46] S0: Right. [00:05:46] S1: It's like my own education. Yeah. [00:05:48] S0: I know exactly what you mean. That's why I started writing. I was just like, "I just want to remember this stuff myself. I'm just going to share it and crystallize it." Okay, so before we get into the steps, let's set this up. What are some things people should know? What's the case study, what we're going to be using here? [00:06:03] S1: Yeah. Let's use a company like SpaceX, right? Recently has seen massive news pressings. Everyone's probably targeting them, right? So it's going to be a hard logo to go in and win. They are a technical organization, but I think what we do is target a nontechnical team. So we're going to really get into the nuance of this. So let's do SpaceX. Why don't we pick legal? Let's have some fun with legal. Interesting thing about legal, it's the largest budget line item in the enterprise budget, right? Sometimes three to four times other budgets. And it's forever. There's always more money for legal. [00:06:55] S0: That's why there's so many legal AI startups. I get it now. [00:06:56] S1: 100%.
00:06:56 · Jen Abel, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:06:56] S1: 100%. [00:06:58] S0: Amazing. And I'll just add, the reason I love to have you on this podcast is I've left both of our previous conversations so just fired up about selling. I have nothing to sell, but I'm always feeling like, "I want to sell something now. I feel like I've learned all these things. It feels so fun doing sales after talking to you." [00:07:19] S1: You're a master. You're actually a master at this. Sales is marketing. Marketing is sales to some extent, right? [00:07:22] S0: All right. [00:07:22] S1: And you do that better than a lot of people. [00:07:25] S0: I feel like you're using some sales technique on me to make me feel good about myself. Okay, anything else before we get into step one of the sales enterprise- [00:07:32] S1: No. I think this is good. [00:07:33] S0: ... sales cycle?