The Sales Scaling Formula (for New Customer Acquisition) – for Growth-Stage, PE-Backed SaaS

A couple of years ago I presented at the annual Sales Acceleration Summit about “The Science of Sales” (InsideSales.com posted the presentation on Slideshare).

This relates primarily to New Logo / New Customer Acquisition – the The Magic Sales Formula is the “SaaS New Logo Sales Growth Formula”:

 

Here are my notes on the formula:

 

The obvious “levers” or factors in the Magic Sales Formula here are obvious:

  • recruit more prospecting team members (SDRs – Sales Development Reps) and you will increase the # Total Dials per Day (i.e. thus scaling your total $ Sales) – of course, this is the most expensive driver so to maintain good unit economics you have to consider a more optimal solution and, even when you build a team, you have to recruit carefully to maximize the results for the company
  • increase # of Dials per Day per SDR – this is not a silver bullet and not a simple solution (there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes to make this work effectively) but it’s important to note that there are many companies that have Outbound teams performing 150 dials per day and some even do 250-300 using progressive dialing apps (also worth noting that this is not a silver bullet and a lot of sales enablement happens behind the scenes for that work efficiently and effectively)
  • increase the % Connect (you need to determine the optimal one but there are multiple different ways that will drive that – one example is providing more quality leads, or the quality of your contact data or improve the quality of lead scoring)
  • increase the % Conversion of Lead to Opportunity
  • or improve the % Win Rate (i.e. many ways but the obvious techniques here are: hire more experienced reps or improve coaching, development and training of your reps, or improve the quality of MQLs or SQLs that funnel to your AEs)

 

One other key point to note is that while selling is both art and science, I believe that selling itself as well as Sales Management are both a lot more data-driven and a lot more “science” than people think.  This formula is one of the fundamental and most basic ways to describe formulaically how to grow sales and what inputs are the key factors that drive results.

Have you used the Magic Sales Formula?  How have you applied it as a CEO, CRO or a VP of Sales to drive results?