By Kshitij Depda Published on : Oct 13, 2022
The majority of sales reps work independently. Often, their operations are siloed - especially when it comes to representatives operating in a variety of roles. The reps have quotas, are measured by KPIs specific to their performance, and often compete with each other.
As a result, there is more friction among departments than you might think, resulting in unhappy customers, lost deals, and poor customer retention.
Cut through this, business feels some way, but to those who haven't explored the road, it is still too good to be true:
Well, we are on the same page if you, too, thought Sales pods.
See, up until last year, many SaaS and other startups relied on the "Assembly Line" or "Hunter-gatherer-farmer" model for B2B sales.
It looked like this:
Sales Development reps (Accumulator) -> Account executives (the hunter) -> Customer success (Cultivator)
And it worked. Simply by using this model, companies could scale to millions of happy customers.
But there's always room for improvement.
The sales pod format goes against this tradition. A team structure forces a small group of sales representatives working at various levels within a sales organization to cooperate, work together, and be assessed as a single coherent unit. Let's spend some time investigating this tactic in more detail and gaining an understanding of how these "pods" are often organized.
Uniting the three departments seeks to break down the silos that frequently form around them. Instead of having distinct teams for sales, marketing, and customer service, you now have smaller groups or pods that include experts from each.
Essentially, the roles haven't changed much from the assembly line model.
The AE will continue to perform demos and engage in negotiations with prospects, while the SDR will continue to qualify leads. The CSM will continue to manage customer accounts and welcome new clients.
It concerns how they are all cooperating, prospecting, converting, and managing clients. The objective of the pod is to make buyers' journey as seamless as possible, from their initial interaction with the SDR through onboarding and beyond. This sales strategy is genuinely customer-centric. You may arrange the pods in any way that makes sense for your company and place them according to vertical, industry, or region. You may have pods focusing on enterprise businesses across geography. You may have a pod dedicated to selling a single item in your suite.
However, and this is the most crucial point, your pods must all be entirely focused on marketing to the same target, no matter how you organize them. The pod model's true advantage lies in that area.
When used correctly, the sales pod can be a massive asset to your organization.
Some identified the following advantages are as follows:
The prospect is continuously passed off to someone in a different department under the assembly line model. Each of these departments has distinct goals and is evaluated in a different way. In contrast, the pod model. Lead generation KPIs and objectives are shared by the pod. As a result, the entire pod is concentrated on the following tasks:
Better experiences will lead to more prospects signing up (and re-signing) with you.
It can occur rather frequently in outbound sales. Sales and marketing are at odds about who to target, and sales are questioning why customer service is allowing high-quality, hard-won clients to churn.
The competitiveness and division that the assembly line model may foster are some of its major negatives. Each department is working separately and is unaware of the pressures that the others are under.
Sales pods immediately resolve this dispute. SDRs, AEs, CSMs, and marketers are all on the same team, aware of one another's responsibilities, and working to grow better as a unit.
One for team and team for one shall fulfill one dream.
You'll notice something when your revenue team is organized into pods.
The members of the pod will become authorities in their fields reasonably fast.
Prospecting for business with huge organizations is a recognized difficulty. Consider that you are a pod that sells to enterprise businesses. Longer than regular sales cycles and several decision-makers are typical.
But if the pod's one goal is to sell to the enterprise, and they work at it continuously, they'll soon be regularly closing deals.
They will be experts in the field. They will learn how to address all the concerns and objections. Importantly, they will communicate with one another daily while putting new and improved sales methods into practice.
Pods are excellent for both internal and external testing and optimization.
Inside the pod, your salespeople, marketers, and CSMs will always work closely together. They will exchange concepts, fresh methods, and working styles.
An SDR, for instance, might give feedback on the message that resonates with prospects in their pitches, enabling the marketer to develop more effective, specialized content.
Or, the CSM can provide insight into why certain customers have left, so the AE will know what objections to address during the demo.
Pods can also communicate with each other through feedback loops. You could spread an innovative strategy if one pod produces good results.
Pods might be used for A/B testing if you want to take it a step further. Although they target the same market, the two pods use distinct tactics.
What is the best-performing pod?
Individual performance will likely improve as well. SDRs usually benefit when they work closely with AEs; it creates a natural mentor-mentee relationship between them.
The majority of sales reps work independently. Often, their operations are siloed - especially when it comes to representatives operating in a variety of roles. The reps have quotas, are measured by KPIs specific to their performance, and often compete with each other.
As a result, there is more friction among departments than you might think, resulting in unhappy customers, lost deals, and poor customer retention.
Cut through this, business feels some way, but to those who haven't explored the road, it is still too good to be true:
Well, we are on the same page if you, too, thought Sales pods.
See, up until last year, many SaaS and other startups relied on the "Assembly Line" or "Hunter-gatherer-farmer" model for B2B sales.
It looked like this:
Sales Development reps (Accumulator) -> Account executives (the hunter) -> Customer success (Cultivator)
And it worked. Simply by using this model, companies could scale to millions of happy customers.
But there's always room for improvement.
The sales pod format goes against this tradition. A team structure forces a small group of sales representatives working at various levels within a sales organization to cooperate, work together, and be assessed as a single coherent unit. Let's spend some time investigating this tactic in more detail and gaining an understanding of how these "pods" are often organized.
Uniting the three departments seeks to break down the silos that frequently form around them. Instead of having distinct teams for sales, marketing, and customer service, you now have smaller groups or pods that include experts from each.
Essentially, the roles haven't changed much from the assembly line model.
The AE will continue to perform demos and engage in negotiations with prospects, while the SDR will continue to qualify leads. The CSM will continue to manage customer accounts and welcome new clients.
It concerns how they are all cooperating, prospecting, converting, and managing clients. The objective of the pod is to make buyers' journey as seamless as possible, from their initial interaction with the SDR through onboarding and beyond. This sales strategy is genuinely customer-centric. You may arrange the pods in any way that makes sense for your company and place them according to vertical, industry, or region. You may have pods focusing on enterprise businesses across geography. You may have a pod dedicated to selling a single item in your suite.
However, and this is the most crucial point, your pods must all be entirely focused on marketing to the same target, no matter how you organize them. The pod model's true advantage lies in that area.
When used correctly, the sales pod can be a massive asset to your organization.
Some identified the following advantages are as follows:
The prospect is continuously passed off to someone in a different department under the assembly line model. Each of these departments has distinct goals and is evaluated in a different way. In contrast, the pod model. Lead generation KPIs and objectives are shared by the pod. As a result, the entire pod is concentrated on the following tasks:
Better experiences will lead to more prospects signing up (and re-signing) with you.
It can occur rather frequently in outbound sales. Sales and marketing are at odds about who to target, and sales are questioning why customer service is allowing high-quality, hard-won clients to churn.
The competitiveness and division that the assembly line model may foster are some of its major negatives. Each department is working separately and is unaware of the pressures that the others are under.
Sales pods immediately resolve this dispute. SDRs, AEs, CSMs, and marketers are all on the same team, aware of one another's responsibilities, and working to grow better as a unit.
One for team and team for one shall fulfill one dream.
You'll notice something when your revenue team is organized into pods.
The members of the pod will become authorities in their fields reasonably fast.
Prospecting for business with huge organizations is a recognized difficulty. Consider that you are a pod that sells to enterprise businesses. Longer than regular sales cycles and several decision-makers are typical.
But if the pod's one goal is to sell to the enterprise, and they work at it continuously, they'll soon be regularly closing deals.
They will be experts in the field. They will learn how to address all the concerns and objections. Importantly, they will communicate with one another daily while putting new and improved sales methods into practice.
Pods are excellent for both internal and external testing and optimization.
Inside the pod, your salespeople, marketers, and CSMs will always work closely together. They will exchange concepts, fresh methods, and working styles.
An SDR, for instance, might give feedback on the message that resonates with prospects in their pitches, enabling the marketer to develop more effective, specialized content.
Or, the CSM can provide insight into why certain customers have left, so the AE will know what objections to address during the demo.
Pods can also communicate with each other through feedback loops. You could spread an innovative strategy if one pod produces good results.
Pods might be used for A/B testing if you want to take it a step further. Although they target the same market, the two pods use distinct tactics.
What is the best-performing pod?
Individual performance will likely improve as well. SDRs usually benefit when they work closely with AEs; it creates a natural mentor-mentee relationship between them.
