Lessons in Sales Excellence from New Relic

In the quick-moving world of today, creating fast transactions can help you leverage current relationships with clients and set the pace for your client’s response. As a sales leader, this is what you can do to drive fast transactions:

1. Qualify in and out quickly

Don’t clog up your pipeline with poorly qualified opportunities that have no explicit need and spin your wheels for months trying to sell to them. Be brutal and focus on deals you can win. If you’re selling in your sweet spot, deals will typically progress quicker.

2. Operate with urgency

In my first sales job I think the main reason I won more deals from my competitors was because I responded quickly. Set the pace for your customers. If you take days to respond they’ll think it’s ok to take days to respond back to you. Book in your next meeting on the same call, send out next steps or follow up emails immediately. It sets the tone for the relationship going forward. We’re big fans of setting up a slack channel with our customers. This gives us and our CA team a hotline to the customer. It’s been a game changer.

3. Get your software into the hands of your customers quickly

In our team, we try to make things as lightweight as possible for our customers. I personally try to avoid saying ‘POC’. This isn’t a proof of concept, since we do not need to prove that as a concept New Relic will work. I feel like that’s an outdated acronym that software companies used back in the day when their customers couldn’t actually get their hands on the software and  would have to rely on their imagination! 

New Relic works out of the box, there isn’t a complicated implementation process so I prefer to call it a pilot. Try and get them to deploy as quickly as possible and start seeing New Relic at work right away. That will help speed up your deals.

4. Be upfront with timelines and validate them regularly

Customers don’t like having unrealistic time frames forced on them. So it’s important to set expectations around timeframes, validate them and get your prospect’s buy in before you proceed. And keep validating as you go along. Nothing slows down a deal cycle like not being aligned on timeframes.

5. Ballpark price early

Now this one is a bit contentious. I’ve worked with salespeople and sales leaders who are adamant that you shouldn’t discuss price until you’ve built and proven value. I agree, I don’t think you should be providing a detailed quote upfront. 

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“But I do strongly believe that providing a ballpark range creates trust, ensures that you’re in the bargaining arena and saves you and your customer a lot of time in the long run.”

Often the requirements change and the ballpark changes, but be transparent. As a buyer I want to know what I’m up for before I start spending time evaluating things. We want to avoid sticker shock.

6. Identify roadblocks ahead of time

Remember that not all of our customers have experience buying software. Being able to spot icebergs such as lengthy legal or security reviews and being able to coach our customers through them helps speed up deals. 

7. Leverage existing champions

One of the single quickest ways to speed up a deal is to find a champion that has used your product before. They validate your product, endorse your company as people that are good to do business with and help move the needle for you. Find those people.

Bridie Kennedy, Senior Manager, ANZ Commercial Sales