How to grow to 10 Mn ARR faster! Master the art of accelerating growth to $10M ARR smoothly and avoid common pitfalls on your startup journey! Sales Sales Leadership You started with a great idea, managed to put the funds and founding team together, went through weeks and months of burning midnight oil, endless iterations, deep frustrations and necessary pivots. You have reached a point where you are now part of the lucky few (less than 10%) startups that hit that elusive product market fit and potentially graduate from seed to series A stage. You are looking to move up the gear now and push the growth pedal. Perfect! Nothing seems to be in your way and you are nearing that definitive $1Mn ARR mark, that seemed “impossible” at some point in time, and can’t wait to scale your business to a 10X from there. You see the demand for your product, you see the opportunity ahead. Boosted by the success you have had so far in building the product and your team, you want to accelerate the rocket ship, but a lot can go wrong as one pushes this growth pedal. There is a treacherous path that awaits you, what you do now can easily turn the intended blitz scale into a blitz fail.   What not to do? Lose focus & spread yourself thin!   #1 biggest mistake founders make at this stage is chasing new shiny things that they see or get introduced to, be it new market segments, new categories, new areas where you have zero or almost no traction. It’s easy to get swayed in trying a lot of things to grow faster and lose the focus which got you to your product-market fit. We all want to grow faster. Almost none of the founders and their investors are happy with the monthly growth rate once they hit the $1Mn ARR mark. And that’s when mistakes happen aplenty. Skip stages & put fire on fuel! A lot of founders skip stages to hit the $1Mn mark faster. The number is not as important as the learning and experience in identifying the problem that resonates with the customers and users and solves them in a way that’s differentiated from other options out there. The point to push the growth pedal will come soon but before that one needs to be able to create a scalable sales playbook and processes which are backed by a solid understanding of your customer’s needs, where and how to find your customers, how to approach them, how to engage them in a conversation, gain a deep understanding of the value offered, and the ability to help solve a customer’s problem. Scaling too soon will result in putting the fuel on the fire. The proven route to scale from $1Mn to $10Mn efficiently! Double down on what is working. Period. If SMBs are your core, stay there, at least until $10m ARR. Do not chase customer segments where you have zero, or only a token, traction. It’s too late to make these segments work as you’ve already established your initial, organic customer traction and segmentation. Segment & analyze your customer and put proportionate effort into your customer segments that work. Break your customers into say small, medium and larger segments and calculate the revenue breakdown. If 50% of your revenue is smaller customers, 30% medium and 20% large, align your energy and efforts proportionately. Go with your solution to similar customers who have the same “Hair on Fire” problem that you originally solved to hit the product market fit. Optimize effort of your resources on what matters most. Align your marketing budgets, product time, development resources, sales headcount in line with the proportion of business from successful customer segment and the identified sweet spot. Don’t go after super enterprise customers if that’s not your core. Same way, don’t go for a freemium model if that didn’t work before $1Mn ARR. Don’t get distracted. Adding anything new that did not work before is just going to distract everyone now. Continue to do Step 1. Invest in customer success: Go all-in on customer success. Get your net promoter score above 60. Done well, customer success will become the second-order revenue and convert your startup into a mini-brand that drives revenue acceleration. Make your existing customers happy and they will both buy more from you, and get you more customers. Hire a real management team. Every startup hits a wall around $4-$5 Mn ARR and it’s needed to have your VPs join in by this time. In term of the sequence, hire a VP Marketing definitely before or by the time you hit $1Mn, followed by VP Customer Success, VP Sales, VP Product, VP Engineering, VP Finance. As a rule of thumb, get a VP for an additional $1Mn in ARR is a safe strategy. Always be looking for great candidates, spend 20% of your time on hiring. Raise prices, definitely for the new customers while you grandfather early adopters(get them to give you references, reviews and testimonials). Your value delivered goes up and thus should be your price. Most startups have a problem with their product being underprice until they hit $1Mn ARR. Justify the premium pricing you would want your new customers to pay by becoming a stronger brand, delivering better value and offering a wider feature set. Move to value selling model. Measure what works & what doesn’t. Build an operational cadence and rigour to run all initiatives and functions through data. You will get a lot of questions answered if you look at data first. Get others in the team to do the same. Align the team on strategy: Set ambitious goals but make sure you align the whole company behind that. It’s important to maintain the culture of transparency and support with your team while you get onto the scaleup journey. Build foundation pillars. Make sure you can transition to self-serve solution which is sales assisted and not get onto the debate of self serve vs sales assisted. Providing a great

What is CRM Data Leakage? This article explains what is CRM data leakage and why it needs to be addressed immediately within organizations to drive the revenue engine. CRM RevOps It’s routine to check in on your pipeline and team performance in the CRM everyday. But did you ever stop to second guess if the data that facilitates crucial sales decisions is really all that reliable?  Your sales data determines your team’s daily course of action on every account, powers forecasts, and in turn upholds stakeholder trust. It keeps the bottom line moving. Yet half of all companies using CRMs lose 10% of their revenue just to poor data quality management.  In this article, we go over why your CRM’s data quality is pivotal, how to diagnose data leakage and fix it for good.  What is CRM Data Leakage? CRM data leakage happens when low-quality or faulty sales data creeps its way into your systems –  hampering productivity, forecasting, customer satisfaction and overall reliability of the CRM for the revenue teams. It’s simply bad CRM data quality costing you valuable time and money. Reps missing out on high-potential opportunities to data leakage is more common than you think. If your CRM isn’t constantly checked for bad data and updated with new and enriched data – It’s just going to start working against you.  If your team doesn’t have a clear set of protocols for CRM data entry or it’s just low on the priority list – you’re probably losing a good chunk of revenue to it. According to a Gartner survey, companies lose an average of $14.2 million to data leakage annually.  Outdated lead contact data wasting your team’s time / human error in form entries are a couple of common examples.  Read more about the different ways leakage manifests itself in your CRM here.  Data leakage is fatal. Alright – you might be missing some data in your CRM.  Is it really a ‘drop everything and fix this!’ problem?  Well, yes – it very much is.  Data leaks in your CRM cripple your entire sales function’s backbone – from missed follow-ups and wrong renewal information, all the way to skewed forecasting that affects your strategy going forward. Most importantly – your customers stop trusting your service.  Here’s an interesting account of how Blackberry lost millions of customers’ trust to bad CRM data hygiene. This marked the beginning of the end for them – like many other companies that overlooked data leakages.  Let’s see how bad data affects your sales effectiveness:  1. Wrong and missing intel Make-or-break discovery insights that never made its way to the lead’s records. Outdated contract details, opportunities with little to no historical data. The CRM gives your reps the context they need to close deals with confidence. If they can’t rely on it, they’re on their own – and at a higher risk of losing out on revenue.   2. Forecasting horrors Bad data in sales records will inevitably give you skewed forecasts, causing a huge ripple effect across your hiring, budgeting, risk management and business decisions at large.  3. Huge waste of time Hubspot’s study found that 72% of reps spend at least an hour everyday entering and sorting through CRM data. Imagine the time they spend trying to fix data leakages on top of that. This makes them dread the CRM and dismiss it as busywork. It directly reduces adoption rates – which make the leakages worse. It’s a vicious circle of bad data. 4. Sky-high churn rates You can’t properly assess churn risks in your current accounts without air-tight CRM data. Leakages cost you repeat business, which is the lifeline of any SaaS business. Only about one in four customer success reps use CRM data to understand their customers’ needs – mostly because they can’t trust it enough to base next steps on the insights.  While we’re talking about current customers, let’s also look into how much expansion revenue you lose to CRM data leakages.  5. Lost morale and leadership credibility in teams   Making key business decisions off of unreliable CRM data is like driving with faulty tires – there’s no way it doesn’t hurt the passengers. Over a third of all revenue leaders in this study said they can’t trust their CRM data, despite their company’s being ‘data-driven’.  If you make a bad call, it causes a domino effect all the way down to the junior reps in your revenue teams – hurting their performance and track records.  The Lurking Monster Bungling up your CRM Duplicate records, invalid emails, decayed lead and opportunity info.  Phew! It’s a lot to weed through – but how did it get there in the first place?  Unless you know where the problem is stemming from, any solution is just slapping a band-aid on it. Poor governance is almost always one of the major drivers of data screw-ups as a company scales, but the problem could be much deeper than that.  Some common reasons you can look out for while diagnosing:  1. Siloed tools that have minds of their own All tools plugged into your CRM via legacy connections gather data differently. While API connectors make them easy to access in one place, they don’t make them speak the same language – which is vital to make sure there are no data leakages. The problem worsens infinitely with less IT involvement in management of more no-techie friendly applications that let reps, sales team leads and CS teams configure core data settings to create even more inconsistencies in the CRM.  2. Poor data governance  What’s your usual frequency for a good old CRM data cleansing? Does the operations team have a solid governance process they follow? There is thousands of fields worth of data making its way into your CRM everyday. Without proper governance, you’re all but doomed to a bad case of leakage.  https://youtu.be/xSIEH5__oRE?si=rMdpHuGUOuxwMGHC 3. Activity capture gaps There’s only one thing worse than having bad data. It’s having NO data. Missing data is probably the most detrimental leakage to have.  Sales communication happens all over the place – Zoom, LinkedIn, phone, text

Top 20 Revenue Forecasting Tools for 2025 RevOps 10 min It’s no secret that every business owner wants to know what the future holds for their company. After all, it’s hard to plan for the future without a clear idea of what lies ahead.  And that is where revenue forecast tools come in. You must have also made revenue predictions for your business. But, have you ever found that the actual results are vastly different from what you anticipated? It’s a common challenge for many revenue operations teams out there. In fact, a report says 93% of leaders are unable to forecast revenue within 5 percent, even with two weeks left in the quarter.  From revenue leakages to disastrous business decisions, things can go south in no time when predictions don’t align with reality. So, what can revenue operations teams do to reduce this gap between revenue predictions and actual results?  In this article, we will talk about all things revenue forecasting and the 15 best revenue forecast tools you can leverage for accurate forecasting.    What is Revenue Forecasting? Revenue forecasting is the process of predicting the future revenue of a business based on historical data and current market trends.  As George Santayana once said, “To know the future, you must know the past.” This statement rings true when it comes to revenue forecasting in the business world. Think of revenue forecasting as trying to make informed guesses about how much money you’ll make next year based on how much you made this year and what you think might change in the market or with your customers. For example, let’s say a business sees that its sales have been steadily increasing over the past few years. Based on this trend, they might forecast that they’ll continue to see growth in the coming years. With this information, they could make strategic decisions about how to allocate their resources and investments to fuel that growth. Revenue Forecasting in the Changing Landscape for 2025 Although the definition above may sound straightforward, revenue forecasting comes with a number of challenges for RevOps teams to navigate. Here are a few:  1. Market fluctuations In recent years, we’ve seen lots of ups and downs in the market due to the global pandemic, political instability, and economic downturns. Besides, 73% of CEOs around the world believe global economic growth will decline over the next 12 months. This volatility can make it challenging to predict future revenue accurately, as market conditions can change rapidly and unpredictably. 2. Technological evolution  Technology is advancing at an unprecedented pace so much so that the emerging tech will experience a growth rate of 104% between 2018 and 2023. This rapid pace of technological change can make it difficult for RevOps teams to forecast revenue accurately, as new products and services may have unpredictable impacts on revenue. 3. Data quality issues 41% of companies cite inconsistent data across technologies, as their biggest challenge. This can be a significant issue for revenue forecasting, as inaccurate or incomplete data can lead to unreliable forecasts. This can further drive failed strategies and wasted resources.  4. Intensified market competition  The rate at which new businesses have been entering the market has generally been rising over the past decade. With so many companies in the market, the competition becomes intense leading to pricing pressure and changes in consumer behavior. This makes it challenging for RevOps tea,s to forecast revenue accurately. 5. Shifting consumer trends The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital technologies by several years. This rapid shift in the consumer behavior can make it difficult to predict how customers will respond to new products, services, and marketing campaigns. As you just read, revenue forecasting can be a wild ride, but don’t worry! With the right tools and solutions, you can make it through safely. We’ve got your back and have rounded up a list of the best revenue forecasting tools out there to help you make a lucrative decision.  But, before we get to the juicy part of the article, let us understand the process.  Decoding the Revenue Forecasting Process It’s a world where numbers reign supreme, and insights are king. But don’t let the math intimidate you – revenue forecasting is not just about crunching numbers.  It’s more than that. Let us walk you through the entire process.  Step 1: Define the forecasting period The first step is to determine the specific time frame for which you want to forecast revenue. Make sure the period aligns with your business goals and objectives. For example, if you are planning an important marketing campaign, you may opt to forecast revenue for the next quarter. Alternatively, if you are developing a long-term business plan, you may choose to forecast revenue for the next several years. Step 2: Gather historical data Collect past sales data, financial reports, and other relevant information that can help identify trends and patterns in revenue over time. Such data may include sales revenue, profits, expenses, customer demographics, and other metrics that hold relevance to your business. Step 3: Analyze current market trends Examine the present market conditions, competition, and other external factors that could influence the revenue of your business. This may involve analyzing changes in consumer behavior, technological advancements, and economic conditions. Use this information to identify potential opportunities and threats that could impact revenue. Step 4: Identify key revenue drivers Identify the major drivers that have an impact on the revenue of your business, such as product pricing, marketing campaigns, and sales strategies. This may necessitate analyzing data from previous periods and leads to determine which factors had the most significant influence on revenue. These factors are called leading indicators.  Keeping an eye on these leading indicators is nothing but simply monitoring sales pipeline, conversion rates, and customer engagement to get a better idea of where your leads are headed and make informed predictions.  Step 5: Develop a forecast model Leverage the previously gathered historical data, market trends, and key drivers to develop a revenue forecast model. This model should take into account all the relevant

Multithreading in Sales: The Modern Secret to Winning More Deals RevOps 10 min B2B buying is no longer a solo act. Today’s B2B buyer is not an individual but a “buying group.” According to a Forrester survey, 94% of respondents sold to a group of three or more individuals, while 38% sold to groups of 10 or more buyers. Gartner also found that the number of buyers has increased from 5 to 20 in the last ten years.  This illustrates that the decision to invest in a product or service is not a single person’s job. Instead, it takes multiple rounds of discussions with different stakeholders across departments to make a purchase decision. As high as 82% of decisions are made by a buying group. Let’s consider technology sellers as an example.  The sales process for technology has moved beyond the IT function. Those outside IT influence 63% of technology purchase decisions. Decision-making now includes other departments such as finance, business development, legal, and compliance.  Digital transformation has put buyers at the center of the process, leading to the buying committee becoming more extensive and diverse. As technology moves beyond functional silos, sellers need to adapt, too.  So, for a successful sale, you’ll need to have the C-suite, marketing, and other stakeholders on board. And remember, all of them value different things. What does it take to achieve consensus within the buying group? An effective deal closure with “multithreading.” What is Multithreading in Sales? Multithreading is when sales reps connect and build relationships with multiple stakeholders in the buying committee of an account. It effectively increases the chances of closing deals even if the champion leaves the buyer organization.  Let’s understand with an example.  Your sales rep has directly connected with the person in charge of implementing your solution (commonly called the “champion”) within their organization. This relationship took several months to nurture and build trust. Suddenly, the champion quits their job for a better opportunity.  What’s your rep’s next point of action? Your rep may reach out to the new champion. But they have to nurture this relationship for a few more weeks or months to close the deal. There you have it. A lower deal momentum and an increased sales cycle. In another scenario, there’s no immediate replacement champion identified by your rep yet, and in the meanwhile, the buying committee decides to go ahead with another solution. This turns into a lost deal.  But if your rep multithreads with all the stakeholders of the buying committee, they have a higher chance of closing the deal even when a key stakeholder quits an organization. Risks of Single Threading Despite its effectiveness, most sales reps end up choosing single threading. That is, reps connect and sell to only one person from the buying organization. A LinkedIn study shows that 78% of the sales reps are single-threaded. The single-threading approach appears less complicated on the surface and may create a stronger relationship with one client. But there are significant downsides to it.  Single threading is the conventional way of one seller interacting with one buyer. It overly relies on one individual from each side (buyer and seller) to see the deal through. But the moment one of them leaves, the sales process is disrupted. Moreover, a seller loses solid rapport with the buyer when one of them exits the deal. They need to start the process from scratch, leading to longer sales cycles, higher churn rates, and lower win rates.  Take this for numbers. As per LinkedIn, around 25% of buyers change their jobs every year. The result? 80% of sellers admit that at least one deal was lost or delayed due to a prospect or key stakeholder changing jobs. These numbers become significant when considering the loss in revenue.  But you can combat this with a multithreaded approach.   Deploy Multithreading in Sales  Here are six things to check off your list for successful multithreading in sales. 1. Get visibility into your buying committees Gone are the days when you’d call up Gary from the marketing department, invite him over for lunch and close a deal within the week. Today, it’s the entire buying committee – Gary plus others. A buying committee comprises of individuals who wield influence in the buying process, spanning multiple departments, roles, and personas. To successfully close deals, understanding the key roles and personas within each buying committee is paramount So, how do you identify which stakeholders concern you and their priorities? Taking a manual route to getting these contacts into your CRM is a lost cause. Your sales reps talk to several people on a daily basis. Not all these contacts are fed into the CRM. Worse – only 2-4 contacts make their way into Salesforce. Which means sales managers have no visibility into buying committees. This gap in contact data, also known as “contact blindness” significantly puts your deals at risk. Not only will reps miss out on building relationships with the right stakeholders, sales managers will be missing crucial insights to coach them on how to move a deal forward. The first step hence is to make sure you have visibility into the entire buying committee of every deal. You can achieve this with Nektar’s zero adoption contact and activity capture solution. Nektar automatically captures all your hidden contacts from your reps’ sales inboxes and calendars. And feeds it into Salesforce. Nektar’s AI capability also links contacts to the right accounts and opportunities in Salesforce. It enhances contacts with job titles and buying roles, so that your sales teams have unprecedented visibility into buying committees. Once you know what your buying committee looks like, you can build an account map and visualize connections between various stakeholder pain points and your solution. An example of an account map Next, understand their pain points that could drive demand for your solution. If they have an existing solution, what’s their need for a new one, and why they must consider you. It’s also helpful to understand the influence a given stakeholder has on the overall decision-making process, how long the organization’s buying

10 Revenue Operations KPIs You Must Measure RevOps 10 min If you have set up a revenue operations function in your organization and wondering what KPIs to track, this guide is for you. Tracking the right revenue operations KPIs can have a massive impact on your revenue. Setting up KPIs plays a crucial role in improving workflows. Not just that, but they also provide you with the means to create an unforgettable customer experience.  So, how can you maximize RevOps KPIs for profitability? And more importantly, which ones should you measure?  In this blog, we’ll dive into revenue operations KPIs with insights from our conversation with Cliff Simon, CRO at Carabiner Group.  You can listen to the full conversation here: Revenue Operations KPIs and Their Role in Cross-Functional Alignment Before we move on to KPIs, let’s get the basics right. That starts with understanding what RevOps is precisely.  Cliff says it’s about following the dollar’s value through the revenue funnel.  Notice how he doesn’t mention sales explicitly? That’s because RevOps is a much larger process than sales operations. It doesn’t just cover the sales touchpoint but tracks the entire customer journey.  What’s important to note is that alignment between teams is the key driving force behind RevOps. Sadly, cross-functional misalignment is also a big pain point for SaaS businesses.  This misalignment leads to a lack of communication between teams, manifesting siloed data.  Companies have tons of data, but it sits in separate data lakes. These lakes don’t have any connecting bridges and don’t come together into a unified source. Because the lakes are separated, organizations have no idea about meaningfully using insights from siloed data.  That’s the reason why achieving alignment is the first step. And from there, it’s about maintaining this alignment between teams as you scale.  But how do you track alignment and revenue growth as a result of it? Using revenue operations KPIs.  Why Should You Measure Revenue Operations KPIs? Companies can only improve or innovate if they know where they’re going wrong. RevOps KPIs help you track your customers’ progress and team performance throughout the buyer journey. This includes all revenue-generating teams—marketing, sales, customer success, product, finance, and more.  These KPIs are particularly important today when aligning workflows between multiple teams is a complex process.  Revenue operations KPIs measure the progress of shared workflows to determine if they’re catering to customer needs. They also measure performance at each customer touchpoint. You can go granular with KPIs to improve efficiency, eliminate friction and maximize revenue for growth.  From an overarching perspective, revenue operations KPIs are your strategic guide to achieving business goals through revenue operations.  Let’s move to the next most important question—what RevOps KPIs should you be tracking?  10 Essential Revenue Operations KPIs You Must Measure If you’re new to the RevOps journey and are just beginning to pay attention to KPIs, this list will help you pinpoint the correct revenue operations KPIs to measure.  The remaining KPIs can be added as you scale your business. So, let’s dive in.  1. Revenue  This is a no-brainer KPI, to begin with, but it’s also obviously critical.  Revenue is the amount generated by your business.  Measuring this KPI helps you figure out: If you have a consistent revenue stream over a given period What are the ups and downs How to adapt your pricing What’s your progress against business goals  Typically, you must look at recurring revenue—subscriptions, membership fees, and license fees— in terms of Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) and Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR).  As the name suggests, MRR gives you a monthly overview. The formula for MRR is: ARR, an annual KPI, can be used for more important business goals, measuring growth, and sales forecasting. There are two ways to calculate ARR, which you can see below:  2. Sales Pipeline Velocity Sales pipeline velocity measures the time a customer takes to move through the pipeline from lead to conversion. However, it’s stated in terms of revenue, not time.  While sales pipeline velocity can differ widely from company to company, a usual B2B sales cycle could take as much as a year.  It can be used to determine how much time your reps take to convert a lead. And if you should introduce any changes in the sales workflow.  A higher velocity signifies that your sales process is organized and structured. This solid process pushes leads through the revenue funnel via frictionless handoffs. MQLs quickly become SQLs which, in turn, become closed or won opportunities.  However, if your velocity is low, your revenue process may have bottlenecks that must be removed. You must identify these bumps and eliminate them to sustain growth.  3. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) You have to spend a certain amount of money to get new customers over a given period. For instance, money spent on running digital ad campaigns is a cost to acquire new customers.  That’s CAC for you.  Other costs associated with converting leads to revenue could fall under:  Advertising Sales hiring Commission Sales rep coaching Overheads, and more. CAC is calculated as below. CAC measures your ROI on the investment made to acquire customers. It determines if you’re getting your money’s worth through new customers to improve profitability.  This revenue operations KPI also reflects your marketing and sales success. It shows if you’re on the right track with your campaigns, messaging, and communication.  If your ROI is low, you can strategize on reducing your CAC without affecting the quality of buyer-seller interactions for your company.  4. Conversion Rate Conversion rate (sometimes known as “win rate” or “opportunities to close ratio” in SaaS) is the number of opportunities that you turn into closed deals. It shows the percentage of leads that moved through your revenue funnel and became customers.  If your conversion rate is low, you’re not doing something right in the revenue process. This revenue operations KPI provides a big-picture overview of why you couldn’t close more deals.  Then, you can dive into questions such as: Does marketing need to provide the sales team with high-intent MQLs?  Are you more focused on the volume of MQLs and SQLs, rather

Salesforce Lead vs. Opportunity: Explore the Difference RevOps 10 min Salesforce leads and Salesforce opportunities. These terms might be the first to welcome you as you enter the Salesforce world.  However, comprehending these terms is nothing short of vital. This article takes a deep dive into these two crucial terms within Salesforce to help you understand their roles, distinctions, and tips to make the most of them.  We will also explore the conversion process and understand when to convert a lead into an opportunity and why it matters.  Let’s begin. What is a Salesforce Lead? A lead is the initial stage in the customer acquisition process in Salesforce. It represents a potential customer or business entity interested in your product or service.  However, their interest has yet to evolve into a concrete sales opportunity. Leads are often individuals or organizations that have interacted with your company somehow. Some common examples include filling out a contact form on your website or attending a webinar. Let’s consider a software company, XYZ Tech, offering a project management tool. They launched a marketing campaign, and as a result, several professionals expressed interest in the product by signing up for a free demo on the website.  At this stage, these individuals are considered leads within Salesforce. The company has their basic information, like name, email address, and the source of their interest (the marketing campaign), recorded in the CRM system. However, being leads, these individuals have yet to reach the point where they are ready to purchase. They may need further nurturing, information, or engagement to evaluate whether XYZ Tech’s project management tool aligns with their needs.  As XYZ Tech’s sales and marketing teams interact with these leads, providing insights and addressing queries, some may gradually progress to the next stage: becoming opportunities.  What is an Opportunity in Salesforce? An opportunity reflects a distinct stage in the sales pipeline of the Salesforce CRM ecosystem. At this stage, a lead or potential customer has advanced beyond initial interest and is now a qualified prospect with a real chance of making a purchase.  Opportunities are critical in tracking and managing the sales process, as they provide a structured framework for sales teams to pursue and close deals. Each option includes the potential revenue, probability of closing the deal, sales stage, and expected closing date. All these aspects provide a comprehensive overview of the sales potential associated with a prospect. To illustrate the concept of better, let’s return to our example with XYZ Tech. After some time nurturing the leads generated from their marketing campaign, the sales team at XYZ Tech identified a lead named John Smith, who has shown interest in their product. John has held multiple discussions with the sales representatives and attended a product demonstration. He has also expressed his intent to implement the software for his organization. At this point, John transitions from being a lead to becoming an opportunity within Salesforce. The CRM system may now contain the following information about the potential sale:  Estimated deal value,  The stage of the sales process (e.g., “Proposal Sent”) The probability of closing the deal based on historical data and the current circumstances (e.g., 70% chance of closing) The expected closing date (e.g., within the next 30 days). Salesforce Leads vs. Opportunities Understanding the distinctions between leads and opportunities is critical to managing and nurturing potential customers through the sales cycle. While both play pivotal roles in customer relationship management, they serve different purposes within the sales process. Here are some critical differences between Salesforce leads vs. opportunities. Difference 1: Stage of the sales cycle Leads Leads represent the earliest stage in the sales cycle. They are potential customers who have shown initial interest but have yet to be fully qualified or ready for direct sales engagement. Opportunities Opportunities reflect a more advanced stage in the sales process. They indicate that a lead has progressed to the point where there is a genuine potential for a sale. Difference 2: Information depth Leads Leads contain basic contact information, like name and email address. It also includes the source of their interest. They may also have limited data on their specific needs. Opportunities Opportunities include more comprehensive information. They include details on the potential deal size, probability of closing, current sales stage, and expected closing date. The depth of data helps track and forecast revenue. Difference 3: Purpose Leads Leads serve as a starting point for identifying potential customers. They require further nurturing and qualification to determine if they are genuinely interested and their needs align with the offered product or service. Opportunities Opportunities are actionable prospects that have passed the initial qualification phase. Sales teams focus on opportunities to pursue a sale and close deals actively. Difference 4: Conversion process Leads You can convert leads into contacts, accounts, or opportunities when they meet specified criteria and exhibit higher interest or readiness. Opportunities Opportunities come from leads that have undergone a qualification process and are now considered promising prospects. They don’t convert into other Salesforce entities but are worked upon to reach a successful sale. Difference 5: Sales tracking Leads Leads help track the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and lead-generation efforts. This is because they represent the starting point of customer interaction. Opportunities Opportunities provide critical insights into the progress of potential sales. They help sales teams prioritize deals and forecast revenue more accurately. When Does a Lead Convert into an Opportunity? The decision to convert a lead into an opportunity in Salesforce is critical in the sales process. It requires careful consideration and strategic judgment.  While the specific criteria for conversion may vary, here are some best practices that should guide this decision-making process. 1. Qualification and engagement Before converting a lead, assess its level of qualification and engagement. Has the lead demonstrated a genuine interest in your product or service? Have they engaged in meaningful interactions with your sales or marketing teams? Qualification may involve the lead’s budget, authority, need, and timeline (BANT). 2. Information

7 Salesforce Data Quality Tools for 2025 RevOps 10 min Salesforce data quality tools are like trusty detectives for your business data.  They carefully inspect and analyze your data to make sure it’s accurate, consistent, and reliable. With these tools, you can confidently make important business decisions based on high-quality data that you can trust.  When it comes to handling data from different sources like social media, logs, email, and databases, you need a reliable solution that can effectively scrub, manage, and analyze all that information.  With the right tools in place, you’ll be equipped to tackle any data challenge that comes your way and make the most out of your diverse data sources. What is Data Quality? Data quality is all about having good, reliable data that you can trust. It’s like having a sturdy foundation for your business decisions.  That means no more errors, duplicates, or messy data that can lead you astray. When your data is accurate, complete, and consistent, you can make confident choices and take actions that will drive your business forward. Related Blog: Do You Trust Your Salesforce Data? To ensure data quality, essential processes include data ingestion, profiling, parsing, cleansing, standardization, matching, execution, deduplication, merging, and exporting. Each step contributes to refining and improving the data for effective analysis and utilization. Why Do you Need Salesforce Data Quality Tools? Having high-quality data is a game-changer for organizations.  When you can rely on accurate and reliable insights, it becomes a catalyst for smarter business processes and decision-making. Not only does it save valuable resources, but it also boosts your organization’s efficiency and profitability.  But what are the consequences of bad data? When you’re working with data that’s inaccurate, incomplete, or unreliable, it’s like walking on thin ice. You run the risk of making poor business decisions, flawed strategies, and unreliable analytics. Related Blog: 5 Salesforce Products to Boost ROI in 2023 Inaccurate data can wreak havoc on your business, leading to a multitude of issues like incorrect customer addresses, incomplete records, missed sales opportunities, unreliable financial reporting, and more. These missteps can have a significant impact on your bottom line, reputation, and overall success. By leveraging good data quality software, you can ensure that your business maintains high-quality data, meeting both international and local regulatory requirements. This, in turn, enhances your business agility and efficiency, enabling you to make informed decisions and drive better outcomes. Check the gaps in your salesforce reports, with an no-obligation free CRM scan report. Scan my CRMDownload Sample Report Top 7 Salesforce Data Quality Tools 1. Nektar Nektar is an AI for RevOps that automates all customer information and contact and brings them together, revealing insights that are normally not visible in CRMs. With AI-powered CRM automation, Nektar revolutionizes the Salesforce experience and delivers unmatched return on investment (ROI). Sellers simply forget to update the CRM. This lack of adoption leads to poor data quality, which means revenue leaders don’t get the insights they need. It’s a waste of money. That’s where Nektar comes in. Pricing: Nektar’s pricing is flexible depending on the business and solutions required. Nektar also offers a free CRM checkup to identify key gaps on where revenue is being lost in the sales process. 2. ZoomInfo ZoomInfo is a tool that provides comprehensive sales and marketing intelligence. It offers accurate contact information, deep insights into companies, and the ability to identify buying intent. With ZoomInfo, you can personalize your outreach, stay updated on target accounts, and integrate seamlessly with other systems. It empowers sales and marketing teams to find, engage, and close deals with their ideal customers. Pricing: ZoomInfo offers various pricing packages tailored to different business needs, and they can provide customized pricing based on your specific requirements. 3. Ambition Ambition is a performance management and gamification tool designed to help organizations drive employee productivity and achieve their goals. It provides a range of features and functionalities to motivate and engage employees, track performance metrics, and provide real-time visibility into key performance indicators (KPIs). Pricing: The pricing details for Ambition can be obtained from the software provider or through publicly accessible pricing materials. To make a purchase of Ambition, it is recommended to engage in final cost negotiations with the seller. 4. CirrusInsights CirrusInsights is a tool that integrates Salesforce with your email and calendar, providing a seamless experience for sales professionals. It offers a range of features to enhance productivity and streamline workflows. Pricing: Cirrus Insight offers four pricing editions ranging from $4 to $29, with a free trial available. Explore the editions to find the one that fits your needs and budget. Salesforce Sync $10/year/user Pro  $21/year/user Expert $29/year/user Sync+ $4/month/user 5. HelloSign (Dropbox Sign) Hellosign is an electronic signature platform that allows businesses to securely sign and send documents online. It simplifies the signature process, eliminates the need for paper-based workflows, and enables businesses to streamline their document management. Pricing: Free $0 Essential $15/month Dropbox +eSign $24.99/month Standard Starting at $25/month 6. Ringlead Ringlead is a comprehensive data management platform that helps businesses improve the quality and accuracy of their customer data. It offers a wide range of features and functionalities to enhance data management processes and ensure data integrity.  Pricing: Pricing information for Ringlead may vary depending on the specific needs and requirements of your business. It’s recommended to reach out to the Ringlead team for detailed pricing information and to discuss the best plan for your organization. 7. Clearbit Clearbit is a data enrichment and intelligence platform that helps businesses gain valuable insights about their customers. It provides a wide range of features and functionalities to enhance data quality and drive personalized experiences. Pricing: Clearbit’s pricing may vary depending on the specific needs and requirements of your business. It’s recommended to reach out to the Clearbit team for detailed pricing information and to discuss the best plan for your organization. Make your Salesforce a self-healing data-packed CRM with Nektar! Get a demo! Conclusion Salesforce is one of the steepest investments in your tech stack. But low adoption rates and poor

Unlocking Efficient Growth With a RevOps Function In this blog, we discuss with Eric Welsh how you can give up the hunt and turn to RevOps to drive efficient growth. RevOps 10 min The hype for “growth at all costs” has died down in the last year. Budget freezes across organizations have pushed leaders to drive efficiency with the resources at hand.  Now, it’s all about doing more with less. And the concept is quickly gaining ground among leaders because they can drive efficient growth by keeping costs low.  But how exactly are they doing it? And is it efficient enough with limited funds?  Those are the questions we sought answers to in our conversation with Eric Welsh. Eric is the Director of RevOps at Demostack and has been in RevOps and its adjacent spaces for nearly a decade.  This blog digs into his wealth of experience to bring you insightful nuggets for driving efficient growth. You can also view the full conversation below.  Ep #7: Driving Efficient Growth With RevOps ft. Eric Welsh Defining Efficient Growth for Businesses Today We’ve witnessed, in the last few years, that market conditions can change instantly. At the same time, aggressive growth encouraged companies to raise funds, invest, hire, and innovate quickly.  But when following an efficient growth mindset, the primary question you need to ask yourself is—are you growing in a way that constantly needs funds to survive and thrive? And if the answer’s “yes,” your growth isn’t efficient.  Instead of solely focusing on raising funds, your goals must adapt to the evolving business environment. That means you should be able to drive efficient growth even when the funds dry up with the resources you have so far in your journey.  It begins with paying attention to early cost warnings, allocating and reallocating resources as needed, and facilitating transformational growth (as opposed to just rapid growth).  You need to push for cleaner, more transparent, and standardized process flows that avoid a lag in scaling. It also means you may have to turn to digitization and automation to maximize your resources.  What Makes Revops the Perfect Choice to Drive Efficient Growth? Revenue operations or RevOps is an end-to-end operating model that helps organizations run their business in an interconnected way across GTM functions like sales, marketing and customer success. The function’s primary responsibility is driving visibility and accountability among leaders, stakeholders, and teams to: Identify new opportunities  Improve win rate and conversions  Plug data and revenue leaks Optimize workflows and processes Boost profitability Refine the customer experience  As Eric points out, RevOps is based on 4 key pillars—Process, Data, Platforms, and People.  Given that it advocates and strives for efficiency in every single action, it’s no wonder the function is becoming increasingly popular for businesses: B2B companies investing in RevOps have experienced 10-20% increases in sales productivity. If your reps are productive, your revenue process is more efficient and has a better chance of succeeding. Leadership positions in RevOps topped the list of fastest-growing job titles in the US this year. And Gartner predicts that 75% of the highest-growth businesses globally will deploy a RevOps model by 2025.  RevOps moves beyond a conventional approach that segments individual teams. Instead, it strives to create balance, better communication, and collaboration among functions—bringing them together.  The result? It maximizes your revenue while simultaneously minimizing costs.  Problems That Revops Solves for Today’s Efficiency-Focused Businesses Businesses face prevailing challenges that snowball into revenue leaks and inefficiency. Here are 3 key challenges that could affect efficient growth.  1. Buyers Want More, but Are You Ready for It? 85% of sales reps met or exceeded their sales goals in 2021. That number dropped a little in 2022 to 82%. While that may seem like a small figure, it’s a big jump in 12 months.  The underlying cause is that buyers want more, but not all sellers can live up to these expectations.  Buyers want more solution-based pitches showing how the product aligns with their use cases. But your reps may focus on the old-fashioned product approach (which comes across as more sales-y). Customers also want sellers to personalize their pitches and have more interactions to discuss the solution. In comparison, reps may be caught up with finishing non-selling tasks and filling up the pipeline.  A lack of effort and understanding at the rep’s end could cost you a long-term customer. 2. Pipeline Visibility Is Poor As much as 71% of revenue professionals report that their marketing, sales, and customer success functions are not fully aligned. That translates into a lack of visibility into the customer journey through the sales pipeline.  Poor quality data is to blame here, primarily data that remains stuck in silos between revenue teams. If they don’t have access to complete and accurate data across the funnel, they can’t talk to each other and exchange information. Subsequently, you miss profitable opportunities. 3. Inaccurate Predictions Slide Into Forecasts 16% of salespeople attribute unrealistic quotas as one of the top reasons for sales job turnover. But where do these unrealistic quotas come from? Inaccurate forecasts.  As much as 80% of organizations don’t have a forecast accuracy greater than 75%.  To sum it up, inaccurate forecasts cost you earnings and employees. In the larger scheme of things, this may also ruin your reputation among customers and job seekers alike.  Faced with the above 3 challenges and limited funds, businesses are now looking to invest in solutions that are hard-wired for efficiency. Subsequently, this efficiency evolves into effective revenue growth.  We’ll see, in more detail, how RevOps has massive potential to drive efficient growth and business profitability.   How Revops Drives Efficient Growth for Businesses Eric sums up RevOps’s purpose so clearly. It’s the problem-solver, troubleshooter, and growth-focused sibling of all operations functions.  This ability to solve problems and do it with resources at hand is what makes RevOps a frontrunner for navigating efficient growth. Here are 8 ways RevOps can help: Data hygiene & orchestration Refined alignment Streamlined tech stack Better forecasting Leadership buy-in Consistent performance tracking Improved rep productivity Happy customers  Let’s dive into each one of them below. 1. Data Hygiene & Orchestration You can make the

How Activity Tracking Can Help You Get Better Visibility into Deals RevOps 10 min There hasn’t been a time that demanded sustainable revenue growth more than now. Economic headwinds of the last few months have forced businesses to rethink their revenue growth strategies and focus on efficiency. This means getting away with anything that does not make a positive dent in revenue or causes revenue to leak across the sales funnel. But cutting deep costs is not the only way to increase profits. It’s about doubling down on what’s working. And investing time and resources in strategies that help the whole company march towards the same objective – increased revenue.  And there is one sure shot way of achieving this. By knowing exactly what’s happening with your deals. And how can you do that? Activity tracking. Let’s dive deep.   What is Activity Tracking? Activity tracking in sales refers to monitoring and recording the various actions and behaviors undertaken by sales professionals as they engage in their sales activities. It involves tracking and measuring the specific activities performed during the sales process, such as the number of calls made, emails sent, meetings scheduled, demos conducted, and deals closed. The purpose of activity tracking in sales is to gain insights into the sales process, assess individual and team performance, and make data-driven decisions to improve sales effectiveness.    What is an Activity Tracking Software? An activity tracking software is designed to monitor and record the various activities performed by sales representatives or teams. These activities typically include interactions with leads and prospects, customer communication, follow-ups, and other sales-related tasks. The primary purpose of activity tracking software is to help sales managers and team leaders assess and improve the productivity and effectiveness of their sales teams. Why Do We Need Activity Tracking? Accurately and comprehensively capturing activity data poses a significant challenge. Despite 67% of businesses utilizing 4 to 10 digital tools, they need to track the activity data generated by these tools completely and precisely. Additionally, 79% of opportunity-related data sales representatives collect never enters the CRM. Moreover, the data recorded in systems like CRM could be more reliable, plagued by issues like outdated, missing, or incomplete entries. This lack of data accuracy is a concern for as many as 70% of revenue leaders, leading to substantial financial losses averaging around $15 million per year for organizations. The presence of accurate and complete activity data in systems like CRM creates misalignment among teams in terms of their technological tools and objectives. When sales teams grapple with questions about updated prospect contact information or the correctness of email IDs in the CRM, their efficiency could improve, positively impacting both businesses and customers. Due to lacking confidence in the data, sales, and marketing teams work in the dark, unable to leverage the full potential of significant investments like CRMs. This situation results in poor returns on investment for such resources.     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO6zZpHUoIg&t=1s How Does Poor Activity Data Affect Revenue? Poor data and a lack of activity data in the CRM can harm gaining accurate insights and lead to revenue leakage throughout the customer journey. Here are some key points to consider: 1. Inaccurate or incomplete data When data quality is compromised, it becomes challenging to extract meaningful insights. Only complete or updated information can lead to correct assumptions and flawed decision-making. 2. Missed opportunities Important customer interactions and touchpoints may go undocumented without comprehensive activity data. This lack of visibility can result in missed opportunities to engage prospects, address their needs, and nurture relationships, leading to potential revenue leakage. 3. Ineffective sales strategies The absence of activity data hinders the ability to analyze and optimize sales strategies. Without a clear understanding of which activities drive results, aligning sales efforts with customer preferences and needs becomes difficult, resulting in suboptimal outcomes. 4. Inefficient resource allocation With activity data, it’s easier to assess the productivity and effectiveness of sales teams. This can lead to misallocation of resources, including time, effort, and budget, resulting in revenue leakage and diminished returns on investment. Clean data is essential for Activity Tracking Software as it ensures accurate and error-free information, leading to reliable insights into sales team activities and facilitating better decision-making and performance analysis. With clean data, the software can provide a comprehensive view of sales interactions, prospect engagement, and customer behavior, enabling businesses to identify opportunities, optimize processes, and enhance overall sales efficiency.  Moreover, clean data minimizes the risk of misinterpretation or skewed reporting, fostering greater trust in the software’s output and empowering sales managers and teams to take data-driven actions to achieve their goals. Benefits of Activity Tracking Software Here’s a look at the various advantages of an activity tracking software: 1. Clear visibility into deals Increased visibility into deals serves as a prerequisite for enhancing productivity. When you have comprehensive activity data, you better understand each deal’s status, identify areas that require improvement, and prioritize values that need immediate attention.  Consider the importance of deal reviews in a successful sales process. By utilizing insights derived from unified activity data, deal reviews can evolve from impromptu events to impactful sessions, where sales managers gain clear visibility into the intricacies of every deal.  As activities related to each deal are automatically captured and updated, managers no longer need to remind sales representatives to input data into the CRM constantly. Instead, both reps and managers can access a comprehensive view of contacts and deal specifics within the pipeline, allowing them to focus on urgent matters. 2. Identification of winning rep behaviours Activity data enables you to correlate the productivity of your sales representatives with their performance. For instance, you can obtain crucial insights to answer important questions such as:  Activity data helps map sales reps’ productivity to their performance It provides answers to critical questions such as time allocation, engagement with high-value customers, decision-maker involvement, adherence to best practices, sales target progress, account engagement, and lead follow-up Insights from activity data serve as leading indicators for real-time coaching and decision-making Managers gain