SaaStr Workshop Wednesdays: Moving Upmarket & Nailing Enterprise Sales in Today’s Macro Environment with Salesforce Ventures Speaker: Nowi Kallen, Managing Director at Salesforce Ventures

1. Nowi Kallen
Managing Director,
Salesforce Ventures
Moving Upmarket
in Today's Macro Environment

2. GOING UPMARKET – FRAMING
TAM expansion
Financial Profile &
Valuation…
Category Leadership
The Why The When The Warning
Push vs pull
Founder-led → AE-led
Product Enterprise
readiness
Patience
The Software Valley of
Death

3. SHARING LESSONS FROM THE BEST IN SAAS
GTM
Udi Ledergor
Chief Evangelist
Adam Carr
Head of Global Sales
Nir Goldstein
VP Sales EMEA & APAC
Colin Jones
CRO
Ryan Carlson
Former CMO

4. CHALLENGE #1: TENSION BETWEEN SELF-
SERVICE / PLG VS ENTERPRISE
“The self-serve
product suits us just
fine, plenty of
features, thanks for
asking”
“I don’t want to pay
more on a per seat
basis for the
enterprise agreement”

5. SOLUTION: SHOW AND DELIVER BUSINESS
VALUE UPFRONT
Show Value Upfront Address Enterprise Needs
Make it Strategic to the C-Suite
Business Value Assessments pre-RfP
or POC
Scope, Engage and Nurture all
Stakeholders
Security
Role Based Access Controls
Org Visibility
Compliance & Governance
Reporting & More…

6. CHALLENGE #2: FOCUSING YOUR
ENTERPRISE SALES ORGANIZATION
Moving From Transactional to
Proper Enterprise Sales
“Are we just collecting sign ups and credit
cards?”
Product-qualified Users/Opps vs.
Sales-qualified Opps
“Which product-qualified users should we target?”

7. LESSON LEARNED: CULTURE SHIFT TO
EMBRACE ENTERPRISE
• Resolve tension
between product-led
growth mindset and
enterprise sales mindset
• Culture shift comes from
CEO level
• Teams working together
cross-functionally

8. LESSON LEARNED: ENGAGE AND NURTURE
OPPORTUNITIES + STAKEHOLDERS

9. CHALLENGE #3: MAKING YOUR PRODUCT,
SALES & MARKETING ORGANIZATIONAL
STRUCTURES ENTERPRISE READY
“Why can’t I just
copy-paste my SMB
approach to
enterprise?
It’s already selling, so
isn’t that what the
clients want?”
“Enterprises are so
complex and
demanding. My
product will never
fit them”

10. LESSON LEARNED: SEGMENT THE ENTIRE
ORGANIZATION - NOT JUST GTM
CEO
Sales Customer
Success
Marketing Product Legal /
Finance
Midmarket
Enterprise
SMB

11. LESSON LEARNED: INCREASE
SPECIALIZATION AS YOU GO ENTERPRISE:
MATCH TEAM EXPERTISE TO SCOPE &
INCENTIVIZE APPROPRIATELY
Island
End-to-end with one team/AE
from prospect to convert to
close and activate with
Assembly Line
SDRs / PLQs 🡪Land 🡪
Expand 🡪 Customer Success
Specialized
Strategic Accounts with E2E coverage
Commercial, Mid-Market, Enterprise
Geographic divisons
Dedicated Product & Marketing
counterparties

12. CHALLENGE #4: MARKETING TO ENTERPRISE
Buyer Messaging & Brand
Image
“It’s not just about innovation & cool features
anymore, how can we build a trusted brand?”
Processes & KPIs
“How do we link all these processes to outcomes, ie.
customer love and $$$?”

13. LESSON LEARNED #1: BRAND NEEDS TO TALK
ENTERPRISE

14. LESSON LEARNED #2: MARKETING SUCCESS
INFORMED BY SALES SUCCESS
Pipeline Opportunities Leads Generated
$41.1M
Mktg Generated New Opp Created
+20% QoQ
97% of Q Plan
249
# Sales Qualified Opps
+8% QoQ
86% of Q Plan
10.7K
MQLs Generated
-13% QoQ

15. CHALLENGE #5: SELLING IN TODAY’S MACRO
ENVIRONMENT
Tool Rationalization & Budget
Cuts
“The customer only wants to cut tools and cut
spend”
Stakeholders Involved Has
Multiplied.. Longer Sales Cycles
“The technical team and IT sourcing are signed
off, but the deal is stuck somewhere”

16. LESSON LEARNED: CFO IS NOW THE BUYER
C-level exec in the target buying
group is the economic buyer
CFO has become the economic buyer
Help technical teams for CFO buy-in
Play the long game
Before Now
CMO
Marketing
CISO
Security
CTO/Eng.
DevOps
Marketing
products
Security
products
DevOps /
Infra
products

17. It will take longer than you’d
like and cost more…
Buckle in for that journey, the
future is bright.