The document outlines enterprise sales strategies and key considerations for transitioning from founder-led sales to a scalable sales model, emphasizing the importance of relationships over transactions. It discusses the necessity of developing repeatable sales processes, customer success metrics, and an effective compensation plan as companies grow. The author shares insights from over 30 years of experience in technology sales and highlights the significance of aligning sales objectives with corporate goals.

1. Enterprise Sales Considerations
Brad Epker
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bepker/

2. About Brad ● Over 30 years of Sales and Sales Leadership
● Technology Management MBA - University of
Washington
● 23 years in Go To Market (GTM) in early stage
technology sales
● Key GTM positions in seven, startup and early stage
companies
○ 5 Achieved sales and business goals.
■ Liquidity Events: 3 acquired - 2 IPO’s
○ 1 Failed,
○ 1 Shifted Markets

3. My Key
Learnings
● Technology Agnostic - Business Value
○ Don’t fall in love with the Tech
○ Many Examples from the Biggest Tech Companies
● Never prove you are the smartest one in the room
● Strong Value Proposition Leader
○ Move the conversation from cool tech to tech/business
value
● Enterprise Sales is about relationships, not
transactions
○ Help your customer (key contact) become successful

4. What is
Enterprise
Sales?
Definition: Many Companies = Many Definitions
Define Your “Enterprise”:
● Niche and expand vs too broad
● Number of employees, revenue, total opportunity, other?
● Accept definitions will change
Common Elements
● Patience
● Persistence
● Collaboration
● Curiosity1

5. “Technology”
vs
“Value”
● Moving from Founder lead sales to traditional sales
● Understanding the technology of your offering and
translating it to value
● Gain agreement from Customers on value of offering
(Happy vs Successful)
● Review all public facing GTM documents and
information
● Draft and Document founder success
○ Create general sales categories and document responses -
tacit knowledge transfer2
■ Customer Stories
■ Current Customer Profiles
■ Value Propositions (Outside Help - Intellicap)
■ Questions and Objections
■ Analyze Current Customers: “Happy versus
Successful”
● Use current success as Building Blocks

6. First 10
Customers
First 10 Customers: Founder reactionary plan that is not
scalable
● Involved in every sales call
● Present product demonstration
● Handling every support call
● Visiting every new customer in person
● Involvement in every customer issue
Be prepared to give all this up, if not you may not be ready to
move beyond the first 10.

7. Customer
Development,
Customer
Council,
User Groups
More than them loving it! Are they successful with your
product? Who’s going to get promoted, who’s going to get
fired?
● Capturing Customer Development Data
○ Link to Mike Fishbein Ultimate Customer Dev Questions
○ Be systematic, and establish patterns
● Customer Council
○ It’s never too early
○ Make your customers input part of your roadmap
● User Groups - Successful users take you with them
○ Recognize users not just buyers
“I know” is bad! You don’t know what the customer wants until
they interact with the product.

8. Moving from
10 to 100
Shifting from Tactical to Strategic
● Hire Sales Generalist - Willingness to Learn
● What is important? - Compensate accordingly
○ Begin to establish the culture
● Expect cold calling and cold emailing
● Know your process! Sales has stages.
● When is it time for Sales Engineering?
● Begin Marketing
○ Get Prospects to self identify
○ Email campaigns
○ Search engine optimization
○ Building scalable lead generation process

9. Moving from
10 to 100
Shifting from Tactical to Strategic
● Build Repeatable Sales Processes
● Stage Modeling and Forecasting
● Develop Sales Swimlanes (how sales interacts
with the company)
○ Defined Targets Markets
○ Consistent Pricing
○ Discounting Authorization Levels
○ Simplify Documenting and Contracting
○ Don’t get bullied

10. Moving from
100 to 1000
Focus on Long Term Strategic Items
● Begin to develop specialized Sales Roles:
○ Customer Success
○ Operations
○ Engineering
○ LDR/SDR
○ SMB vs Strategic?
● Use and Optimization of Sales Operations
○ Sales Operations is different that Sales
○ Responsible for deployment of systems (CRM and CLM)
○ Pipeline Management
○ Sales Forecasting

11. Moving from
100 to 1000
Focus on Long Term Strategic Items
● Refine Pricing and Discounting Models
○ Consistency across all Target Markets
○ Be prepared to defend pricing decisions
● Establish streamline contracting process (CLM)
○ Once the Customer says yes, what happens?
● Establish Sales Management Leadership Structure
● Develop a Product Management Sales Relationship
● Consider Contracting Product Management/Marketing
○ Many boutique shops - C2B Suite

12. Growing the
Team
● Past: Founder Lead Sales
○ Establish current sales script
○ What were the decision factors for each customer
○ Outline and share the stories that lead to the first 10
Customers
○ Are these relationship or repeatable patterns
● Present: First Sales Hire
○ Industry Expertise and Credibility or “Super Star Sales”
○ Compensation*
○ Establish mutually agreed up expectation
● Future: Growing the Team
○ Don’t move too quickly
○ Sufficient Opportunities to make 80% of the team successful
○ Leave Hiring to your Sales Leadership - consider culture
○ Don’t be afraid of Sales Churn.

13. Compensation
drives
behavior
● OTE - On Target Earnings
○ Salary + Commission = OTE
○ Make these achievable (I didn't say easy)
● All Plans do not have to be Annual
○ Consider Monthly or Quarterly
○ Begin the process of documenting all plans
● Aligned with corporate goals
○ Comp plan is my job description and a job review
○ Never cap a plan
○ Consider multipliers after 100% achievement
● What’s the correct split between Base/Commission
○ 50/50
○ 60/40
○ 75/25
● Resources:
○ 6 Rules of Sales Compensation - Dave Parker

14. Summary:
Watch
everything!
Moving from Founder led sales to 1000 Customers
● Don’t grow too quickly
● Establish Culture by slowly developing Specific Roles
and Responsibilities within Sales.
● Compensation plan should reflect priorities - Customer
Count? Users, Revenue, Profitability Other?
● Work with current customers to establish Product
Roadmap
● Introducing supporting roles?
● Transactional vs Strategic Sales - Segmenting the
market

15. Q&A
“If I was leading sales for
your organization for the
day, what questions would
you have for me?” - Brad

16. Resources 1. “Selling Thru Curiosity”
(https://saleshood.com/selling-through-curiosity/)
2. The Learning Coach:
https://theelearningcoach.com/learning/tacit-knowledge-t
ransfer/
3. The Ultimate List of Customer Development Questions
https://mfishbein.com/the-ultimate-list-of-customer-devel
opment-questions/
4. 6 Rules for Startup Sales Comp
https://www.dkparker.com/6-rules-for-startup-sales-com
p/
5. Intellicap - https://www.intellicap.com/why-inellicap
6. C2B Suite - https://www.c2bsuite.com/#services-section