735 - Data-Driven Sales Strategies for Success, with Jeff Torbeck

Collin and Jeff Torback discuss the importance of making data-driven decisions in sales. They highlight the significance of tracking key metrics, setting up proper sales stages, and utilizing tools like CRM and conversational intelligence. The conversation emphasizes the need for accurate data, effective training, and continuous improvement to drive sales success.

Follow the Host:
Collin Mitchell (Partner, Leadium)

Our Episode Guest:
Jeff Torbeck (VP, Gun.io)

Sponsored By:
Leadium | The leader in outbound sales appointment setting

*If you'd like to be a guest on the show or have any questions, email us at [e-mail] - Just tell us why you're reaching out and we'll contact you as soon as we can!

Episode Transcript

Announcer (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of sales
transformation brought to you byLeadium. In this episode, we've
got Jeff Torbeck back on theshow to discuss the importance
of making data driven decisionsin driving revenue. Colin, the
mic is yours.

Collin Mirchell (00:15):
Alright. Welcome back to another episode
of sales transformation broughtto you by Leadium. I'm your
host, Colin Mitchell. And today,we've got Jeff Torbeck on. He is
back for a second time.
And the last time we had, Jeffon, we talked a little bit about
how the good old days of revenueat all cost does not work. And
today, we're gonna dig intosomething, a little bit

(00:38):
different. But before we do divein, Jeff, why don't you give
people a little bit ofbackground?

Jeff Torbeck (00:42):
Awesome. Thanks, Colin. Good to be back on. Yeah.
I'm the VP of revenue at Gun.
Io. I've been in marketplacesfor the last 10 years with
stints at LinkedIn, hired, builda go to market platform at
Betts, and then, a nursingplatform at clipboard. And now
I'm back in the tech space. Andso, I'm really looking to grow
the marketplace space because Ithink it's the the nice meeting

(01:04):
in between, you know, doing ityourself or having to pay
agencies for every single hirethat you do.

Collin Mirchell (01:10):
Yeah. And you've got quite the experience
and background in marketplacesspecifically.

Jeff Torbeck (01:17):
Yeah. I I keep getting pulled back into it. I
really wanna find one that wecan take to the moon and and
really kinda make a differencebecause I do think hiring in
general can be a betterexperience for both sides.
Right? Companies can see lessresumes.
Candidates can, you know, eitherget to the no faster or at least

(01:37):
start having conversations withcompanies, because I think it's
especially through 2023, it'svery frustrating to see a lot of
people not have jobs for 9months, reach out to a 1000
people or a 1000 job posts neverhear back. So it would be great
to have a better way for peopleto find the opportunities that
they really want.

Collin Mirchell (01:55):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, last time we talked about,
you know, kind of how thelandscape has changed a lot. And
today, we're gonna dive intosomething that I know that, you
know, you have a a lot ofinformation to share on, but
it's about making, you know,data driven decisions, you know,
which I think is something thateverybody's kind of leading
towards as there's not justthis, you know, revenue at all

(02:18):
costs, which we talked about inthe last episode, where we can
just hire more people, you know,do more outreach, and hopefully
get those, you know, singledigit conversions that
everybody's hoping for. Yeah.
So just kinda curious. Yourthoughts. What are what are some
of the data that should belooked at in order to make good
decisions for driving revenue?

Jeff Torbeck (02:38):
Yeah. That's a great question. I think when you
think about the way I thinkabout data driven decisions is
and why it's so important todayis we're seeing the shift to
smaller teams. Right? You don'treally see companies that are
like, hey.
We're hiring 50 AEs to make ourteam this big. It's really like,
we wanna hire 20 or we wannahave an AE team of 10 or 15. And

(02:58):
to be able to do that, you haveto understand what your true
metrics are. Right? If you'reinbound heavy or you're outbound
heavy, how many leads are youreally gonna get, and can you
feed everybody in theorganization?
Because there's there's 2 sidesto this. Right? Like, you gotta
have enough leads and andopportunities coming in, and,

(03:19):
obviously, you gotta convertthem in a good enough rate to
get to your number. But you alsogotta give people enough
opportunities and people beingyour the folks that work for
you, enough opportunities thatthey have a path a clear path to
their number. Right?
And I think what we're gonna seeover the next year or 2 or
things like that is a shift awayfrom, like, the revenue at all
cost motion where the old schoolmodel was if 60% of your team

(03:41):
hits quota, that's great. Imean, I remember that at
LinkedIn and Salesforce andthings like that. And I think we
forgot that, like, well, thenyou have 40% of the org that is
unhappy. Right? And you canstart to create these, like,
toxic backroom chats about howthey're not happy, they're not
being fed, they have badterritories, blah blah blah
blah.
And so it's when you lean intothe data, it's really looking

(04:01):
into how do I give them a veryclear path to be successful.
Right? One of the one of thethings I like to do is say, if
you're gonna raise quota oryou're gonna lower quota, are
you gonna change how you calmpeople? Can you back it up with
data to show how that doesn'taffect them that much? Right?
Obviously, there's change and,like, when you raise quota, yes,

(04:22):
it should be technically harderto get there, but you should be
raising quota, like, when youknow your ACV is going up. You
don't have to double the amountof deals that you get and things
like that because is that reallyrealistic for your organization
to get? Right? That's gonna helpyou with profitability.
Everybody's focused on CAC andall this other stuff to get
there.
And early on, like, your CAC isusually pretty bad because you

(04:44):
just gotta spend like crazy toget out there, but the goal
should be to lower that, right,to make that number as small as
possible, whether that's throughbranding like we talked about on
the last call, social, buildingin building in public, or, you
know, the network ways whereit's like you're building
something so good that peopleare referring you to others.
Hey. We really love thisproduct. You should chat. That's

(05:05):
how you can start to really leanin to this, like, multichannel
approach, but you have to havethe data to say, like, how can
we take advantage of these?
And then are the changes thatwe're doing, whether it's to
your inbound, whether it's to areferral program, whether it's
to, like, networking foroutbounding, is it actually
changing how we're working?Right? And whether you look at
that month over month, quarterover quarter, you can't just

(05:28):
look at it at the end of theyear and be like, hey. We're
gonna give this a year to run.Like, you gotta be able to have
that data to understand when weneed to make changes.

Collin Mirchell (05:36):
Yeah. So there's a lot to dig into there.
I guess I think the questionprobably most people would have
is, well, how the heck do Itrack all this data? Like, do
you have some suggestions on howyou do it? Tech stack
recommendations, you know,things they could build out in
the CRM?
What's kinda let's say, if wewere to go basic level, and then

(06:00):
kinda take it from there.

Jeff Torbeck (06:02):
Yeah. I think the first thing is figuring out a
way to get your CRM updated asgood as possible. And I think
we've all been salespeoplebefore, and I see us. We hate
putting all the information in.I think there's, like, this big
push to automate everything, butthen automating everything
doesn't really tell the wholestory.
So I think the first thing is,like, whether you're using a
Salesforce or HubSpot orwhatever, that's gotta be

(06:24):
updated because you can't startto slice the data that you're
going from. Right? If you sellan app that pulls data into it
so, like, for us, for example,our marketplace is an app, so
that pulls data into HubSpot. Italso pulls data into tools like
Metabase and things like thatthat help that can help us run
better reports to reallyunderstand, you know, what is
the flow, what's our conversionrate, things like that. I think

(06:46):
for, like, basic level, it'slike a c r some sort of CRM
that's working well and then away for your reps to really
input the data correctly.
And one of the things I've usedat a bunch of different
companies is Scratchpad is verygood. Basically, automates the
way that you put in data. Youcan also set up a bunch of
triggers so that you canunderstand, did a close date

(07:07):
change? Did, you know, thischange? Did your forecast
change?
It it automates a little bit onthat side. I think the other way
to, is you can start to build alot of stuff out in Gong. Right?
Gong's got a great deal page foryou to be able to put in, you
know, whether you're trainingpeople on MEDDIC, whether you
use Sandler, really tounderstand are the data points
being there, and then can youtrack those through the process.

(07:28):
I think those are probably thesimplest as you go through.
And then some sort of callrecording. Right? Gong's, you
know, great. I love Gong. We useGong at Gunion.
I've used it at the last threecompanies I've been at. But
there's great tools out therelike Fathom, which is cheap.
It's free right now. We'll seehow long they do that for. But
it's a great way to record yourcalls and then give you
summaries so that you can thentake those notes better.

(07:52):
So you're not just on a calljust feverishly writing those
down, and you're not actuallyengaged in the call. I think
that's some of the biggestchanges that I've seen when I
was in AE. I mean, I rememberthe, like, pages of notes I used
to take Yeah. Early in my sales.And now it's, like, Gong cuts
through most of it.
Fathom catches most of it. Youcan ask them to summarize it for
you. You're like, oh, that'sreally interesting. I know a

(08:13):
bunch of information that Ididn't get. So I think those are
pretty simple tools to startwith.
But I think it goes back to ifyou don't have the data
accurately in one place, youcan't start to parse data out.
And if you haven't identifiedthe data that's important to
make sure that you're and andand you've you haven't defined

(08:36):
that to your team of why it'simportant that you're doing it,
they're not gonna do it. Right?I remember early in my sales
career, it was always like, oh,they just my manager just wants
me to update Salesforce becauseit makes their job easier. And,
like, some truth to that, butthe reality is that's how people
at higher levels are actuallymaking the decision because they
can't be in a call every timelike you are.

Collin Mirchell (08:58):
Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, just to kinda recap,
table stakes is having your CRMset up properly. Right?

Jeff Torbeck (09:05):
Yep.

Collin Mirchell (09:06):
Getting your reps to actually utilize it.
Good luck with that. But thereis tools that can make that
easier, conversationalintelligence tools like, you
know, Scratchpad. And I thinkthere's even others, that can do
a lot of that stuff that, youknow, reps typically just don't
wanna do. Yep.
That's gonna, you know, get allof the data in the CRM, which is
the the biggest hurdle. Butthen, you know, what are some

(09:28):
things that you should belooking at to be making
decisions, you know, on, youknow, what the next path forward
is, as far as for yourorganization? Right? I think the
thing that we can maybe dig intoa little bit where I see teams
struggle is not properly, youknow, having good still sales
stages and exit criteria. Mhmm.
Because that's you know, thatdata is gold as far as why

(09:51):
you're, you know, where yourreps need help, maybe where
they're getting stuck. Or forexample, you know, there could
be a particular ICP that you'retargeting that's always getting
stuck at a certain stage, andmaybe you shouldn't be
targeting. You know, having goodsales stages mapped out with
good exit criteria, I think, is,at any level, can be very

(10:12):
important because there's a lotof, data there that can validate
the decisions you make forward.

Jeff Torbeck (10:20):
Yeah. I think that's, like, spot on,
especially because I think repshold on to deals longer than
they should because it makesthem feel good to have a big
pipeline. And I always tell allmy teams, like, I'd rather have
a smaller pipeline where, like,most of it closes. Right? I
don't need to have, like, somecrazy inflated number.
I know, like, the easiest way toforecast is, like, just have 3 x
of your number. Right? That'sthat's, like, 101 from 10 years

(10:43):
ago of of how they looked at it.And to your point, the stage's
exes are really good, but Ithink it's like this push to
discovery and reallyunderstanding, like, what truly
makes it out of discovery. Andcan you disqualify deals faster
to your point based on, is itoutside your ICP?
Is it in your ICP? Are we justhoping this is gonna close, or
do we really have kind of aframework, which is why I like

(11:05):
to use, like, MEDDIC orsomething like that to really
understand, do we trulyunderstand what we're trying to
solve? And then if we do, do weunderstand how we can kinda get
this over the line? And do weunderstand the people in there
that we need to work with to getus over the line? I always say,
like, when you're sellingthrough champions and things
like that, you need to have thewill and the skill of that
champion.
Right? Everybody's typicallypretty willing if they're a true

(11:28):
champion that they wanna get itdone, they see the value. But
getting it done, actually askingfor something out of budget,
getting it approved, being ableto present it to maybe your CFO
that won't get on a call orsomething like that, that's the
stuff that you really need tokinda lean into. And if you
track those with, like, theright staging methodologies or
the right, you know, medic setupor something like that, then you

(11:50):
can work with your rev ops teamto really understand, okay,
where are we missing mostly? Arewe losing a lot of deals after
discovery?
Are we losing a lot of dealsafter demo? Why? And then you
can start to work on training.Right? And I think we've seen
this, like, big flourish ofsales enablement being important
again, where forever most peopledidn't really lean into sales
enablement.
But you need to be constantlytraining your team and having

(12:12):
somebody there that can take thefindings of the data and help
you create the right trainingsand then stay on top of these
people consistently, that's ahuge gap that I think is closing
very quickly. And I think we'regonna see and we've already seen
it. Like, rev ops isridiculously important versus
what it was 5 years ago. And Ithink we're gonna see the same

(12:33):
thing with sales ops or salesenablement to where they
realize, like, managers and VPsand directors, they don't have
time to train every rep everyweek. They definitely wanna be
involved in it, but you reallyneed these folks that are really
good at training to really helppeople understand the concepts
and then be able to execute themreally well so that your current

(12:55):
team levels up their abilityquarter over quarter, year over
year.

Collin Mirchell (13:02):
Yeah. I mean, especially with this more of a
trend of, you know, operatingwith leaner teams. Right? Like,
your people are your mostimportant asset. And so it makes
a lot of sense to invest in,hey, let's make sure we're
analyzing the right data to seewhere they need the most help
and then enable them to makesure that they get that help.
Right. So that we can increasethings like win rates. I mean,

(13:24):
it still blows my mind that mostcompanies think, hey. 20 to 30%
win rate is actually good. Youknow, that means you're saying,
hey, we can lose 80% of thetime.
And that's Yep. That's, that'sthat's, you know, good, or even
great in some some, orgs, youknow, which is ridiculous. You
know, if if you had properlydocumented sales stages and you

(13:47):
had good, you know,disqualification criteria, you
wouldn't have all this fluff inyour pipeline, which ultimately
spins your wheels and waste alot of time so that you ain't
end up actually losing dealsthat you shouldn't, that you
could have won because you'respending all this energy where
you shouldn't. Thanks for tuningin. Please don't forget to like

(14:07):
and share so we can help morepeople transform the way they
sell.