July ‘23: The Underperformance Crisis in SaaS

**NEW RESEARCH AVAILABLE**

The Underperformance Crisis within SaaS GTM teams is far more severe than most revenue leaders realize.

How did we get here? After a long period of overhiring during the  “Golden Age of SaaS” (the last ten years or so), rep underperformance is increasing in the current market of shrinking customer budgets.

How severe is this problem?

First, your cohort of top performers is shrinking. It used to be that the top 20% of reps were high performers (“superstars”); in 2023, that number has decreased to 4%.

And second, it used to be that the bottom 10% of the team were the group of lowest performers, nowhere close to meeting quota. In 2023, that number has increased to 28%.

Traditional large-scale training programs will not yield results fast enough.

GTM teams need a solution that drives impact quickly — within 60-90 days.

So how do we fix this?

The answer lies with the 40% of your team that is sitting just below the ‘normal’ performance line. This is the group that you can lift up.

In this new Solution Guide from the WbD Research desk, “Solving Underperformance: How to Lift Up the 40%,” we share how you can get this middle 40% of your sales team to deliver at a normal level to help build toward sustainable growth, including:

Use this Solution Guide as a compass to quantify your own team’s performance, and consider implementing the “Impact Sprints” strategy for rapid performance gains.

As experts in optimizing SaaS GTM performance, WbD can work closely with your teams to pinpoint performance gaps, design impactful “Impact Sprints,” and drive successful transformations.

Sign up for Revenue Academy Open Courses — spots are still available in July and August. Check availability here:

Workshop: Using an Operating Model in Customer Success

Most SaaS teams are maniacally focused on new logos, while ignoring massive untapped profits that are right there in the existing customer base. At the same time, most Customer Success teams are barely scraping by, with no structure or proven frameworks to tie them together with the sales and marketing activities on the left side of the bowtie. With a cohesive operating model, CS teams can finally reach their potential of driving sustainable growth and profit from the existing customer base. The best way to uncover more impact is with your existing customers.

When: Tuesday, July 18, 10am PST

Presented by: Jacco van der Kooij (Founder, WbD), Mark Kosoglow (CRO, Catalyst)

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Workshop: How to Benchmark your GTM

“Are these results good or bad? How does this compare to what other companies our size are doing?” Comparing against other companies will not bring you the right insights. Instead, you need to benchmark your GTM against your own performance, and you can do this with the Bowtie Data Model. Join to learn directly from the enablement leader at Clari how they were able to do this for their own org.

When: Thursday, July 20, 10am PST

Presented by: Fiona Chiu (Growth Architect, WbD) & Sarah Burke Houlihan (VP Revenue Excellence, Clari)

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Workshop: RevOps In The Age Of AI: How To Leverage Data And Automation For Growth

AI is all the rage these days. It’s tempting to automate as much as possible. GTM teams should be thoughtful about where to apply AI in order to amplify our own knowledge and increase efficiency. You may already be applying AI to your more straightforward tasks such as data cleanup, but what about the more strategic areas? How do we apply AI successfully there? Join to learn how to strategically apply AI.

When: July 27, 10am PST

Presented by: Jacco van der Kooij (Founder, WbD), Roee Hartuv (Revenue Architect, WbD) and Charlie Saunders (Co-founder, CS2 Marketing)

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Workshop: Using your Tech Stack to Reinforce a Methodology

The best methodology is one that gets adopted. How do you get your methodology adopted by all of your reps, in the same way? Work it into your process and your toolstack. Join to learn specific ways that you can make your methodology stick, using the tools that you already have. We will talk through some specific examples, including how Dropbox uses the SPICED Framework combined with specific features on Gong to drive consistent success across their GTM org.

When: Tuesday, August 1, 9am PST

Presented by: Dan Smith (Chief Learning Officer, WbD), Walter Velazquez (Data Architect, WbD)  & Jen Coleman (Revenue Enablement Lead – AMER, Dropbox, Cision)

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Workshop: How To Realize The Revenue Potential Of Add-On Acquisitions Within A 3-5 Year Holding Period

As part of an M&A activity, there are unique challenges of merging and integrating multiple GTM teams. Teams, processes, data sets and systems all need to be aligned and integrated. Sellers need to adapt to new offerings and new customer stakeholders. The Recurring Revenue Operating Model provides the structure that accelerates post-acquisition growth and minimizes the risk that inevitably comes with these integrations.

This session covers the specific blueprints from the Recurring Revenue Operating Model that investors and revenue leaders can use to facilitate this type of integration.

When: Wednesday, August 2, 9am PST

Presented by: Lauren Goldstein, Victor Adefuye, Roee Hartuv, David Ellin

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To impact,

The crew at Winning by Design