Valerio Bianchi’s Post

🚨 Aligning Sales Leadership with the Buyer’s Journey 🚨 The recent post by Valerio Bianchi highlighted a key disconnect in sales: managers fixate on forecasts, reps focus on quotas, and the buyer is left wondering if anyone truly understands their needs. This struck a chord. Here’s the thing: buyers aren’t looking for vendors but someone who can guide them through challenges, uncertainties, and decisions. And when sales teams fail to lead this way, deals don’t just stall—they disappear. The real transformation begins when sales leadership shifts its focus: ✅ From managing quotas to enabling mentorship. ✅ From obsessing over internal metrics to aligning with the buyer’s journey. ✅ From being just another option to becoming a trusted partner. Reps who embrace the role of a mentor—understanding their buyer is the hero of the journey—don’t just close deals. They build trust, create value, and drive long-term success. Sales leadership isn’t about hitting numbers; it’s about empowering teams to guide buyers effectively. Are we doing enough to enable that shift? Let’s discuss how we can transform sales from transactional to transformational. #SalesLeadership #BuyersJourney #CustomerCentricity #SalesTransformation #ComplexSales #HeroJourney

Who decided that sales cycles should end at the month, quarter or year-end? Yes I get it, it is what it has to be but what if you shifted your cadence to match your customers needs instead? Early in my transition from individual contributor to sales leader, I closed one of the biggest deals of my career. And luck would have it, it landed early in the month and covered my team’s target for months ahead. Instead of letting that success create complacency, I used it to shift our perspective. The company’s timelines and targets remained unchanged, but we adjusted our own “month” to run from the 15th to the 15th, refocusing our urgency around the client’s timeline, not ours. The outcome? We became the most consistent, highest-performing team in the company When you stop pushing customers into your deadlines and start aligning with theirs, everything changes. What changes have you made to shift your perspective? #SalesLeadership #CustomerCentricity #BusinessStrategy

Shifting focus from internal deadlines to customer needs can transform not only sales results but the entire customer relationship. It’s a reminder that when you put the client's needs first, sustainable success follows. #SalesLeadership #CustomerCentricity #BusinessStrategy

Two days before my discovery with 3 sales leaders, I made a move that resulted in an incredibly effective call. My primary contact added her Director of Sales and VP of MM Sales to our upcoming discovery. I could’ve been reactive and wait for the call but I decided to be proactive to take advantage of the time with these leaders. 2 days before the call, I reached out to the Director and VP sending individual notes to each 👇 “Hi Linda, See that you'll be joining Priya and I on our call this Thurs @ 2pm. Looking forward to it. So I can make the most of your valuable time, What would be 2 areas you're looking to level up your Mid Market sellers in as it relates to sales + business acumen?” The result? They shared key insights and specific areas they are looking to improve for their sales teams. This was incredibly effective for our discovery, as I summarized what they shared and asked them to tell me more + what was driving this need. It turned into a fruitful conversation and one simple note prior helped make it happen. …………………………. Multithread with purpose and intention. Discovery before discovery. Be proactive vs reactive.

🚀 What sets top sales apart? 🚀 Here’s what I’ve seen throughout my whole sales career: Top sales people thrive on process. A recent study shows a striking difference between high-performing and underperforming sales organizations: ✅ 50% of high-performing teams have sales processes that are closely monitored, strictly enforced, or automated. ❌ Only 28% of underperforming teams can say the same. But here’s the kicker: ⛔ 48% of underperforming teams admit to having nonexistent or informal sales processes, compared to just 29% in high-performing teams. The message is clear: Structured, well-enforced sales processes aren’t just nice to have—they’re the key to unlocking consistent success. Is your sales process driving results or holding you back? #SalesLeadership #SalesExcellence #ProcessDriven #SalesSuccess

CONTROVERSIAL THOUGHTS ❗ As a revenue operations leader, I’ve recently been having more conversations with sales leaders about building or re-building their sales motions. One recurring theme is the trend of outsourced partners guaranteeing meeting volume expectations. From my experience, when partners treat their relationship to demand generation programs as transactional, it’s time to run for the hills. Sales programs are built on solid math and a deep understanding of the levers to pull for influencing outcomes and achieving definitive results—not on guarantees. Let’s focus on strategic, data-driven approaches rather than falling for empty promises. We can have a conversation about performance-based pricing another time... #demandgeneration #revenueoperations #salesgoals #outsourcedsales

Sales managers can’t see everything, so if you’re a sales rep spotting ways to align the team, bring it up. Share any insights or opportunities with your sales manager that could benefit the team. Sales Leaders: if you’ve built a space where reps feel safe to share openly, you’re already on the right track.

Lead #sales teams long enough and you learn almost nothing goes as planned. We make a beautiful model that shows a clear path to YoY growth then... - lose a top customer - lose a top salesperson (or two) - fail to launch a new product on time - fall behind on our #hiring plan So you must build a buffer between what the business requires and what you publish to the team. But here's the catch, you can't publish a larger number to your team without resourcing the team for the higher number. If you publish sales targets to your team that are 10% more than what the business needs but don't have enough selling capacity or the right tools to make it happen, it will never work. Publish a higher number. Be prepared to spend more than you've committed to the executive team--you increase your chances of weathering the inevitable storms.

When top line performance is under scrutiny, one question worth asking is “Are sellers executing our priority sales plays?” Or – instead - is everything a priority… Commercial leaders we work with focus their sellers on just the few ‘plays’ that will have the largest revenue effect. Examples of priorities are: cross-sell product A, retain customer segment B, penetrate vertical C, sell new product D, target customers with competitor E, sell solution F, expand in region G. Do your sellers have the playbook (what to know/do/say/show) to execute priority sales plays? #salesplays

Sales leaders- here’s a quick revenue increasing secret that works for us immediately⬇️ Have your team follow up! I can’t tell you many times reps have not followed up with me when I needed to buy something. Buyers get busy. It’s so simple yet so effective.