The Revenue Acceleration Playbook: Creating an Authentic Buyer Journey Across Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success

by Brent Keltner, David Meerman Scott (Introduction)

Overview

Want to accelerate your sales? Stop selling, and start connecting.

Today’s buyers are inundated with sales pitches coming at them from websites, peer reviews, social media, and email blasts. Is it any wonder they’re overloaded, overwhelmed, and tuned out?

The fact is, product-centered pitching simply doesn’t cut it anymore. Buyers don’t want to hear about your product’s features—they want to hear about how it can solve their problems or help them reach their goals. In The Revenue Acceleration Playbook, sales and marketing expert Brent Keltner introduces a proven, go-to-market framework to increase personalization and authenticity across every step of the buyer journey—from initial buyer engagement and prospecting, to closing new deals and expanding customer relationships, to growing target market segments.

Drawing on more than twenty successful company examples, Keltner shows you, step by step, how to build an authentic buyer journey that will generate more opportunities, higher account values, and faster segment growth. An essential handbook for CEOs, revenue leaders, go-to-market team members and everyone in between, The Revenue Acceleration Playbook is your guide to building a high-growth organization, from the sales floor to the executive suite.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781774581018
Publisher:	Page Two Books, Inc.
Publication date:	04/05/2022
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	1,021,483
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Brent Keltner, Ph.D. is President of Winalytics LLC and created Winalytics’ revenue acceleration and sales growth methodology. Winalytics works with growth-stage to enterprise customers in a range of industries, including the education, human capital, SaaS, business operations, retail and marketing communications sectors. Before starting Winalytics, Brent was a revenue leader in both early-stage and enterprise companies where he successfully scaled growth. He began his career as a Ph.D. social scientist and qualitative researcher at Stanford University and the RAND Corporation. He has published articles on go-to-market strategy in the Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, and The Financial Times.

Table of Contents

Foreword David Meerman Scott 1

1 Discovering the Authentic Buyer Journey 7

How an Academic Discovered an Authentic Buyer Journey 10

Authentic Conversations Lead to Better Outcomes 15

Sharing Company Stories on an Authentic Buyer Journey 19

Your Next Steps in Each Chapter 21

2 The Revenue Impact of an Authentic Buyer and Customer Journey 23

Mursion Commits to an Authentic Buyer Journey 24

Connecting Authentic Conversations Across Go-to-Market Teams 26

Why an Authentic Buyer and Customer Journey? 28

Mursion Versus Salento: Two Different Growth Trajectories 33

It's About Us Versus It's About You 35

Authentic Conversations Put Buyer Goals First, Product Second 37

Authentic Conversations and Buyer and Customer Engagement 41

An Authentic Buyer and Customer Journey and Specific Revenue Outcomes 44

Organizational Supports for an Authentic Buyer and Customer Journey 50

Your Next Steps on Value Playbooks 52

Part I A Value Playbook and an Authentic Buyer and Customer Journey

3 Value Discovery as the Foundation 55

Credly Uses Deep Value Discovery 57

How Deep Discovery Leads to Buyer Engagement 60

Three Levels of Value Discovery 62

Broad Value Discovery and Identifying Buyer Impacts 67

Whisps Breaks Through Inertia with Buyer Impacts 69

Impact Statements and Buyer Personas 73

Impact Statements and Deal Momentum 74

Value Discovery Across the Buyer and Customer Journey 78

CeriFi Leverages Continual Value Discovery to Grow Faster 79

Value Discovery at the Heart of the Authentic Buyer Journey 84

Your Next Steps on Value Discovery 85

4 Value Mapping and Value Confirmation 87

True Fit Links Value Discovery and Value Mapping 89

Value Mapping and Product Discussions 94

Value Mapping and Content Strategy Across the Buyer Journey 102

IMPACT Stays Focused on Value Mapping Across Teams 109

Value Confirmation and Qualifying Buyers 112

Research Solutions Confirms Value by Asking, "Should We Continue?" 115

Value Mapping and Value Confirmation Deepen an Authentic Buyer Journey 120

Your Next Steps on Value Mapping 121

5 A Value Playbook and Team-Level Playbooks 123

Aginity Writes Down Its Value Narratives 125

Value Narratives and Buyer Personas 127

Team-Level Playbooks and Revenue Outcomes 133

Content Strategy Playbook 139

Prospecting Playbook 142

Sales and Deal Velocity Playbook 147

Closing and Expansion Playbook 151

Renewal and Customer Success Playbook 155

Team-Level Playbooks Support Authentic Conversations 160

Your Next Steps on Team-Level Playbooks 161

Part II An Authentic Buyer Journey and Revenue Outcomes

6 Prospecting as a Trusted Advisor 165

Torchlight Uses Value Narratives to Accelerate Prospecting 167

Prospecting as a Trusted Advisor 170

Prospecting Playbook: Authentic Campaign Narrative 173

Prospecting Playbook: Prospecting Blocks 178

Prospecting Playbook: Authentic Commercial 181

AdmitHub Develops Persona-Messaging Tests 185

AdmitHub Uses Market Learnings to Grow Faster 188

Prospecting Playbook: Three More Value-Based Campaign Plays 189

Augmedix Prospects Around Landing and Expanding 192

Prospecting as a Trusted Advisor Builds Faster Engagement 197

Your Next Steps on Prospecting as a Trusted Advisor 198

7 Selling into Buyer-Defined Value 199

Avis Budget Focuses on Buyers Co-Defining Value 202

The Authentic, Three-Part Meeting as a Sales Foundation 205

Sales Playbook: Authentic, Three-Part Meeting Plays 217

The Temptation to Fait Back on Product Pitching 222

Sales Playbook: Deal Velocity Plays 225

Digerati Sells into Buyer-Defined Value 233

Sales Playbook: Sales Stage and Exit Criteria Play 240

Selling into Buyer-Defined Value Builds Deal Velocity 244

Your Next Steps on Selling into Buyer-Defined Value 245

8 Closing and Expanding on Value 247

Inspira Focuses on Closing on Value 249

Closing Playbook: Pricing and Negotiating Plays 253

Closing and Expansion Playbook: The Mutual Success Plan 262

Using a Mutual Success Plan to Land and Expand Faster 267

Burning Glass Leverages a Mutual Success Plan 270

Expansion Playbook: The Authentic Account Plan 274

Lexmark Experiences the Value of an Authentic Account Plan 280

Closing and Expanding on Buyer Value Key to Account Value 284

Your Next Steps on Closing and Expanding on Customer Value 286

9 Customer Success as a Revenue Driver 287

Parsable Positions Customer Success as a Revenue Driver 289

Customer Success as a Third Revenue Team 292

Customer Success Playbook: Renewal Plays 296

Customer Success Playbook: Expansion Call Framework 304

Customer Success Playbook: Segment Growth Play 308

Plus Delta Partners Drives Growth with a Peer Reference Play 315

Customer Success as a Key to Renewals and Revenue Growth 320

Your Next Steps on Customer Success as a Revenue Driver 321

Part III Organizational Supports for an Authentic Buyer Journey

10 Three Revenue Teams, One Revenue Organization 325

Zeel@Work Builds an Aligned B2B Revenue Team 326

Three Revenue Teams, Three Revenue Cultures 329

Three Revenue Teams, One Revenue Organization 332

Four Parts to Revenue Velocity 336

Prospecting Velocity 338

Account Velocity 342

Segment Velocity 344

HubSpot's One Revenue Organization Supports Exceptional Growth 349

One Revenue Organization and Revenue Velocity 352

Your Next Steps on Building One Revenue Organization 354

11 Team-Based Skills Development 355

DealerRater Competes with a Team-Based Skills Model 357

Bringing Skills into Practice 361

Team-Based Learning and Innovation 366

Individual Skills Coaching 372

Apptio Transitions Through Growth Phases with a Team-Based Skills Approach 377

Team-Based Skills and an Authentic Buyer Journey 381

Your Next Steps on Team-Based Skills Development 382

12 Into Action on an Authentic Buyer Journey 383

Acknowledgments 387

Notes 389

Index 393

Editorial Reviews

The Revenue Acceleration Playbook is filled with practical strategies to have intelligent, authentic conversations with buyers. The result? Unprecedented sales growth.” —Jill Konrath, author of SNAP Selling and More Sales, Less Time

“Sales is way more than simply talking up your products. The Revenue Acceleration Playbook shows you how to lead from a customer-value perspective instead so you can scale your business.” —Verne Harnish, founder of Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) and bestselling author of Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0)

“The ideas in The Revenue Acceleration Playbook will change the mentality of your go-to-market team. Rather than ‘getting the product demo,’ the focus will be on making your buyers and customers more successful. That shift will unlock your team’s full growth potential.” —Gary Fortier, CEO, Ready Education

“Top producers need strong situational awareness. Playbooks break down each buyer interaction into digestible “plays” that can be trained and reinforced. It is a powerful approach to sales acceleration.” —Russ Jackson, VP of Growth Sales, NECI

“Women have natural advantages as revenue leaders. The Revenue Acceleration Playbook shows how buyer empathy, listening skills, and authentic communication can take the performance of any sales leader or sales professionals to the next level.” —Lori Richardson, CEO, Score More Sales and host of Conversations with Women in Sales podcast

“Anchor on buyer value early and often. That single lesson from The Revenue Acceleration Playbook will fundamentally change how you approach buyer conversations and pricing conversations. It can help optimize profitability and drive higher buyer satisfaction during final negotiations” —Deric Peterson, VP of commercial sales, Verisk

“Sales can feel harder today than going to Mars. The Revenue Acceleration Playbook guides you through transforming your go-to-market team around a trusted advisor model and helps build breakout growth” —Mark Guthrie, chief growth officer, Mutualink

“Digital transformation for an energy, transportation, or manufacturing company is hard. This book dramatically increases a vendor's chances of success. Align the shop floor to the executive suite on a shared idea of value and measure, measure, measure to prove tangible results.” —Raj Atluru, founder and managing director, Activate Capital

“Building great relationships is hard. It starts with listening to others and encouraging them to share with you. The Revenue Acceleration Playbook turns traditional product-led selling on its head and teaches go-to-market teams to uncover buyers’ needs first, then build a bespoke solution for each customer in a scalable way.” —Troy Williams, managing director, University Ventures

From the Publisher