Preface: I recently shared my 5 New Year’s Resolutions for 2023 with Outreach’s customers. But this information was too important not to share with a wider audience, so here’s an exclusive look at how Outreach is helping sales teams create and close more pipeline in the new year, in any market.
As I reflect on 2022, I recognize it as a year of difficult transitions. Economic uncertainty pressure-tested every sales team’s strategy, budget, and pipeline. And now we’re hearing from customers that they expect more challenges in 2023. It’s a tough time to be in sales. But even though it’s hard, we’re going to get through this together.
In challenging times, I’m reminded of this quote:
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
Likewise, every salesperson is operating with these two seemingly opposed ideas in mind:
- The economy is volatile.
- We will achieve our goals, despite the market.
In other words, we can acknowledge hard realities, while also maintaining confidence that we will win anyway. At Outreach, this thinking shows up as an abundance mindset. And it’s how I’m approaching the year ahead — abundantly.
Here are 5 New Year’s Resolutions the Outreach team and I are making to help you create your own abundance in 2023:
1. We will empower every account executive to create and close their own pipeline.
We’re in a new era of sales, which means AEs will have to take more ownership of their book of business to succeed and drive company growth. Building pipeline is increasingly every seller's responsibility, including AEs, who have more recently specialized in closing.
→ How we’re doing this at Outreach: We’re building a culture of high performance and high empathy. We celebrate our wins and learn from our losses. We gathered our sales team together to get to the heart of what customers like you actually need to navigate through this market. We’re finding more ways to help you improve rep productivity across your organization. We’re doubling-down on our abundance mindset to help you do more and win more. Likewise, we’re empowering our AEs to take more ownership of the sales cycle — from prospecting to winning deals.
2. We will help you expand partnerships with customers to deliver even more value.
The measure of any company’s success is ultimately measured by the success of their customers. When we help you succeed, we can grow together. We also know that the way companies will thrive through this economy is by truly helping their customers solve their biggest challenges.
→ How we’re doing this at Outreach: One of Outreach’s core values is being one with our customers. In other words, we need to fully understand you and the problems you’re facing. We live and breathe this value by running efficient, effective meetings with customers and truly listening to your specific needs, wants, risks, and aspirations and parting ways early if we are not a great fit and giving you that time back. From there, we truly, deeply partner with you and commit to being one with you to help you achieve your goals.
3. We will help you drive predictable growth with truly accurate deal management and forecasting.
In a dynamic market, sales teams must execute smoother deal cycles to hit their targets. This requires a strong focus on pipeline management, which helps first-line managers accelerate deal velocity and increase win rates.
→ How we’re doing this at Outreach: We view forecasts as promises. When we keep our promises with accurate forecasts, we build trust with our stakeholders, including our board. Outreach’s forecasts also help us build accountability at every level of the sales organization, so that we can avoid surprises, go after the same shared goals, and always know where we’re going to land.
4. We will continue to champion diversity across sales teams and entire companies.
Building more diverse and inclusive teams is not only the right thing to do — it’s also better for business. Teams that reflect and embrace the diverse makeup of the world around us will outperform the competition.
→ How we’re doing this at Outreach: In 2022, we launched two new leadership accelerator programs: RISE for women in sales and the RISE UP pilot for Black individual contributors. In 2023, we will expand the programs and welcome new cohorts to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout Outreach.
5. We will enable you to consolidate the sales tech stack without compromise.
These days, every company must do more with less. So top sales organizations will cut costs and increase productivity by using a platform that connects and improves the entire sales cycle for every person on the sales team.
→ How we’re doing this at Outreach: We’re using our own Sales Execution Platform to centralize sales processes and streamline technology. Our sales team is happy because we’ve reduced the number of tools they have to toggle between every day. And our finance team is happy because we have a lower cost of ownership for sales tech and they gain clear visibility into our performance and forecasts.
These are all actions you can take at your organization, too. We’re here to help you get started and support you throughout 2023 and beyond.
To learn more, I invite you to watch this on-demand webinar covering our 5 predictions for successful sales teams in 2023.
In the meantime, all of us at Outreach are wishing you an abundant new year.
