Question 1

What are the key takeaways from Sahil Mansuri's episode on Lenny's Podcast?

Accepted Answer

1. In a downturn, forecast conservatively with short-term milestones that unlock the ability to accelerate spending only when targets are hit, rather than relying on founder optimism. 2. Modernize sales compensation plans to align incentives across the customer, the business, and the rep -- rewarding retention and customer quality, not just top-line new business. 3. Move your best salespeople to customer success roles because in tough markets, retaining existing customers is far more valuable than chasing scarce new ones. 4. Leverage your unique cross-section of customer data to become a value-added advisor, not just a SaaS tool -- this creates retention moats your competitors cannot replicate. 5. When market conditions stack the rules against you, do not optimize around the edges. Change the rules of the game entirely through business model innovation.

Question 2

What does Sahil Mansuri say about sales-strategy and recession-playbook?

Accepted Answer

"Your sale strategy has to fundamentally change in order to meet the moment and meet the market to where it is. Cold prospecting goes down in favor of cross-selling and upselling your existing customer base because it's hard to break into new accounts when companies have budget freezes and hiring freezes and layoffs." - Sahil Mansuri "You got to set the targets upfront because as founders, we tend to have a bias towards optimism. That's generally how founders operate. In today's market, that's more of a disadvantage than an advantage." - Sahil Mansuri "The only response is to try to get really comfortable with being wrong and adding new data in order to make decisions regularly without the fear of coming across as not knowing what you're doing." - Sahil Mansuri

Question 3

What are Sahil Mansuri's views on sales-strategy, recession-playbook, customer-retention?

Accepted Answer

Sahil Mansuri: "Your sale strategy has to fundamentally change in order to meet the moment and meet the market to where it is. Cold prospecting goes down in favor of cross-selling and upselling your existing customer base because it's hard to break into new accounts when companies have budget freezes and hiring freezes and layoffs." Sahil Mansuri: "The advantage you have as a vendor is you get a cross-section of what everyone who fits a certain ICP is doing at the same time. How good are you at extracting value out of that and finding ways of becoming less of a tool as part of the SaaS stack and more of a value added advisor that can help you actually plan and prepare for what to do next."

Sahil Mansuri

How to hit revenue targets in a recession | Sahil Mansuri (Bravado)

TRANSCRIPT

Sahil Mansuri

How to hit revenue targets in a recession | Sahil Mansuri (Bravado)

Sahil Mansuri

How to hit revenue targets in a recession | Sahil Mansuri (Bravado)

TRANSCRIPT

Sahil Mansuri

How to hit revenue targets in a recession | Sahil Mansuri (Bravado)