Live data from Hacker News

I Listened to 1000 B2B SaaS Sales Calls

sofuckingagile.com

31–40 of 175 posts

Re: I Listened to 1000 B2B SaaS Sales Calls

#31
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it was more along the lines of "Jenny isn't on the call today because she's out with COVID, which is extra bad because she's pregnant". It's not HIPAA protected because that person isn't Jenny's doctor, but it's still PHI.

No, it's not. That information may be "HI", but it's not "PHI", that is the "protected" part has a specific legal definition under HIPAA, and nobody in that call has any additional legal requirements based on the fact that someone said Jenny is pregnant.

Doesn't that depend on how they know that information? If that's Jenny's boss on the phone and she shared that with her boss so she could claim FMLA benefits and days off for health reasons, doesn't her boss have a duty to keep it private?

Re: I Listened to 1000 B2B SaaS Sales Calls

#32
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it was more along the lines of "Jenny isn't on the call today because she's out with COVID, which is extra bad because she's pregnant". It's not HIPAA protected because that person isn't Jenny's doctor, but it's still PHI.

No, it's not. That information may be "HI", but it's not "PHI", that is the "protected" part has a specific legal definition under HIPAA, and nobody in that call has any additional legal requirements based on the fact that someone said Jenny is pregnant.

I don't think the acronym helps. I should know better but still read it as Personal Health Information in my head

Re: I Listened to 1000 B2B SaaS Sales Calls

#33
post #3

Having been an Enterprise SE in the past, I love any data about sales and the process. Do you have data that shows whether 'letting the customer talk' produces more wins? Or faster wins? The consensus seems to be 'customer talking' is better, probably because that shows the customer is more engaged. This and support calls should be inputs into product, but I'd guess both inputs are ignored.

This is a good question. Regarding letting customers talk, the teams that were most successful had great salesforce hygiene, and teams with great salesforce hygiene were required to fill in certain data points. This means that there are commonly asking questions and listening more than talking. Likely they were evaluated as sales representatives based on the quality of the data that they provided in salesforce as wel…

This is an interesting use of the word hygiene... can you expand on what salesforce hygiene means to you?

Re: I Listened to 1000 B2B SaaS Sales Calls

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good question. Regarding letting customers talk, the teams that were most successful had great salesforce hygiene, and teams with great salesforce hygiene were required to fill in certain data points. This means that there are commonly asking questions and listening more than talking. Likely they were evaluated as sales representatives based on the quality of the data that they provided in salesforce as wel…

This is an interesting use of the word hygiene... can you expand on what salesforce hygiene means to you?

It basically refers to data in salesforce being complete, accurate and input in a consistent way. It's a term used around software apps that drive decision making and are useless without the criteria I mentioned.

Re: I Listened to 1000 B2B SaaS Sales Calls

#36
Sales industry is full of stats like this, author mentions businesses that focus on sale rep call analysis and training like Zoom, Gong, and Chorus; here’s example of bunch of call stats from Gong:

https://www.gong.io/blog/cold-call-stats/

What none of these sales businesses want you to know is that while sales will never go away, reality is buyers increasingly have more and more information and sales is increasingly less and less relevant. Customer education prior to reaching a sales rep and customer success after onboarding are though increasingly important.

Re: I Listened to 1000 B2B SaaS Sales Calls

#37
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not. That information may be "HI", but it's not "PHI", that is the "protected" part has a specific legal definition under HIPAA, and nobody in that call has any additional legal requirements based on the fact that someone said Jenny is pregnant.

Doesn't that depend on how they know that information? If that's Jenny's boss on the phone and she shared that with her boss so she could claim FMLA benefits and days off for health reasons, doesn't her boss have a duty to keep it private?

[deleted]

Re: I Listened to 1000 B2B SaaS Sales Calls

#38

I didn't expect to learn much from this article - but it actually really resonated with me. I often am responsible for purchasing decisions and found much of the advice to sales reps really insightful. (1) The number one thing that bothers me is when I reach out to a company to explore their product and I get scheduled with a BDR who's sole job is to "qualify" me as a lead. I know BDRs are in a tough spot - but if yo…

A while back I wanted to become a customer of a company I had formerly worked at. I reached out via an executive-level friend and former co-worker who made a warm intro to sales. And STILL they first scheduled a call with a brand new to the job BDR who knew less about the product than I did. Not that person's fault, and I felt bad for them, but it was a complete waste of everyone's time.

Sadly that's how incentives works in modern sales orgs – BDRs get paid on the number of calls they convert to the next stage and you were a guaranteed conversion since you already knew and wanted to buy the product.

Re: I Listened to 1000 B2B SaaS Sales Calls

#39

Just thought the call out for "Protected Health Information" was weird, and it's wrong . If you're just having small talk with someone on a zoom call and you say "Yeah, that last COVID booster really wiped me out, I was in bed for 2 days", that doesn't mean the call contains "PHI". First of all, you shared it. The whole reason for protecting PHI in the first place is limiting what others can do with your information,…

One on my major takeaways from the calls was how many people were visibly sick yet still working and getting on calls. WFH has really destroyed the concept of stay home and get some rest.

Re: I Listened to 1000 B2B SaaS Sales Calls

#40
Now I understand that some of the spam I got on my corporate email from products where I've used free tiers, probably weren't spam but actually sales attempts. I guess I'll remove a rule forwarding them to trash directory:).
Post reply on HN