#27 - Tech Sales Territory Planning Masterclass | Oracle Top Rep Connor Murray

Conor was going on man. Not much. Just enjoying a beautiful afternoon here in Austin, Texas. Yeah. Next we're having me. Of course, yeah, we're going to go really deep today for everyone watching of how to plan your account executive territory. This is something Chris and I have talked a little bit about, but I wanted to bring Conor on. Obviously because of his experience, six plus years at Oracle, several different roles, but also recently went from being a manager back to being in the field as an account executive. So this is something you went through very recently. So I think the perspective of being at a market leader. I know some of the things we talked about before recording is like your ability to sell different product lines. These are things that there's no one size fits all answer, but I think this perspective is going to be really valuable. I guess I'd hand it over to you if you had any thoughts or want to set the stage forever on watching today too. Yeah, that was an important topic because I think anytime you take on a new territory, there's work to be done throughout the course of the year. But if you take the time to do your territory planning right up front, yeah, you might have to work extra, like work long hours, even weekends, sometimes if you actually want to do it right, but it will end up saving you so much time over the long run and be so worth it. And yeah, like you said, I recently went back to the field about a year ago. And since then, I've actually had two territories. So I've gone through this process twice and there's definitely some things I've learned since the first time I was an account executive, like going from SDR to account executive, like what I knew about territory planning then has evolved since becoming an SDR manager then going back to the field. So I think this is a good topic and an important conversation for anyone about to promote the account executive role or if you're new to the account executive role currently there, this will be a useful video. Yeah, for sure. And maybe taking a let's look at more recently and then we'll also maybe later in the episode talk about if you're a first time account executive. So I'd love for gearing this towards like active account executives or just SDR's planning ahead, right? You recently, you know, you mentioned year and a half, two years ago, you transitioned back to account executive. I'll leave this wide open if it's not too vague. What are the first things you're doing and say the first 30 days to plan your territory and actually start making some meaningful progress, even if it's not closed one business? Yeah. So the first thing I do is understand what my target is. I'll just use round numbers here, like let's say I have a million dollar quota. The first thing I do is try and get an understanding of where my dollars are going to come from. And again, this is unique to me potentially. For some of you out there, I work at a big company where I have a territory where there's an existing install base. So part of my job is to grow and expand that install base, but also to go find net new customers. But the first one I focused on because I think it's the lowest hanging fruit when you're in a new territory is the existing install base and going down a checklist of things I put together. For example, who has renewals this fiscal year in my territory? Because at least where I work, there's usually an uplift come renewal to protect against inflation. This is pretty common in the SaaS industry. So again, round numbers, let's say they have a hundred thousand dollar contract up for renewal. Oftentimes, there's like an 8% or a 10% uplift for that next three years. So that contract becomes 108K or 110K. And that 8 to 10K uplift is considered an expansion. And it's something that where I work, that goes towards your quota. So you kind of find these little low hanging fruit areas that a lot of them could be small and they chip away. Also come renewal time. It's a great time to look at how they're using the products. Like do they need more users or are there opportunities to cross sell into other product lines and going down the list? So that's what I was going to say. Let me jump in there too. Those are all great points. Without maybe getting too specific, but that makes sense conceptually. What does that look like in reality? Is that running Salesforce reports to see who's using what? Or like how are you actually getting down to this information and accessing that information as quickly as possible? It's all in our system. And in Oracle, we use all our own software actually. So it's not Salesforce. But those first 30 days, I'm heavy in the system looking at what's out there for dollars to capture for this year. Renewal and expansion first and quite frankly, that doesn't take that long because it's all in the system. The expansions, you start planning where there may be opportunities to cross sell. But then the next area, I look, again, not even leaving the system yet. It's what existing opportunities are going on in my territory. I want to jump on those as quickly as possible. There might have been a previous rep leaving and a lot of times if you don't transition that well. A lot of customers get uncomfortable when they see something like that. They were working with the rep drops off, some are better than other about communicating the transition. But a lot of times they take that like, oh, is this what it's going to be like working with them? Like, they have a good cadence going and then it just drops off. So you're kind of jumping into a moving car sometimes and you want to make sure you keep the momentum going. So again, I still consider that low hanging fruit. And once I'm on top of renewals, where do I have opportunity to expand, get on top of the existing opportunities. And I start to look for some of those either closed, lost or just stalled opportunities, where again, in the system, like looking through the notes and this is where it's sort of like, I think it requires a feel and a touch from experience of what you're seeing. Like, was this a legitimate opportunity or not? And if they were, if it was or I deemed like, maybe in one case it could have been like, nope, they went with a competitor. They're going to be implementing the next six to 12 months. Like, that's probably not one. I'm just going to toss that one out. Or look to like potentially create an opportunity there for something different. If not, if it, if I deem it legitimate, like maybe they just didn't have the bandwidth at the time. And the last note is like, reach back out in six months. And it's been four or five months. Like, I'm going to prioritize that engagement right there. So I do, I try and focus on the lowest hanging fruit first. And those are what I consider like, existing renewals, expansions, existing opportunities and closed, lost opportunities. I'm going to get on top of that first. I am. That's when I start looking at like, where can I generate net new pipeline? And that could be like, I'm sure we'll take the conversation there. But there's a lot of strategy when it comes to that. I want to probe back into one time as well for SDRs or account executives right now. Just trying to get inspiration for new ideas of where to find low hanging fruit. Because I also find like, I think some of these in a good way, I think it's worth restating. Don't get me wrong. Like, close lost opportunities, active deals in your pipeline. Those are very obvious low hanging fruit. One of the things you mentioned I want to explore is cross selling into accounts. We don't necessarily have to get down to the product name at Oracle as an example. But what are ways, and I'm just trying to spark ideas for people that are watching and listening, what are signals for you that they are ripe for selling another product into the account. Because I also have this where I work currently. Like in theory, everyone that uses our core product would in theory benefit from having these other types of products involved. But also, let's say I'm a mid market rep that has 500 accounts that have an install already. I'm not going to be able to reach out to all 500 with anything other than like, have you looked at our other products, which is not going to get you anywhere. So that specific example of cross selling into an account, what are signals you're looking for or things that identify that sure in theory, any account that has bought something from Oracle could use another product. But what is a signal that's going to make you say, hey, they're actually very likely and very good fit for something in the next three to six months. It's different for different companies and different industries. So one thing I do is I try and get the conversation set up as quickly as possible just to introduce myself to the account and get a better sense beyond just what I see in the CRM and talking to the previous rep, like what they're telling me. And a lot of times it'll just be obvious bait. Like they'll even lay it out for you. Other signals I look for, depending on what product they own, we have like, complimentary products. So we have like a core financial management suite that's more for like processes related to like general ledger, a accounts payable accounts receivable, fixed assets, like core accounting processes. A natural next product we have is it's called enterprise performance management is the category. It's more our product suite for the office of the CFO. So taking that core accounting data and using it to plan budget forecast, tax reporting, narrative reporting. A lot of strategic planning using that accounting data. And if I could ask there too, so are you setting up conversations by saying, Hey, you're already a user of this. This is a complimentary product and doing more informational like I'm your new account manager. Here's an overview of our products or like, how are you getting meaningful conversations in the ball roll? That's more so like that's in my head how I come up with the idea that like based on what they own. And that's just one example. We have lots of complimentary product suites to another. So I know in my head what I'm potentially targeting here. And then there's things you can look like a lot of the companies I work with are public. So they have public statements or they release, even if they're not their private, there's public, public press releases. So if I see a certain rate of growth that they're growing as an organization, they're hiring headcount using things like zoom in, photossee if their head counts going up. If they're making acquisitions, that one might be more unique to Oracle across our area. A lot of our product suites, we have a very strong product. If you're a growing organization that's making acquisitions, our products designed to maintain like a common data model, one common reporting structure. So it's looking for a lot of these signals that oftentimes I think are unique to the company you work at. Like what is your value proposition? What is your product good at handling? That's unique on the market and identifying that. And there's either yes directly. If you can't find any information, like coming in with a hypothesis or a thesis as to like this is the natural next step we see customers take being more like consultative, like not just like asking like would you be interested in this? That's never the way to do it. But more saying from a point of experience. experience and a lot of this requires preparation before the call, maybe even reaching out to internal peers. Have we worked with other companies in this industry that we could potentially use them as references down the line? What was their next step after they started here? How did we get them to go from here? And then when you get on the call using that reference as an example and starting to build the relationship because you're new to the count, I'm new to the territory. I come in with a hypothesis based on what I know about the account and what I can see online in our internal CRM, things like that. Yeah, well said. No, I appreciate you diving into that because I just want to get a little bit more granular there. Because I think a lot of people in the surface can identify it. But actually creating that conversation, actually trying to get a meaningful opportunity is a little bit different and nuanced of a thing. It takes time sometimes too. Maybe this is just my style. I don't always try and force that on the first call. I try and plant the seat and create the relationship with them, give stuff to them before our next meeting. I like to set up if I can either buy weekly if they're open to it or monthly cadences. And then the interim just send them not asking for anything in return. Just wanted to thought this would be useful for our next conversation. We can discuss either it's some article that came out or some free events that my company's hosting that could be relevant to them. Just showing them that I'm thinking of them. Maybe we could get into it. I do strategically keep lists of keepers on as it all my accounts so that when I do see these events pop up, I can just create one email template, replace their name. And it's just a good way to keep the relationship going but at scale. It feels personal to a lot of them but in reality they don't know this but they're in an Excel column with 20 other VPs of finance that I'm going to send that same email out to. And is that so that's a good topic as well. That list that you're building just trying to get a sense for muscle memory. I'm sure no one size fits all but we kind of talked about the first 30 days ish some of those low hanging fruit. When you're getting down to the contact and account level of the actual people in the account. Is this something you're also doing as part of that first 30 days or is that more maybe like month two month three as you've made sure you've gotten a pulse on everything, although low hanging fruits. Now later in you can start to get down to the individual person level. I'm just curious how you think about it. For the existing install base existing opportunities I'm doing that as quickly as I can. Like in the first 30 days I'm not waiting for that. I know I had to prepare for those calls and it takes a lot of work up front but I want to be doing that as soon as possible because I don't want them to go two to three months without hearing from an or their Oracle account team member. That could risk just coming off. Especially if you had an ongoing engagement and they don't know like a lot of times they don't understand like we can't do much about these internal rearrangements sometimes if like you're new rep taking over territory. There's no it's not like we were trying to ignore you but you have to always be putting yourself in the customers shoes like you were talk if they were had conversations going and then Oracle or wherever you wear goes quiet for three months that could be perceived the wrong way. So yeah that stuff I try and get on top of as quickly as possible once I have that's when I start to spend more time on like okay what else is out there. Yeah like to generate new pipeline. Yeah for sure and if it's a good place to transition to so I think that's a really great point to start correct me if I'm wrong here and summarizing incorrectly but basically the low hanging fruit active opportunities closed lost opportunities that you know there's actually a chance you could revive it not the ones where they you know went with a competitor three months ago. You mentioned some of the cross sell opportunities and other ways that you're looking at accounts you start to break down the active opportunities by the names you know and actually like kind of doing a little bit of an or chart creation. Yeah to track that down now as we get into call it I don't know day 30 to 90 or maybe just the first half of your first six months in a new territory as an account executive how are you building upon that anything else you would add or like what's kind of the next step when you're getting just beyond this initial deep work of identifying low hanging fruit. Yeah so this is where I start tearing accounts in my territory and the way I've always done it and I'm honestly I'd love to hear how you do it too because I still feel like I'm learning in this process and I see a lot of different ways of count executives organized their territory. I usually tear it like quality their ABC or one two three I have three categories category one is what we just talked about like that low hanging fruit the quality stuff. Category two is where I identify my top accounts and there's certain things I work look for some of them are specific to Oracle a lot of it is like is there a real use case here and is there budget and depending on where you work like in enterprise where I am basically every company in my territory has the budget on paper like they they are big enough to afford our service. So I more look strongly for the use case and there's other things I look out for that could so I talked about some of them like are they making a lot of acquisitions are they growing fast what is that rate of growth is their employee head count going up at a faster pace and like what is that rate of growth from a head point because we also sell an HR platform that is designed to help companies that are scaling from a people standpoint. But then there's other things like I sell our cloud application suite Oracle and around for a while I think it was in the 70s it started in the on premise software days so we have multiple on premise products that are still out there that are like 20 years old that a lot of customers just haven't moved off of I'm starting to identify who's on that like who ever renewals coming up in those products is now those are usually good targets for me to reach out to that's like something could be a lot of things that are going to happen. That's like something could be unique to where I work not every company has like old legacy customers on some old skew versus some new skew and just to clarify you're trying to upsell them to like a newer maybe cloud based version of their on prem thing or something like that is yeah but it's a totally it's a totally different cloud application suite and we're selling them the cloud model but those are the things I those are the use cases I look for and I I put those in my B category or tier two whatever I'll call it tier two. And my goal is to I'd like get some active engagements going there and move them to the tier one category but I identify all the accounts in my personal territory it's like 300 accounts so this just again after I'm on top the low hanging fruit this just requires work I just I'll do the upfront work work get up early work late get this done work weekends if I have to go through every single account individually identify which ones have some of the things I'm going to do. And then every other account beyond that that I didn't immediately identify a use case for and they didn't enter my tier two category I just put in the tier three category and that's so this is where I work with like we have STRs and VDRs at my company so I'll have them I'll work with them on messaging and like help with the and like help them help me scale the territory because I don't have the time at first to reach out to all those accounts so I want to get the STR equipped with good messaging understand like help them understand and this requires coaching and teaching maybe this comes from coming from the SDR manager role like this is just something I naturally gravitate towards but I'll have them focused on my tier three accounts while I focus all my time on those tier two accounts with the strong use cases. And oh go ahead sorry no I was just going to say that usually takes up the rest of that like 60 to 90 days and then from there we're just iterates some of those tier three accounts sometimes I just miss identified didn't see the use case like because I'll talk to anyone I just want meetings after that if but a lot of times those tier three companies they actually do have a really good use case and they move right up to tier one yeah so I want the SDR working on the stuff I don't immediately have time for in the beginning or it's just not like the highest RR. Like the highest ROI activity for me I want them focused on that I'm going to focus on those tier two and obviously staying on top of the tier one low hanging fruit and that's how I've looked at it. I've seen lots of other ways people handle it to I'd be curious if that's in line with your experience. No that aligns quite a lot just a couple clarifying questions so you mentioned the tier ABC or one two three however you prefer so I do a similar thing I'm just curious roughly like numbers of accounts in each of those buckets. So are we talking five 10 accounts in the A, B and C or are we talking like 20 to 30 to 50? Yeah it can depend I mean I'd say in that tier one there's generally like 20 to 30 it's the smallest bucket by far but it's the highest quality. Tier two like that depends on the territory like usually there's maybe 50 to 75 accounts in that bucket that are worth like that I've quickly identified is that's worth me being really strategic and trying to break into these accounts and then the rest I put as tier three so the bulk of it is actually in tier three and I'm spending my time on the accounts where there's lots of things and this just with experience you get better at better at I identify. Some of those use cases like another one is is there new leadership in the account and do they have past Oracle experience you like look on their LinkedIn for little keywords like some of those on premise applications or there's little things you can look for where I'm like those are good historically have been good buying indicators and it's I found it worth to go the extra mile for those types of accounts rather than just bucketing them all in the same category but happy to take me to the next category. But happy to take meetings from those tier three accounts and get something going a lot of times yeah they work tier three accounts for a reason. We got them on a meeting and it yeah, nothing was there, but sometimes you get surprises So that's kind of just the way of yeah, no, I like that a lot I think contrasting that with what I do I look at it more and and maybe I haven't asked enough questions So it correct me if you do this differently So it sounds like the way you do your ABC is basically your entire territory for the full year like yeah Because the reason I bring that up is I I do it a little bit different and this is just kind of what I learned from a manager I really enjoyed but we or at least I you know typically have 10 in my a 10 in my b and 10 in my c and it's a real forcing function to say like a is pretty much exactly what you're talking about active Opportunities and if I have more than 10 active opportunities at my time in the enterprise and strategic side It's the highest long-term value opportunities So even if it's like a land, but there's a half a million dollar expand on the back end of that that would be a tier a for me as an example It's not just a media dollar amount b is probably going to be a few active opportunities and then probably some of those closed lost or Cross-sell opportunities that haven't materialized yet, but very well could be in the future, right? Like someone who's grown 50% year over year with their spend they've maxed out what they can do on one product But if they've adopted so much of that it makes sense to sell another one Even though there's not an active opportunity that's a b for me and then same thing with C like I have Like I think we think about this similarly but different, but I pull like there's there's really Either super small deals that are very transactional in the C or no deals at all most likely all of them are no active deals in the C category But they're like the most realistic based on intent and signals that I feel like within the upcoming quarter I might be able to strike up a strategic conversation and then let's say in the example that I had 300 accounts as well Like the remaining 270 I would certainly work with my SDR to get them like on those accounts But I kind of give them a little bit more leeway to say hey These are like my 30 for the next quarter that I'm gonna go into Literally everything else is fair game or if you see a free demo or a white paper download of any of these Let me know right away and I'll make sure to give you credit on that opportunity Yeah, but I would just say like again, I think it's interesting because we think about it very similarly And I the way that I think about it I'd be curious your feedback on as an account executive Just being honest with myself not based on my intentions, but based on the actual results of me like as an AE Once you get a full pipeline once you have a ton of active deals you're managing I have found for me at least that about 30 accounts is that sweet spot of realistically how many accounts I can actually genuinely do very thorough like SDR type of work to try and even break in in the first place So that's how I do it is kind of like a rolling I do 30 on a quarter by quarter basis and then pretty much every month or two I'm updating that list based on the opportunities that I have and for instance I may have exhausted all the you know contacts that a BRC account So I just knock them back out into the pool and I bring in another one or maybe I promote a C and then bring in a new account to the bottom of C Yeah, as an example, so yeah I do think we think about this pretty similarly like and I guess I'll clarify like My tier one accounts and the ongoing opportunities. That's always priority number one like the purpose of the pipeline generation is to get a quality Pipeline filled if I had determined and part of this comes through experience I guess in like understanding like because sometimes you have a full Active pipeline, but you know a lot of these aren't strong sales cycles But if I have a what I deem a good quality pipeline I'm making sure that gets full attention first like because that's the The revenues there if I have the full quality pipeline to get to my revenue targets like I'm focused on getting those across the finish line before going and Prospecting into my B accounts. So like usually on that. Yeah, I'm focused on like I mean for me I'm usually running anywhere from five to 10 like sizable Active opportunities at any given time if there's if they're strong I'm gonna make sure to spend the extra effort doing everything I can to get those across the finish line if In the game to me if for me this is still like almost a gut feel I'm still working on the science of this sometimes, but I can just tell like this isn't It's quality pipeline. That's when I'll use the extra time then to start like trying to see what's out there And might be accounts that I've determined have good use cases and try and see if any of those I can pull them into the tier one category Yeah, for sure and maybe I'm sure we could keep riffing on this So one if I haven't covered anything like cutting off maybe working towards a close to I'm curious how you think about You know going on site actually visiting customers I know that's much more common at the enterprise level than maybe like SMB in the market But do you put any like personal goals whether it's once a month Onside or in the field or at an event or anything like that when it comes to visiting customers? Yeah, I try and get out there anytime I can sometimes it comes up to approvals But I think that's a differentiator like if you can get out there and meet them my territory is all over the country Like I don't have a specific geography that I cover but sometimes it's if there's an act of engagement And it makes sense to go out there like I'll go out there So sometimes it can be multiple times a month Sometimes I don't even travel that month if I don't have an engagement usually at Oracle where I work like the demo is usually the first big time you get out there and then from there you start Building that relationship throughout the rest of the sales cycle it like different events and things like that There's always events being hosted all over the country too So this year in particular in my new territory. There's a lot more travel Which I personally enjoy I think that can be the differentiator when you win deals because a lot of competitors they don't Do that they don't go out there. Yeah, 100% and then also maybe for someone like it's interesting because my my current role I mean I've been here for two years now So this is like back when I started they put much more of an emphasis on visiting customers than any company I'd worked out before when we're talking about the first 30 to 60 to 90 days going on site Even if it's for one day is usually a two to three day effort, right? Yeah, because you've got a day more or less of travel You know the back and forth there it just takes away time from like the main thing So is there any type of Criteria you use when saying like hey, this is just this justifies the time to actually go visit someone when otherwise If this is too small of a deal or this is too early on in the cycle my time is better spent Organizing my territory any thoughts on that and a lot of that is decided by the company I work for too like there There are thresholds, but usually yeah, it's a deal size Where we are in the opportunity like what relationships do we have within the account or do we have relationships with the actual economic buyers like the decision makers Or do we have some mid-level Manager that's all excited about the platform like those will and a lot of that is just an internal conversation because it's not just me Most times when we're traveling there's a team of solutions engineers that's supporting the deal There's management so it's usually like a group discussion on Whether this one is worth because there's always different deals we could be traveling for so we're deciding which ones are the most valuable Where would this really add value to the deal cycle? How big is that deal cycle thinking about where we are in terms of quota attainment and our revenue targets? It's usually a group Conversation yeah around like variables like that. Yeah, for sure now. It's great perspective And I think of nothing else like the whole purpose of walking through this was to give people ideas and just things to like Recheck because also even as an account executive like if you I feel like I go through a full year and then my territory changes And I have to like go back and rethink like what should I be checking right because it because a lot of times you get that put in place You have the reporting in or you've just got a full pipeline So admittedly you might get a little bit lazy because if you just focus on this pipeline for the last quarter of the year You're gonna hit 150% of your numbers So you kind of let your guard down, but yeah anything else that comes to mind or that I miss that you feel like is worth throwing in I think one other key thing And again, this is just me speaking from my experience and the type of products we sell we have like big Transformational type products that are expensive they are expensive not just to on an annual basis for a cloud subscription But to implement it takes a lot of time so another key factor I think about is where are we in the year? So where I work June 1st it's weird is actually the start of our fiscal year So by the time the viewers you guys are watching this it's probably like my Q2 So usually in that early part of the year I'm more focused on trying to find those more Transformational deals out there because if we get to Q4 and I'm trying to pull in some big Transformational deal that's gonna get halfway to my number. I'm not gonna be able to start that from scratch and Q4 and have it Close in time So I think about where we are in the year in the beginning I think about more of those longer sales cycle Transformational opportunities I can generate trying to go find those and then as we get towards the end of the year Our fiscal year is when I start thinking about more where can I find transactional stuff that I can like that can be a one to three month Sale cycle where the transformational stuff is often Six to 12 month sales cycles and then there's little things you can think about two like year-end a lot of customers have Like they create their budgets in that like they start out in the conversation September October November for what their next fiscal year Because most of them operate on a normal calendar year so they're planning for their next year's budget So you're trying to get in like from a timing perspective before like as they're having those conversations and get things Penciled in so there's little things throughout the year like I sell into a lot of finance people a lot of times The end of month is not a great time to be reaching out to them because they're closing the books It's like a very stressful process to them But a lot of account executives they don't take those little details into account So that's the only other thing I'd add is like something I've been trying to do more I don't think I did that my first two years as an account executive like where that was four years ago when I went from SDR, that wasn't on my radar. Those are some of the little details I'm trying to optimize about my territory planning this year that I haven't done in the past. Where are we at in the fiscal year and where is the customer at in theirs? Yeah, no, this is great, man. I think those are all great insights to aligning to buying cycles for all those different reasons. I know early on, I hate to do this to people, but I said, well, probably talk about that transition from SDR to AE. I think we should honestly make that a separate episode. I've deepened to that because there's so much, I mean, this would turn into like an hour and a half. So for everyone watching, this is really great. Conor Murray also has a YouTube channel linked in the description, highly, highly recommend checking that out and just calling out to he is a part of the higher levels team and we actually have an AE mastery community as well where we do have top performers at AWS, Snowflake, Snowflake, Rubric, Outreach, etc, etc that are in there as well. So, biomeans like if you enjoyed this and are just looking for great podcasts of YouTube, we'd appreciate a like and subscribe, but obviously you're welcome to check us out at higher levels where there's communities, live coaching, all these different things, but Conor great episode, any other thoughts before we call it. I don't think so, I think we got everything off my chest. I appreciate it, man. All right, thanks, guys. Thanks. See you on the next one.