The Commercial Sales department is part of the overall GitLab Sales Division. We focus on SMB and Mid-Market customers to deliver maximum value throughout the entire journey with GitLab.
The Center of Excellence (COE) in the Commercial Sales context refers to the team's research and development of a particular focus area to drive new initiatives and improvements across the organization.
Why call it Center of Excellence?
How?
Here are the current active topics for individual team members on COE alignment. This center in its first iteration started with the team's QBR in 2019.
When traveling please consider ROI of both any costs plus your time: If you are going to an event you think first:
Given the rough calculation above, you've to be committed driving/booking enough iACV at the event prior to you going to the event Note: this doesn’t mean you can’t get travel approval without booking meetings. It means once you get travel approval it is on you to go get people to the event/meetings to create pipeline.
The ultimate purpose of attending any GitLab field event is to gain insight and add value. Sid Sijbrandij, our CEO, talks about the importance of conferences and events here. He believes the main goal of GitLab team participation should always be to connect with our customers and prospects and not to solely attend presentations. Trip notes are our internal process for tracking and capturing this data.
Trip notes are required for the entire Commercial Sales Team anytime a team member travels for the company while working at GitLab. We believe it would be fun and valuable if you also shared trip notes when you traveled for personal reasons; however, that is up to your discretion.
Please follow the best practice process and use the trip note template as a format to prepare for your future trip.
The Give Back Project is a self-selected opportunity to help the Commercial Sales team achieve better results. It is a finite project that, upon completion, is to be adopted by no less than 70% of the Commercial Sales team and used at least once a month.
The Give Back Project is assigned to all new Commercial Sales team members and is required to be completed as part of their on-boarding process.
Customer AMAs: Meetings for GitLab team members with current customers that provide an opportunity to ask them about anything in regards to their experience with GitLab
Customer Meetings: Sharing the best practices for conducting any kind of external meeting at GitLab
Trip Notes: allows team members who attend field events to track and capture data in order for the rest of the team to gain insight
Doing Business with Partners/Channels: Guidelines on how to work with partners and resellers in order to ensure value is maximized in these areas
How to Handle New Customers After They Purchase: Best practices for handling new GitLab customers based on the scope of their purchase
Technical Evaluation of Customers: How to properly evaluate a customer’s current technical environment in order to create organizational alignment and prescribe how GitLab can best solve their problems
For a complete list of our Give Back Projects and other Onboarding assignments our team is working on, please click the private link here.
Below is a list of resources considered highly valuable for continuous learning and development by Commercial Sales team members at GitLab. Note that some of these resources are not publicly available, so consult a fellow teammate for access where necessary.
Please ensure you read the Commercial Sales onboarding page.
Bookmark the relevant SalesForce dashboard for your region, this is essential to your success. Your Manager will give you the link when you first join.
Get familiar with the close date conventions used in Commercial Sales.
Ensure you fully understand the Required 7. Your teammates and manager are more than happy to help you with this if you need it.
Read through reviews of GitLab to get an idea of what customers think about the product. Two good places to start are Softwareadvice.com and Gartner Reviews.
Watching videos is core to your onboarding. You can watch YouTube & Chorus videos at 1.5x or 1.75x speed to get through them efficiently, you can still retain the information but in less time. Go to the Settings widget > Playback speed.
When you first start, searching through Slack is a great way to find useful information as it's our primary method of asking questions and announcing things to the company. Some channels that are particularly good for information:
#questions
#smb
#sales
#smb_amer
#international-smb
#smb_training_support
#competition
Use BuiltWith.com to get an idea of what technologies a customer is using currently (though be sure to verify this with them)
You might find it useful to create a Google doc to document all your learnings in your first 30 days, as you will get a lot of information to remember and it will also get you in the habit of taking notes, a key part of GitLab’s culture.
You can never have too many coffee chats with colleagues. You don’t need to ask permission from people, just put some time in their diary.
Make sure your calendar is always up to date so that you can get meetings from SDRs without having to moving them around.
Listen to as many Chorus calls as possible. We only record calls with the customer's permission in the US, but they are an excellent way to onboard even if you are not based in the US yourself.
Add your own tips to this page as you onboard to pay it forward for the next new rep!
SMB Account Executives "SMB AE" act as Account Executives and the face of GitLab for SMB prospects and customers. They are the primary point of contact for companies that employ between 1 to 99 employees. These GitLab team members are responsible for working new business in their territory as well as handling the customer journey for new and existing customers. SMB Account Executives will assist prospects through their evaluation and buying process and will be the customer's point of contact for any renewal and expansion discussions. Please read through the SMB handbook page for more information.
New team members should familiarize themselves with The Required 7. These are the 7 tactical skills are required to be an excellent Commercial Sales Account Executive:
Zendesk: Managing incoming requests received through support.gitlab.com, support@gitlab.com and renewals@gitlab.com
The goal and focus of working Zendesk tickets for the SMB team is to help with upselling and renewals
Within timezone (WIP), the Support team is responsible to take the lead on all incoming ZD tickets in the Upgrades, Renewals, and AR (refunds) queue. In off-hours, the SMB team will triage and handle any tickets which will breach during their timezone.
Support will take the lead on all incoming requests in the queue and only forward to the sales owner when:
Note: if you need access to a system, open an Access Request
License Key Management for On-Premise Trials & Subscriptions
GitLab.com Trials & Subscription Management
Detailed instructions on how to handle problems with licenses and subscriptions can be found in these instructions and resources.
More information about sales order processing can be found in the Business Ops handbook section.
Midmarket Account Executives are the primary point of contact between prospective and existing customers of GitLab within a space defined as mid-market, which currently works with companies that employ between 100 to 1,999 employees. These GitLab team members manage the spectrum of project sizes, ranging from small fast growing teams in smaller agile organizations to complex enterprise projects advising on the journey with GitLab to achieve specific business outcomes.
Mid-Market AEs work closely in tandem with the business development team and sales management to manage a broad book of business spread over a large opportunity value range and focus on exceeding client expectations.
New team members should familiarize themselves with The Required 7. These are the 7 tactical skills are required to be an excellent Commercial Sales Account Executive:
Channel-Managed in the opportunity titleIt's expected from the Commercial Sales Team to follow the Account Ownership Rules of Engagement This section provides step by step clarity on how to follow the ROE.
Account level and cc VP Commercial Sales to reviewNote:
Never ask the customer/prospect to provide information on the company sizeIt is a requirement for the Commercial Sales Team to tier their accounts using the fields on the Account Object. This helps prioritize the accounts to go after when prospecting for new or expansion. Please see below definitions specific to SMB and Mid-Market AEs.
Commercial Sales: Account Ranking Training Clippet
Tier 3: Greenfield, SDR attention - perhaps a drip campaign
It is required that all opportunities above $10,000 (Mid Market) and $5,000 (SMB) in total amount (not iACV) will have a custom slide deck that is shared with the customer or prospect. The custom deck must be attached to the opportunity by pasting the deck link in the SalesForce field 'Link to Custom Pitch Deck' on the opportunity home page. This will enable Mid Market Account Executives and SMB Account Executives to capture critical account information. Additionally, this will facilitate selling on value rather than features.
