The Commercial Sales department is part of the overall GitLab Sales functional group. We focus on SMB and Mid-Market customers to deliver maximum value throughout the entire journey with GitLab.
Center of Excellence
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?
We have challenges we are uniquely positioned to focus on
We aren’t the Directly Responsible Individual (DRI) but it is a challenge to get this prioritized
This is our current platform for collaboration
How?
Choose one of the active Topics currently available below. Refer to the team list to see what is unassigned. Note, to take a topic you do not have to be a Subject Matter Expert (SME) in the area or DRI as they may belong to a different functional group.
Pick an achievable set of commitments and nail it. These should be forecastable and not something too aspirational for the timeframe
Decide for yourself if you want that same topic for 3 or 6 months
Start with the problem related to your subject that you think needs to be solved
Commercial COE Topics
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.
Communication and Collaboration
Support on communication and tools to stay better connected as a remote Commercial Sales organization
Customer Advisory Board
Capturing direct feedback for interaction and organizing customers selected
Feedback Loop
Improvements to feedback channels to document structured data for all customer interactions
Hosted gitlab.com
Ramping new customers and users on gitlab.com, our hosted product offering
KISS enablement
Keep it simple. Focus on process including managing tasks, training GitLab, and new release features
Marketing campaigns
Sales content/collateral
Sales process - SDR
Improvements to the SDR to AE collaboration process
Services
Improvements to the Professional Services offering
Ultimate
Improvements to the full pitch including Why Ultimate
Events
When traveling please consider ROI of both any costs plus your time:
If you are going to an event you think first:
What is the total you will spend for travel?
What is the total you will spend on food and lodging for me?
What is the amount you will likely spend on customer meals (meals x customers x # of times)?
How many total business hours will you be away from salesforce?
8 hours: then you need to get 5x return on $, and the fact that any event pipeline closes at about 30%
How many total personal life hours will you be away from your personal life?
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.
Trip Notes
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.
Why and When?
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.
How to properly document your trip notes?
Please follow the best practice process and use the trip note template as a format to prepare for your future trip.
Trip Notes Best Practice
Commercial attendee will write up their notes in a google doc.
Once saved, please slack and share a link to your notes in the commercial_global_all channel to alert the team of your recent trip.
Finally, please share your Post Trip feedback for the entire company and the Field Marketing team directly in the specific Event Issue on the ‘Post Event Recap & Feedback’ spreadsheet.
Give Back Project
What is the Give Back Project?
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.
Why is there a Give Back Project?
The goal of the Give Back Project is to allow new team members to be able to instantly contribute to the Commercial Sales team
Fosters GitLab’s values of collaboration and results
The Give Back Project gives team members the opportunity to be exposed to problems on the team today and will allow the team to look back and see how we addressed shortcomings in the past
How does the Give Back Project differ from the Center of Excellence?
The COE is assigned while the Give Back is self-selected
During team QBRs in February 2019, it was determined that there were certain aspects that made selling at GitLab difficult. Those aspects were divided into categories and those categories were assigned to different team members to become experts at, forming the Center of Excellence
The COE has already been determined by the team as areas where the team needs improvements while the value of a team member’s Give Back Project needs to be realized
A Give Back Project can be working on a portion of the COE
If it is something that needs to be repeated (like a customer AMA) an associated handbook entry is created with a description on how a new person could achieve this
Although the Give Back Project is designed to be finite, there is always room for iteration at GitLab. Be sure to include any necessary instructions on how a different team member would be able to add to your project if necessary
Give Back Projects
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.
Continuous Learning
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.
GitLab Direction Includes GitLab’s Vision, Maturity framework and planned features and their release dates within each of GitLab’s Paid Tiers.
GitLab Blog Monthly articles on Releases, Engineering, Open Source, Culture and other popular topics of interest.
GitLab Unfiltered YouTube A YouTube channel private to GitLab employees with video recordings and playlists on company meetings, enablement sessions and other topics.
Chorus Recordings Our team's history of call and demo recordings is a valuable training resource for new and existing sales team members.
Sales & SDR Enablement Sessions Weekly training sessions covering popular product, market and sales training topics chosen by the sales and marketing team members.
Product Study Guide A study course for team members to understand the current full scope of capabilities offered in each tier of GitLab and reasons for tier upgrades.
Commercial Team Groups
SMB Customer Advocates
Mid Market Account Executives
Area Sales
SMB Customer Advocates
SMB Customer Advocates "SMB CA" 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 Customer Advocates will assist prospects through their evaluation and buying process and will be the customer's point of contact for any renewal and expansion discussions.
Responsibilities
Inbound Queue Management
New Business
Work Initial Qualification Meetings IQM's from Commercial SDR Team
Accept Sales Accepted Opportunities according to SAO Criteria
Nurture and help prospects during their Trial evaluation after Accepting Opportunities
Push to Webdirect or help with the Sales Order Process
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:
There is an IACV affecting event from a customer -OR-
There is a credit or other request which requires sales manager approval
Salesforce Hygiene & Activity
Opportunity Management in Salesforce
Prior to working a new opportunity always double-check the Account segmentation is "SMB" and the employee count for the company is less than 100, by viewing datafox information
Every SMB CA has an inidividual view for opportunity management: Access this view under the Opportunities tab in saleforce and use the drop down to find your view "SMB_name_ Active Opptys".
Once in the view follow the below steps for opportunity management;
Sort by stage, placing highest priority stage at the top
Prioritize the opportunities you are going to work on first by stage, amount, and close date
Ensure "Next Steps" and "Next Step Date" are current with actionable and informative information that helps guide you on how to move the opportunity through the pipeline
If a potential future opportunity that require action greater than 30 days out create an event with detailed notes on your agenda or action items
Once stages Discovery - Awaiting Signature are updated, begin working on Pending Acceptance. Prioritize with the same criteria as above, rinse and repeat
Opportunity Next Steps Best Practices
Always keep Next Steps Date and Next Steps up to date as an assignment to a future version of yourself on how you will take action to continue the customers buying process.
When you start your day you need to check all inputs like email, zendesk, and lead queue so you can triage those requests into your priorities for that day.
Allocate times of your day in four ways:
Customer meetings scheduled
Proactive email and internal efforts
Proactive calling efforts
Time to check inputs again
When beginning a proactive time block, open your opportunities view and sort by Next Steps Date.
Your Next Steps should be specific and compelling so that you can take action on them within 3 minutes of reading.
Web Direct Oppty Management in Salesforce
Find the report view for all CFQ "current fiscal quarter" Web Direct purchases in your territory "SMB_Web Directs CFQ _name":
Check that there are no open opportunities that could have been a duplicate by viewing the opportunities listed under the Account
If not a duplicate, place the main contact in the opportunity on the outreach sequence "SMB_Web Direct Outreach" - by: Madeline Hennessy
Dependent on the opportunity and company if personal outreach is preferred, you must log your activity and have a next step date to follow up on your activity
More information about sales order processing can be found in the Business Ops handbook section.
Mid Market Account Executive
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 AE’s 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.
Core Responsibilities
Own your territory - build & execute your territory plan.
Manage book of business: new business, expansion, renewals.
Collaborate with Sales Development channel for handover of inbound qualified opportunities to progress to closure.
Execute outbound campaigns for Key accounts.
New Business
Work Initial Qualification Meetings IQM's from SDR Team
Accept Sales Accepted Opportunities according to SAO Criteria
Nurture and help prospects during their Trial evaluation after Accepting Opportunities
Push to Webdirect or help with the Sales Order Process
Selecting Target Accounts for marketing
Log into Datafox or Sales Navigator
Input your territory criteria
Establish a list of accounts and sort by Company Head Count
Search for key words like DevOps
Look into each account to see if they are actually yours
Look into each employee that is either an engineer or technology professionals
Add that company name to your list
If not enough companies through this process continue below:
Look for the intersection of revenue and vertical in Datafox
Look at the account in SFDC to see if CE User
Filter using signals if using Datafox
Assess if they have had recent funding announcements
Once selected add the company name, city, and zip code to your sheet
Account Ownership Rules of Engagement for Commercial Sales
It'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.
Process to follow:
Check Datafox data - wholly wrong? Go to step 2
Check DiscoverOrg data - wholly wrong? Go to step 3
Check LinkedIn Data - wholly wrong?
Search for 3rd party resources which provide SMB/MM segment prove (only needed when 1 of the above resources do not provide leading data to go with)
Paste the source and the gaps all found that led you to it in Chatter on the Account level and cc VP Commercial Sales to review
VP of Commercial Sales will provide the leading decision
Note:
Priority order: only go to the next source IF the data number is wholly wrong / inaccurate
REQUIRED:Never ask the customer/prospect to provide information on the company size
Currently: Leading decision will be based on the fact if the Account was SMB/MM segment during the Feb 2019 size clean up
From Q4 on - Leading decision will be based on the fact if Account was SMB/MM segment based on the Nov 2019 size clean up
Opportunity Next Steps Best Practices
Always keep Next Steps Date and Next Steps up to date as an assignment to a future version of yourself on how you will take action to continue the customers buying process.
When you start your day you need to check all inputs like email, zendesk, and lead queue so you can triage those requests into your priorities for that day.
Allocate times of your day in four ways:
Customer meetings scheduled
Proactive email and internal efforts
Proactive calling efforts
Time to check inputs again
When beginning a proactive time block, open your opportunities view and sort by Next Steps Date.
Your Next Steps should be specific and compelling so that you can take action on them within 3 minutes of reading.
Account Tiering
It is expected from 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 CA, and Mid-Market AE.
Small Business Customer Advocate Definitions for Account Tiering
Tier 1: Top 10 Accounts with new business or upsellign possibility within the next 12 months
Tier 1.5: Future opportunities that we should not lose track of as their is a sales opportunity here with no timeline
Tier 2: Believe there is an opportunity, but will take additional work before opening and beginning a sales cycle
Tier 3: Greenfield, SDR attention - perhaps a drip campaign
Mid-Market Account Executive Definitions for Account Tiering
Tier 1: Accounts that I am working to maximize their iACV this fiscal year.
Tier 1.5 The subset of Tier 2 that is best and trending toward being future Tier 1s.
Tier 2 Accounts that I am working to grow and I speak with them at least once a month.
Tier 3 Accounts that I keep informed about GitLab and DevOps monthly.
SMB CA must have potential user field filled in on the account object for Tier 1, and 1.5
SMB CA must have the notes section filled in on why an account is Tier 2 or 3
