Venture Lane

Few quick hits on B2B sales funnel composition…

> The earlier stage you are, the fewer funnel stages you should have. Otherwise, the low volume of leads through your funnel won't give you dependable conversion rates from stage to stage.

> Add sub-stages as you scale the team. As you add BDRs to the team, task them with 2-3 criteria (sub-stages) that a prospect needs to fulfill in order to move from one stage to the next.

> Close out lost opportunities. Move all no's into an 'opportunities lost' bucket, so you can identify patterns in this group and modify your qualification criteria accordingly.

How To Shorten Your B2B Sales Cycle: Key Lab Takeaways Venture Lane companies worked directly with seasoned sales leaders in Boston tech to triage greatest points of friction in their sales funnels.

For looking to land a partner meeting...

-> best practices for the initial outreach
-> tips for structuring the call
-> landing a warm intro
-> advice on pitch decks

How to Land a VC Partner Meeting Erica Van, Venture Investor at CRV, and Madeline Keulen, Vice President at Victress Capital, shared how founders can nail the first wave of communication with VCs (from outreach to discovery call) in order to secure a partner-level meeting.

If you've been following us for a while, you know we love to talk all things ...

When it comes to investing in a keyword strategy:

->You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Do a little research, what are your competitors doing? What's their messaging?

->If you’re recording sales calls, use these to discover new keywords or validate current keywords. Pay attention when the reps ask how they heard of you and what they’re looking for. Doesn’t get better than firsthand information directly from a prospect!

How To Put A 10X Multiplier On Lead Generation We joined forces with Eric Keating of Appcues, and Adam Goyette of Help Scout, who opened up their growth marketing playbook to help budget constrained marketers feed the funnel at a higher clip

Calling all founders with complex tech...

Wondering what's running through the investors head. Investors are looking to answer the following questions before making an investment:

->Is this a complex problem? Is this a thoughtful approach? Is there an elegance to this approach?
->Does this solution have long-term competitive differentiation?
->Can this founder bridge the need and the market and solve the real problem?
->What have they done to prove product market fit?

How To Pitch VCs On Complex Tech Howard Bornstein and Stan Reiss shared how founders can effectively communicate technical complexity to VCs and stand out from the competition.

With a vaccine on the horizon, let's take a minute to discuss preventing 'Us Versus Them' culture on hybrid teams...

Prioritize mental health. Keep the communication channels open and make sure people feel comfortable talking openly. You can even dedicate a channel to mental health in Slack.

Reinvent staff meetings. Spend the first 10 minutes of staff meetings to people-oriented conversation. It's important not to just jump right into the agenda.
You could... try a lightening round: what did everyone do this weekend?
Or... what if everyone shares a PG joke before the meeting starts?

How to Prevent 'Us Versus Them' Culture for Hybrid Teams Jenny Dearborn and Kim Mullaney shared best practices for preventing 'us versus them' culture as teams move towards a hybrid team structure.

Let's talk sales qualification...

Build flywheels in one industry at a time. If your pilots or early customers cover multiple industries, choose the one where you can prove out the most convincing ROI.

Move upstream in subsequent industries. As you move into adjacent industries, test your messaging and build proof of ROI with smaller accounts first. Then move onto enterprise accounts in that industry with polished messaging and ROI figures to back your claims.

Optimize industry related content for quality over quantity. Tailor industry content to economic buyer personas at prospective customers to ensure quality.

How To Qualify Leads For A Higher Win Rate: Key Lab Takeaways Venture Lane companies worked directly with top sales leaders in Boston tech to optimize their lead qualification methods for a higher win rate.

For those looking to generate more B2B leads...

Remember to differentiate content for end users vs economic buyers. If you need buy in from both parties to convert prospects into paying customers, make sure you're developing user pain related content for end users and ROI related content for economic buyers. If you have to choose one, converting the end user can speed up your sales cycle. Economic buyers typically put a lot of stake in the end user's opinion of which solution is best for their organization.

How To Generate More B2B Leads: Key Lab Takeaways Venture Lane companies worked directly with leading tech marketers in Greater Boston to retool their lead generation strategies.

If you've recently hired, here's a few quick tips to help new hires become fast contributors...

Empower department heads to build sub cultures. Encourage department heads to add a ‘culture moment’ to onboarding like having everyone on the team deliver a hand written card to a new hire.

Opt for customer journeys over org charts. Rather than give new hires an org chart of your company, give them a customer journey map that includes where in that journey each member of the company gets involved. This will help new hires understand who to go to internally with certain questions.

Schedule a monthly CEO talk for new hires, rather than having the CEO meet with every new hire individually. Encourage the CEO to share vision, mission, and values and tell the company’s origin story.

How To Help New Hires Become Fast Contributors: Key Lab Takeaways Venture Lane companies worked directly with top HR leaders in Boston tech to retool their employee onboarding processes for greater speed to contribution.

Our founder, Christian Magel, was on the with Trond Arne Undheim talking all things .

Give it a listen to hear their candid chat about scaling startups in a pandemic, mentoring the Boston tech community, and how we define .

Evolving Startup Ecosystems Futurist Trond Arne Undheim interviews Christian Nagel, Founder of Venture Lane, business angel and expert on go-to-market strategies, communication and international rollout. In this conversation, they talk about tribal community building, networking, fun...

The Boston Startup Growth Survey is live! Thrilled to team up with Boston’s top startup organizations to create this resource for our ecosystem.

Results will go out to all participating teams - two quarters of performance metrics from plus top growth strategies ranked by founders. Submit here by Oct 21!
http://bit.ly/take-bsgs

Techstars Boston, MassChallenge Boston, Underscore VC, BostInno, First Republic Bank, Toucan Toco

Boston Startup Growth Survey Turn data collection into an experience with Typeform. Create beautiful online forms, surveys, quizzes, and so much more. Try it for FREE.

Thinking about going hybrid? Jenny Dearborn (Chief People Officer @ Klaviyo) and Kim Mullaney (former VP, People @ Zapier) shared best practices for preventing 'us versus them' culture as teams move towards a hybrid structure.

How to Prevent 'Us Versus Them' Culture for Hybrid Teams Jenny Dearborn and Kim Mullaney shared best practices for preventing 'us versus them' culture as teams move towards a hybrid team structure.

Hybrid teams are here to stay. Join us tomorrow as Jenny Dearborn of Klaviyo and Kim Mullaney of Zapier share best practices for preventing 'us versus them' culture as teams move towards a hybrid structure.

All founders welcome.

Thursday, Sept 24th @ 12PM EST
Register here: https://lnkd.in/dpHSExX