By Olivia Ramirez

November 21, 2023

Best day as an account executive (AE)? The day you hit your quota and celebrate that last win over dinner at your favorite spot. (You go there every quarter, and the waiter even knows your name.)

But the most recent quarters have been tough. More than half of sales teams expect to fall short of their targets in Q4. Many blame a lack of high-quality leads. And of those leads who are interested in buying, the sales cycle is longer.

In an age where buyers look to trusted sources for their tech stack investments — like the valuable recommendation of an existing vendor or the vetting of customer reviews — the modern-day seller needs to be more strategic about how they sell. 

Cold calls can work if sellers reference the people and tools their prospects know and love. But the old ways of committing to a minimum number of cold calls in a day are a tactic of the past. 

Strategic sales teams and top performers are leaning on partners and partner data to build trust with their prospects quickly and generate high-quality leads that are more likely to close. In fact, 89% of sales teams are looking to change their strategy, and Ecosystem-Led Growth is the #1 strategy that sales teams are investing more in right now. 

Attn sales managers: Don’t increase your sales team’s activities. Instead, leverage the third most cost-effective strategy, only after inbound and customer referrals: Ecosystem-Led Growth. Revenue leaders are observing higher close rates when co-selling with partners and a higher annual revenue per user (ARPU). Using ELG, your sales reps need fewer open opportunities at a given time to hit quota, compared to when using traditional sales tactics.  

Attn top performers: Generate high-quality leads with partners that are 49% more likely to close and have a 48% higher annual contract value (ACV). Hit your quota faster, and spend the extra time planning your next celebratory outing.  

Whether you’re a sales manager or a (future) top performer, focusing on the right prospects with partners can help you get ahead. We did the math, and you need less open opportunities to hit quota when using an Ecosystem-Led strategy. 

Below, we’ll walk you through the math so you can make the case to your team to bring partners into every deal. Using ELG, you’ll improve your win rate and hit your revenue target more cost-effectively, regardless of the state of the market.   

To use your own metrics in the calculations, make a copy of the template: “Worksheet: Number of Open Opportunities Your Sales Team Needs in a Healthy Market, a Down Market, and When Using ELG” here. 

First, some housekeeping

Let’s establish a baseline to help us compare sales efficiency of traditional sales tactics in a healthy market and a down market to an Ecosystem-Led strategy. Let’s say you’re:

• Part of a mid-market sales team that has 50 AEs and 20 sales development representatives (SDRs)
• With a $740K annual quota* per sales rep
• And a typical win rate in a healthy market of 33%, 
• An average sales cycle of 90 days,
• And an average annual contract value (ACV) of $35K*

*Data from The Bridge Group SaaS AE Metrics and Compensation Research Report  

For the following equations, we’ll look at: 

• 2022 for sales efficiency in a healthy market
• 2023 for sales efficiency in a down market
• And a sales strategy using 100% ELG (or every deal involving a partner in some way) against the current conditions of 2023
   

You Need 125% More Open Opportunities to Hit Quota in a Down Market Using a Typical Sales Strategy

Let’s look at the conditions of a healthy market below. Using a $35K average ACV, you would need 21 deals to hit quota. If you have a win rate of 33%, then you need 64 qualified opps. When you consider a sales cycle of 90 days per opp, you need 16 opps at a given time.  

21 deals x $35K average ACV = $740K       

33% of 64 qualified opps = 21 deals 

(64 qualified opps x 90 days) / 365 days in a year = 16 opps at a given time 

Want to plug your own numbers in? Make a copy of “Worksheet: Number of Open Opportunities Your Sales Team Needs in a Healthy Market, a Down Market, and When Using ELG” here. 

In 2023, win rates are down, ACVs are lower, and sales cycles are longer. For the below calculations, we used data from the B2B Sales Benchmark Report 2023 by Pavilion and Ebsta. The report showed a:

• -15% YoY change in win rate  
• -32% YoY change in ACV
• +32% YoY change in sales cycle 

Applying these changes to our “healthy market” numbers, the new win rate is 28%, the new ACV is $23,800, and the new sales cycle length is 119 days.  

Now, when you divide the annual quota by the new ACV, you need 31 deals to hit quota. With the new win rate, you need 111 qualified opportunities. And with the new sales cycle length, you need 36 open opportunities at a given time. That’s a 125% increase in the number of open opportunities each sales rep needs to hit quota.

Using ELG, You Need Fewer Open Opportunities — Regardless of the State of the Market 

In the Future of Revenue Report, Crossbeam and Pavilion surveyed 426 revenue leaders and learned that ELG is the #1 strategy that sales teams are investing more in. On average, ELG deals are 49% more likely to close, have a 48% higher ACV, and close 31% faster. 

Using these benchmarks, we determined how many open opportunities a sales rep would need in order to hit quota in a down market using an Ecosystem-Led strategy. We applied the increase in win rate and ACV and the decrease in sales cycle length to the down market benchmarks. 

The result: A sales rep needs only 11 open opportunities at a given time in order to hit quota if they bring a partner in for support on every deal. That’s 69% fewer open opportunities than they’d need in a down market (and also less than they would need in a healthy market).  

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In early 2023, nearly a quarter of sales teams were going all in on Ecosystem-Led Sales with 100% of their sales team co-selling with partners. Meanwhile, another 20% of sales teams say that less than 10% of their sales reps co-sell. With the majority of sales leaders looking for new strategies in 2023 and 2024, those who adopt ELG are beginning to see the results compound. 

Getting started with ELG is easy. Log into Crossbeam to understand which prospects and open opportunities you have in common with your partner. You can use Crossbeam Sales Edge to reveal which partners can help with an account directly in your sales team’s account dashboards in Salesforce. Then, consider any of the below actions: 

• Mention your integrations and tech partners in your cold outbound sequences to generate meetings 
• Ask your partner for intel about the account to finetune your demo and sales conversation 
• Ask your partner for a warm intro or to put in a good word for you with the stakeholder with the most buying power 

Get a full breakdown of Ecosystem-Led Sales, including guidance around how your sales reps should communicate with partners, here.