Commercial Team

SFDC Hygiene

1. Close Dates:

   • When setting up an opportunity, please make the initial forecast for the opportunity no earlier than the 15th day of the first month of the next quarter and at least as late as the 15th day two months out; for example, an opp opened in May (the 15th of the first month of the next quarter) or June (the 15th day two months out) should have an initial forecast date no earlier than August 15th and an opp opened in July should have an initial forecast date no earlier than September 15th (the 15th day two months out).

     • A close date on the 15th implies that your best guess is that the close date will be either the month before the close date or the current month of the close date.
     • By definition of forecasting in quarter, a call or best case deal can’t have a close date later than the 15th of the first month of the next quarter
     • Early pipeline will always have a close date on the 15th; by the last month of the quarter, anything in early pipeline should be forecast at least as late as the 15th of the second month of the next quarter
     • A close date on the 15th implies that you don’t have alignment with the customer on the close date. A close date of the 15th provides us with a best guest range of when the deal might close.
     • This date is easily moved.
     • Unless the deal is expected to close on the 15th of the month, no commit deal should be forecast with this date.

   • Once you have alignment with the customer, you may move the close date to the last day of the month you believe the deal will close.

     • This date should push <10% of the time.
     • You may move this date forward to the actual day a deal closes if it is before the last day of the month when you have closed/won the deal.
     • If the date is not on the 15th day of the month, it is by definition part of your commit.

2. Next Steps:

   • Update the next steps date after each meeting. This should always be kept up-to-date.
   • The next step spells out the next customer interaction. Is it a follow up call? Are you sending collateral? Will you meet for a demo? Will you meet to discuss business value? Is it a negotiation?
   • Always keep the next steps date updated

3. About the 3 Why’s:

   • Why anything: this is a description of the customer’s business problem; this should be something quantifiable in terms of increasing revenue, reducing cost or reducing risk
   • Why Sourcegraph: this describes the technical problems that underlie the business problem and how Sourcegraph is uniquely suited to solving these technical problems
   • Why now: this is an explanation of for a timeline or compelling event that is driving the deal forward and cause for the deal to happen

Customer Engagement Process

The Customer Engagement Process (CEP) details what is required for a deal to be forecasted in a given stage. Please make note of this as you forecast your deals. You will be held to account for it.

Meetings

1. Before the first meeting:

   • If the deal was sourced by an SDR or other introduction, make sure to have a sit down before the meeting to incorporate whatever information the deal sourcer has for you.
   • Prep a deck with the customer logo on it.
     • Include a Sourcegraph overview with the slides you’d like to use to tell the Sourcegraph story
     • The important questions:
       • What questions do you want to ask every customer? Maybe these should be on a standardized slide.
       • What questions or comments do you have for this particular customer?

2. After the first meeting:

   • Does the customer have a valuable problem they want to solve and are they willing to work with you via a planned next step to solve it?
     • If so, send an calendar invite with an agenda for the next meeting
     • If so, bump the opp to Stage to “2 - Qualification” or create an opp; in either case format the name of the opp as follows: “Company Name - UserCount Self-Hosted/Cloud/Managed Instance”
     • If not, kick it back to the SDR to schedule any additional meetings that may subsequently create a SAO
   • Make sure to put in the iARR and amount for each deal. The iARR is the incremental amount over what the previous contract value. In the case of new accounts, iARR and amount are the same.
     • Please calculate the amount for a deal as follows:
       • Self-Hosted = number of seats x Self-Hosted Pricing
       • Cloud = number of seats x Cloud Pricing

3. After every meeting:

   • Schedule 30 minutes after the call customer calls because:
     • They are cushion should the call run over.
     • It is time for you to debrief with your SDR, CE and any other support on the call.
     • Update your notes and SFDC.
       • Update MEDDPICC; make note of anything that you can not satisfactorily address as you will need to find answers on the next call
       • Update the 3 Why’s; make note of anything that you can not satisfactorily address as you will need to find answers on the next call
     • Execute your next steps, calendar invite, summary email and agenda etc.
   • If you send a calendar invite, make sure to include an agenda for the meeting.
   • Should you update the stage of the deal? Please make sure your deal is aligned with the Commercial Customer Engagement Process

Keys to Discovery

1. Our use cases are our tactical focus. Before jumping into the use cases customers need to understand our core competencies. Sourcegraph helps engineers:
   • Navigate Code
   • Understand Code
   • Change Code

By explaining our core competencies first, we help customers understand how we can uniquely address their pain. For example, some HR companies may help developers with onboarding and monitoring companies may assist with incident response but Sourcegraph addresses both of the aforementioned use cases in a different way based on our set of core competencies.

2. We have several frameworks with which to guide discovery and progress deals. MEDDPICC, the 3 Why’s and Command of the Message are the ones we use at Sourcegraph. All deals begin with a business problem. For us, the business problem is uncovered with questions that help us understand the customer pain. The “I” in MEDDPICC and the “Why Anything?” of the 3 Why’s speak directly to understanding the customer’s business problem. The first thing you want to know in the first call is the answer to the business problem question.

3. The next stage of discovery is about uncovering the customer’s specific technical challenges that cause their business problem. Each technical challenge is a customer use case. Though some customer use cases may fall outside the ones we’re focused, if our core competencies can be applied to solve these problems then there is a strong argument for “Why Sourcegraph” can uniquely solve the customer’s pain / business problem.

4. We should exit stage 3 with several technical problems that solving for constitutes the first “D” or “Decision Criteria” in MEDDPICC. We must uncover these problems to provide context for a kick-ass demo.

5. The “M” in MEDDPICC refers to metrics. If we have well defined decision criteria we can use metrics to quantify value during a pilot. One way this can be done, a mid-way checkin call during the pilot is a perfect time to see what difference Sourcegraph has on the success criteria.

6. Lastly and maybe most importantly we use the metrics to build a ROI. Here you can see how we can leverage Command of the Message to cover points 2 - 6 and build a successful ROI.

Mutual Action Plan

In stage 2 or 3, depending on how the deal is progressing it is important that you align with the customer on a MAP. Unless a deal is in the “Fast Lane” it can not progress to stage 4 without a MAP. The mutual action plan should be formed in partnership with the champion. It is an agreement with the customer on predictable actions to be taken on the process toward a close. Expect no two customers to have the same process in place to complete a deal. A few items common on MAPs include:

Trial training demo
Trial decision criteria checkin
Security review
Legal review
Business Value Analysis / Return on Investment
Trial feedback survey
Proposal for the executive team or executive buyer
Final signature on the ELA
Post sales support

Return on Investment

In stage 3 or stage 4 you should put together a ROI. The spreadsheet is a space to catalogue Sourcegraph’s value for a customer. Unlesss a deal is in the “Fast Lane” it can not progress to stage 5 without a ROI. From the initial call with a customer your discovery should be executed with the intent to uncover value. Building an ROI gives purpose to questions like:

Who (how many people) does the problem impact?
What (how much time or money) is the cost of the problem?
What if you don't do anything about the problem?
How would Sourcegraph change your workflow?
How much do these 3rd party tools cost?

Order Forms and NDAs

You can get a walkthrough on where order forms are, how to fill them out, how to docusign the form and how to close a deal once you have a signed order.

Walkthrough Edits:

• For the Customer field, the first field in the top left of the order form, when you are setting up the docusign, please use the “Company” field and not the “Name” field. The customer should put the company name in this field, not the signer’s name.
• For the email fields near the top of the first page of the order form, please use the “Text” field in docusign when labeling them for customer inputs.

If you need an exception to the norm for your order form, please see the order form reviews document.

Follow this flow to get a NDA signed by a customer. If it’s your first time, please follow Tammy’s NDA tutorial.

Forecasting

1. Please complete forecasting by close of business on Friday.
2. Every week on Thursday you will receive an email with a title format as follows: 20XX-QX Your Name - Region Week X has not been completed. Please provide your updates.
3. The notes should be staged as follows with headings of Closed/Won, Commit, Call, Best Case, and Early Pipeline.
   • For “Commit”, “Call” and “Best Case”, the total dollar amounts are additive so:
     • the amount for “Commit” is additive of the deals in “Closed/Won”; early in the quarter you may expect to close more deals than those that currently qualify for “Commit” and therefore it’s ok to have a higher “Commit” than the sum of the value of the deals in “Commit”; as the quarter evolves you may expect to evolve your “Commit” to intersect your “Closed/Won” and if there are no more deals pending by the last week of the quarter it should be the same as your “Closed/Won”
     • the amount for “Call” is additive of the deals in “Commit” and “Closed/Won”; early in the quarter you may expect to close more deals than those that currently qualify for “Call” and therefore it’s ok to have a higher “Call” than the sum of the value of the deals in “Call”; as the quarter evolves you may expect to evolve your “Call” to intersect your “Commit” and if there are no more deals pending by the last week of the quarter it should be the same as your “Closed/Won”
     • the amount for “Best Case” is additive of the “Call”, “Commit” and “Closed/Won”;
     • the amount for “Early Pipeline” is all deals that fall outside the quarter
   • Put the title of the opp along with the amount of the opp under the heading
4. For efficiency, copy and paste notes from the week before and just add updates to the notes as is fitting.
5. How to determine stage:
   • Closed/Won is defined by business that has been Closed/Won in salesforce; These deals should be listed as open opps anymore
   • Commit means that you have switched the close date to the last day of the month that it will close in; these things are synonomous and you should not have one without the other
   • Call is for deals that you believe will come in during the quarter
     • this may apply to any deal that has a mutual action plan (MAP) where the close date is in quarter
     • this may apply to cloud deals that onboarded the month before the final month in the quarter
     • during the first month of the quarter, this should also apply to 1/3 of your existing pipeline for best case and early pipeline deals
   • Best Case are for deals that have engagement but without the clarity provided by a MAP;
     • these deals may include those that you have a ‘gut’ feel for
     • to be “Best Case”, a deal must be forecasted no later than the first day of the first month of the next quarter
   • Early Pipeline means that the deal is not forecast in the quarter, it is be definition forecast for a date later than the 1st day of the next quarter; you’re likely only a meeting or two in and you don’t have strong engagmeent from the customer yet, many outbound deals will fall into this category early on
6. Make sure to check your math. Closed/Won should have the smallest amount and Best Case should have the largest amount. Closed/Won to Best Case are all possibilities of what could happen within the quarter. Early Pipeline, by definition, is not forecasted for the quarter so you don’t need to add the previous numbers up since the forecast is quarterly.