Challenge:

• PagerDuty is a cloud-based Digital Operations Management platform that uses automation and artificial intelligence to gather business-critical signals and connect them with people, so they can quickly act to resolve issues. PagerDuty offers trusted technology for companies and professionals in the engineering, IT, customer support, and security fields. This is their target persona, and understanding the size of this population is extremely important.

• The company relies heavily on the sales operations team to establish equitable territories, with qualified potential customers, and establish sales benchmarks. Ted Nixon, Director of Scaled Sales at PagerDuty, sums up this challenge, saying: “My number one priority as a Sales Director is making sure we maximize the performance of our teams. In order to do that, we need equitable territories and tools that allow us to identify the population of users that equal potential for our accounts.”

• To do this, PagerDuty uses third-party data; however, data from traditional providers isn’t always timely or accurate, and manually gathering and vetting this data is too time-intensive for individual salespeople. “We were on the verge of hiring low-level employees to go through and manually pull this data,” explains Nixon. “We also looked at building something that could scrape the data for us. It was around that time I called LinkedIn and they had a different solution for us.”

Solution:

• PagerDuty is one of the earliest adopters for LinkedIn Sales Insights. The company has integrated LinkedIn Sales Insights tools into its sales tech stack and sales planning process, using them to identify and evangelize vital data quickly, and to the fullest extent. “LinkedIn Sales Insights allows our sales operations team to find the right population of potential buyers within our accounts, so that we can immediately target our efforts towards those,” says Nixon.

• According to Nixon, Sales Insights has elevated the relationship between sales and sales operations. Using Sales Insights “means that sales operations can focus on the high priority items that have to do with getting deals closed and getting our product out to our customers,” he says. “And then secondly, that level of trust allows us to rely on each other a little bit more and for sales to rely on critical sales things for sales operations. So it’s truly built a better team.”

Results:

• PagerDuty has made Sales Insights part of its core tech stack, leveraging the many tools to create a buyer-first culture of selling. “As a sales director, what I’ve seen is that sales reps are more successful the longer they have relationships with accounts,” says Nixon. “LinkedIn Sales Insights affords us the data to give us the right territories. Sales reps feel better about building relationships within that territory, and that leads to longer-term success.”

• Nixon explains how simple the decision was for PagerDuty to embrace Sales Insights. “When I first got my hands on LinkedIn Sales Insights and compared it to the work it would’ve taken to pull that data manually, I laughed! It was a bit funny because I couldn’t believe it was that easy. It was a moment of elation, and it invigorated me to go through and see our territory planning to the end.”

Life before LinkedIn Sales Insights:

• Sales Insights has mobilized trusted company data for PagerDuty in such a way as to illuminate the company’s total sales and prospecting efforts. “Before LinkedIn Sales Insights, we didn’t have a real clear picture of balanced territories across the board,” says Nixon. “If I’m an individual sales rep, I question whether I have the right territory or not, which takes away from the focus of selling and providing value to the customer.”

• Good data drives sales. PagerDuty needed data that was relevant, timely, and accessible, to better shape the focus of its sales teams. “Before LinkedIn Sales Insights, we were doing this manually,” says Nixon. “We were pulling together one account at a time, to determine what our buyer personas would be.”

Staking a claim in uncharted territory:

• Territory mapping is a vital first step toward focused selling. PagerDuty is using Sales Insights to not only qualify opportunities and map its territories, but to better understand them. “Now, we have data across the wide variety of accounts that gives us the perspective and ability to analyze the true potential of a territory,” says Nixon. “We spend more time focusing on where to start building relationships than on the work and research to qualify the territory.”

• Nixon explains that trust in data leads to better relationships, both internally and with prospects. “LinkedIn Sales Insights has brought a huge element of trust to the territory planning process and elevated the relationship between sales and sales ops. It promotes a team selling environment that allows us to focus on what’s important to the customer, rather than the internal processes that slow us down.”

• As territories become clearer and more qualified, PagerDuty has moved toward a buyer-first mode of selling. “LinkedIn Sales Insights give sales ops access to reliable, trusted data,” says Nixon. “For the sales team that means more focus on the customer, less time spent internally, and more time selling.”

Redefining success through sales:

• Sales Insights is a tool for sales operations to better understand the market and conduct sales planning, enabling sales teams to be buyer-first further downstream. These capabilities have helped PagerDuty reinvent its approach to identifying and cultivating relationships with customers. “LinkedIn is trusted because it is data sourced from the actual person who updates their profile. And it’s usually in their best interest to update their profile,” says Nixon. “Now, with LinkedIn Sales Insights, we have tools that allow us to apply that to company levels and organization levels. It’s really powerful.”

• Nixon explains the advantage of forming meaningful connections with every prospect, whether the sale is immediate or forthcoming: “Yes, we want revenue now, that’s always going to be the case. But the more stability you have with your customer base and the more the sales rep feels good about those relationships, the more revenue you’re going to get down the road.” For PagerDuty, it harkens back to a deep understanding of their customers.

• “Personas allow us to identify who our target buyers are,” says Nixon. “And, with the click of a button, allows us to immediately separate those across a large data pool.” Using persona data helps PagerDuty filter based on the size of total opportunity for prospective accounts, so they can prioritize their efforts where they will be most valuable.