Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

How to hit revenue targets in a recession | Sahil Mansuri (Bravado)

December 4, 2022

AI Summary

5 min read

Sahil Mansuri, CEO of Bravado—a community for 300,000 B2B salespeople—draws from his experience selling through the 2008 recession and current data showing 63% of reps and 76% of companies missing Q3 quotas. He outlines adjustments for founders facing downturns: conservative forecasting with milestones, revamped comp plans, retention focus, deal-closing tactics, and innovative growth levers.

Forecasting with Milestones

With low visibility and rising misses (projected 80%+ for Q4), set annual plans conservatively—e.g., plan for 10% revenue drop from $10M to $9M—then build in quarterly checkpoints like hitting $2.25M in Q1 to unlock spending or revise upward. Agree on these triggers upfront with boards and teams to counter founders' optimism bias and enable agile adjustments, avoiding endless reforecasting debates. This mirrors sprint-based planning over rigid annual targets, suited to volatile tech unlike broad crises like COVID.

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What you'll learn

1 **(00:00:29) Episode Intro and Sahil's Sales Background**
2 **(00:12:00) Q3 Market Data and Forecasting/Quotas Advice**
3 **(00:23:00) Rethinking Sales Comp Plans**
4 **(00:41:42) Prioritize Retention Over New Sales**
5 **(00:51:07) Tactics for Closing Deals in Downturn**
6 **(01:13:53) Innovate for Growth Despite Headwinds**
7 **(01:19:38) Lightning Round and Closing**

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Sahil Mansuri is the CEO of Bravado, the world’s largest online sales community. Sahil is passionate about sales, and his experience dates all the way back to 2008, working for Obama’s presidential campaign. During his time at Glassdoor, Sahil was able to close some incredible accounts, including Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. In today’s podcast, we talk about why sales is a crucial part of any business and how to continue selling successfully through a recession. We get super-specific on building a conservative plan for the near future and cover everything from where to place your best salespeople to restructuring comp plans. The episode is full of great advice about how to shift with this market, improve agility, and perhaps grow an even stronger business with happier customers.

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Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-hit-revenue-targets-in-a-recession-sahil-mansuri-bravado/#transcript

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Where to find Sahil Mansuri:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/svmansuri

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sahilmansuri/

• Email: [email protected]

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/