Case Study
HowGood
As power users of OpnMkt, the sales team has a completely different, more effective relationship than any other sales team Rachel has managed.
Details
Compay Name: HowGood
Date: July 2022
Website: www.howgood.com
The largest dataset on product sustainability in the world.
Overview – HowGood – Reps with Autonomy and a Pipeline You Can Trust
HowGood is a SaaS data platform with the world’s largest database on food and personal care product sustainability. With more than 33,000 ingredients, chemicals and materials assessed, HowGood helps leading brands, retailers and restaurants improve their environmental and social impact. Through in-depth, ingredient-level insights into factors like greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity, labor risk, animal welfare, and other key impacts, HowGood’s data powers strategic decision-making for the sourcing, manufacturing, merchandising, and marketing of sustainable products.
Instant Results
By adopting OpnMkt, HowGood was able to completely avoid the most prevalent problems sales leaders experience with their team; sales rep don’t complain about lead quality, they simply don’t accept leads they aren’t willing to work, and there’s no concept of gaming an SDR hand-off. The result is a happier, more collaborative sales org that vets every lead as a team and gives leadership a pipeline with complete integrity. In switching to OpnMkt, team members have more control over the leads they receive. The result is a happier, more collaborative sales org that vets leads together, resulting in a pipeline with complete integrity.
“OpnMkt removed the feeling that leads happen to reps. OpnMkt gives them autonomy over their pipeline, so leads go to the people that are hungriest to work them. Reps value leads they’ve won much more than leads they were assigned.”
Challenge – Lead Routing and Hand-off on a Rapidly Scaling Sales Team
Lead routing can be a constant struggle and source of contention amongst sales teams. Territories and round robins often lead to reps complaining about not getting the right leads or accepting a lead they’re not in a position to pursue. It was this problem that Rachel Calomeni, SVP of Growth at HowGood set out to change.
“In the past, lead routing has often been a source of contention. Great leads can be the luck of the draw – and frequently, someone feels discontent and slighted. What’s worse is when an account executive accepts a lead only because they own the territory or so they don’t miss their place in the round robin; leads they don’t end up working that just bloat the pipeline.”
“What’s worse is reps accepting leads just because they own the territory or so they don’t miss their place in the round robin, leads they don’t end up working that just bloat the pipeline.”
In previous roles, Rachel also experienced reps gaming hand-off from their favorite SDRs by accepting bad leads and then letting them sit. “Everyone wants a good relationship with their SDR so the SDR works hard for them, but sometimes it leads to the wrong behavior.” With a sales team that was set to double in size in the coming months, she went looking for a better way to handle leads in her sales org.
Solution – Changing the Salesfloor from Assembly Line to an Open Market
In rolling out OpnMkt, HowGood noticed a fundamental change in account executives’ relationships with their pipelines. “OpnMkt removed the feeling that leads happen to reps. It gives account executives autonomy over their pipeline, so leads go to the people that are hungriest to work them,” explains Rachel Calomeni, SVP of Growth. “Team members value leads they’ve won much more than leads they were assigned.”
“OpnMkt removed the feeling that leads happen to reps. It gives them autonomy over their pipeline, so leads go to the people that are hungriest to work them.”
On top of more effective AEs, the HowGood team found that market dollars normalized a problem common to every sales team, where SDRs are incentivized on a blend of either quantity or quality of leads. With the shift in how reps think about and win leads, concerns of reps gaming SDR hand-off became immaterial.
“You’re not going to get a rep spending some of their market dollars if it’s not truly a good lead,” Rachel explains. “It creates a pipeline that has so much more integrity and reliability – SDRs get incentivized by how much value they create for the sale steam, not an arbitrary number of demos.”
Rachel also realized a side benefit of ramping reps faster with OpnMkt in place. With traditional lead assignment, new reps were either assigned a valuable lead too early or they weren’t providing value until significantly after ramping. “With OpnMkt, newer reps not only get the practice they need right when they need it, but they pursue leads in earnest and take them to opportunities, leads that were completely ignored by tenured reps have been prime for new ramping reps.”
The Results
As power users of OpnMkt, the sales team has a completely different, more effective relationship than any other sales team Rachel has managed.
“OpnMkt creates a pipeline that has so much more integrity and reliability.”
“Leads get discussed. There’s feedback loops – you see reps leaning in to pick leads that are meaningful to them to work. Leads aren’t passed to a rep and disqualified due to lack of interest. Qualification is a team sport.”
The Results
As power users of OpnMkt, the sales team has a completely different, more effective relationship than any other sales team Rachel has managed.
“OpnMkt creates a pipeline that has so much more integrity and reliability.”
“Leads get discussed. There’s feedback loops – you see reps leaning in to pick leads that are meaningful to them to work. Leads aren’t passed to a rep and disqualified due to lack of interest. Qualification is a team sport.”