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Buyer Persona: SMB Sales Director

Version: 1.0 Last Updated: 2025-09-23 Status: Active

1. Persona Overview

Name: Marcus Johnson

Role: Sales Director / VP of Sales Industry: B2B Software, Professional Services, or Manufacturing Company Size: 25-100 employees Age: 38-48 Reports to: CEO/Founder

Company Profile

  • Type: Growing B2B company with complex sales cycles
  • Annual Revenue: $5M - $25M
  • Sales Team Size: 5-15 reps
  • Growth Stage: Series A/B or bootstrapped profitable

2. Background & Context

Professional Background

  • 10-15 years in B2B sales
  • Promoted from top performer to leadership
  • Has worked with 2-3 different CRM systems
  • Built sales processes from scratch

Current Situation

  • Company outgrowing current CRM (likely HubSpot Starter or Pipedrive)
  • Need more sophisticated reporting and forecasting
  • Managing different sales processes for different products/markets
  • Struggling with limited customization options

3. Goals & Objectives

Primary Goals

  1. Implement scalable sales processes that can grow with the company
  2. Improve forecast accuracy from current 60% to 85%+
  3. Reduce sales cycle length by 20-30%
  4. Enable data-driven coaching for sales team development

KPIs They Care About

  • Pipeline velocity and conversion rates
  • Average deal size and sales cycle length
  • Rep productivity and quota attainment
  • Forecast accuracy
  • Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
  • Win/loss rates by competitor

4. Pain Points & Challenges

Critical Pain Points

  1. Limited Customization in Current CRM
  2. Can't create custom fields for industry-specific needs
  3. Unable to track multiple products/services properly

  4. No way to build custom sales stages for different deal types

  5. Poor Visibility into Pipeline

  6. Can't see where deals are getting stuck
  7. No automated alerts for at-risk opportunities

  8. Manual pipeline reviews taking hours

  9. Inadequate Reporting

  10. Basic reports don't answer strategic questions
  11. Can't create custom dashboards for executives

  12. No way to track team performance trends

  13. Integration Limitations

  14. Current CRM doesn't connect with their tech stack
  15. Manual data exports for analysis
  16. No automation between tools

5. Technology & Tools

Current Stack

  • HubSpot Starter or Pipedrive
  • LinkedIn Sales Navigator
  • Zoom/Teams for demos
  • Proposal software (PandaDoc, Proposify)
  • Slack for internal communication
  • Google Workspace or Office 365

Technical Proficiency

  • Comfort Level: High
  • Power user of CRM systems
  • Understands sales operations
  • Advocates for sales technology adoption

6. How Vettrix CRM Solves Their Problems

Key Value Propositions

  1. Unlimited Customization
  2. Create custom modules for different product lines
  3. Build unique sales processes for each market segment
  4. Field-level permissions for data security

  5. Custom validation rules to ensure data quality

  6. Advanced Analytics & Reporting

  7. Build any report or dashboard needed
  8. Real-time pipeline analytics
  9. Predictive forecasting based on historical data

  10. Performance trending and coaching insights

  11. Flexible Automation

  12. Path automations for lead routing
  13. Automated task creation based on deal stage
  14. Integration with any third-party AI tool

  15. Custom workflow rules for complex processes

  16. Scalable Platform

  17. Grows with the company without platform changes
  18. Add new teams and processes easily
  19. No need to migrate as company scales
  20. Cost-effective compared to enterprise solutions

7. Buying Behavior

Decision Process

  • Timeline: 4-8 weeks (moving fast)
  • Budget Authority: $25K-50K annual budget
  • Key Stakeholders: CEO, CFO, Sales Operations Manager

Evaluation Criteria

  1. Customization capabilities (35%)
  2. Reporting and analytics (25%)
  3. Ease of use and adoption (20%)
  4. Price and total cost of ownership (20%)

Objections to Overcome

  • "How is this different from Salesforce at a lower level?"
  • "Will my team actually adopt another CRM?"
  • "What's the implementation timeline and effort?"
  • "Can we migrate our existing data easily?"

8. Messaging That Resonates

Power Phrases

  • "The flexibility of enterprise CRM at SMB pricing"
  • "Build the exact sales process you need - no compromises"
  • "From startup to scale-up without switching platforms"
  • "Your CRM should adapt to you, not the other way around"

Proof Points Needed

  • Quick implementation timeline (4-6 weeks)
  • Data migration success stories
  • ROI within first quarter
  • Customer testimonials from similar companies

Competitive Differentiation

  • More customizable than HubSpot or Pipedrive
  • Easier to use than Salesforce
  • Better value than Microsoft Dynamics
  • Includes features that would require multiple tools elsewhere

9. Discovery Questions

  1. "What limitations in your current CRM are holding your team back?"
  2. "How much time do you spend creating reports for leadership?"
  3. "Do you have different sales processes for different products or markets?"
  4. "What would you build if you could customize everything in your CRM?"
  5. "How confident are you in your pipeline forecast right now?"
  6. "What integrations are critical for your sales workflow?"

10. Success Metrics

What Success Looks Like (3 months)

  • 95% CRM adoption across sales team
  • 25% improvement in forecast accuracy
  • 20% reduction in sales cycle length
  • 15% increase in win rates
  • 50% less time spent on reporting

Expected ROI

  • 2-3 more deals closed per rep per quarter
  • 5 hours/week saved on administrative tasks
  • 30% improvement in lead response time
  • $500K+ additional pipeline visibility