In this episode of B2B Sales Trends, Harry Kendlbacher speaks with Jan about building a repeatable, reference-driven enterprise sales strategy. Rather than using references as a late-stage tactic, Jan shares how his teams embed them across the full sales funnel - from cold outreach to legal negotiations.
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⏱ Timestamps
00:00 – Why enterprise sales has become harder
04:50 – Turning customer advocacy into enterprise sales strategy
09:30 – How references shorten sales cycles & improve sales performance
15:10 – Using storytelling in sales enablement and relationship selling
24:40 – Coaching sales leadership to build reference habits
38:40 – The 3 skills that separate elite enterprise sellers
You’ll learn:
– How to operationalize customer advocacy inside your sales enablement motion
– Why reference selling improves sales process optimization and sustainable revenue
– How strong customer retention strategy fuels new enterprise sales
– The leadership behaviors that build trust at scale
💡 Key Takeaways
- Customer references should be embedded across the full enterprise sales strategy - not saved for the final negotiation.
- Reference-driven selling increases win rates and shortens sales cycles by shifting the conversation from features to outcomes.
- Sales leadership must model the behavior: build your own reference stories and lead by example.
- Sustainable revenue and 90%+ renewal rates are reinforced by consistent customer touchpoints.
- Elite enterprise sellers master three things: listening deeply, building domain content expertise, and maintaining disciplined pipeline management
👤 About the Guest
Jan Duthoo is Chief Revenue Officer EMEA at SAP SuccessFactors, leading one of the largest HR cloud portfolios globally. He oversees sales, pre-sales, value advisors, business development, and customer success teams across a highly complex international region.
Jan specializes in building high-performance enterprise sales organizations focused on customer advocacy, sales enablement, and long-term sustainable revenue.
Connect with Jan Duthoo on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/janduthoo/
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