Alicia Lewis
Culture Amp Senior Sales DirectorJanuary 12
To be an effective sales leader, you must have strong communication skills and be driven by data and process. Strong communication, especially a coach-like mindset, is extremely important in terms of supporting reps to achieve quotas. Positive and effective communication between a leader and their reps allows for a smooth flow of information, which creates an environment that motivates the team to work towards achieving goals. More than ever, being analytical and process driven is key to creating and scaling a high performing team. It’s important that leaders understand the story in the data, make impactful decisions based upon it and motivate their team with data. In terms of nice to haves, having an eye for great sales talent is something that can take time to develop as a sales leader. I’ve been in sales my entire career and being able to identify great talent is something I'm always working on. If early on in their tenure a sales leader can hone in on a candidate's desire to learn and succeed, they are set up for success.
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4359 Views
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Lucy Ye
Pinterest Head of US SMB Sales, Client DirectFebruary 23
In my experience, the best sales candidates are not necessarily people with the most years of sales experience. I've noticed the best sales candidates all have these qualities in common: * Insanely Driven and Hard-Working (folks who are intrinsically motivated to double down on KPIs to exceed their goals if that's what it takes) * Adaptable (people who can think on their feet, and adjust their sales motion/process to best hit their sales targets) * Inquisitive (excellent salespeople know that the key to selling is listening, not talking. So people who are naturally curious about their clients' pain points are generally much better at prescribing solutions and highlighting impact for the client) * Self-Sufficient with Outbound (the top 1% sales talent I've seen will always find ways to exceed their number beyond what's given to them. They know how to go creatively source for leads and go outbound to feed themselves, and not just rely on an inbound pipeline)
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2605 Views
Jon Boyer
Zapier Director of SalesApril 25
One of the key attributes I like to test for in interviews is the candidates self awareness and grit. My favorite question to ask here is "What is the most difficult feedback you've received professionally? How did it shape your career?" The quality of the answer demonstrates the candidates ability to internalize feedback and take action.
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1294 Views
Marleyna Mohler
Attentive Sr. Director of Inside SalesMay 16
Staying up to date: It’s important to pick a medium that you like for content. Whether it is Linkedin, podcasts, email newsletter, or chat based slack groups, you want to make sure you are setting yourself up for success. If the content goes unread or unlistened to, you won’t build a consistent learning habit. Personally, I find the most value in content forums where you can engage and ask follow up questions, hear multiple opinions on a particular matter, and even reach out the the original writer for a 1-1 chat! Another underutilized source of knowledge for industry trends is content from Sales Development technology vendors. It’s imperative that they stay on the cutting edge, so following a few top vendors on Linkedin will allow you to see what future the tools are preparing for. Avoiding the noise: There can be a great amount of value in public best practices. That said, there is risk in assuming that something that works for someone else will also work for you, or for implementing changes to something when you are already seeing above-average results. For example, if your content is getting a 20% reply rate, you may not want to adopt the “best practice” that moved someone else's team from a 10% to 15% reply rate. Having your own benchmarks and running your own A/B tests can help you determine where you should be altering your SDR motion, and where you should keep yours in place. Then, you can proactively search for interesting ideas to test in areas you are performing below benchmark. 
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1717 Views
Sarah Mercedes (Osborne)
HubSpot Head of Corporate Sales, West CoastJanuary 24
Sponsors are critical for career progression. When you think about the best persons to lean on for sponsorship, you should be thinking about someone who is already bought into you and would endorse you to others within the business. You want to also ensure that this person is well connected and has a "voice at the table" that you don't have a "seat" at yet. Then, you need to ask that person for their support. Most importantly, you then need to create value and as mentioned in another response, ensure the things you are working on and focused on to create value align with what is important to the business and will create impact at scale. 
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1847 Views
Roee Zelcer
TikTok Head of Sales, Products & ServicesFebruary 9
Coming into an organization as the first sales hire puts a lot of responsibility on your shoulders. You are basically in charge of proving the validity of this function within the company. There are a few things that I would consider and act on in this position: Start with the short term. As a first hire in a sales organization, you are required to deliver results that have a very immediate impact that meets the business needs. This means focusing on some low-hanging fruits in order to deliver results within a short time frame. Build a framework. As a first hire within the team, you should make sure you document your work, and create clear guidelines and processes, with the expectation of adding additional members to the team in the future. This will ensure a smooth expansion of the team while positioning you as a thought leader and a pivotal member of this function. Go beyond your scope. As a junior sales hire, never underestimate the power of tenacity. I always invite my team members to push the boundaries and look for additional scope and responsibilities whenever they feel capable. This is a very strong signal that you are willing to take on more, and when management will face a new task at hand, they will know they can count on you.
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4070 Views
Eric Martin
Vanta Head Of SalesNovember 28
This is a great question and a task that I was asked to take on for Vanta twice over the past two years - first helping us break into the mid-market, and later helping us break into the enterprise. My first piece of advice is to make sure that there's cross-functional alignment in your company around the desire or need to move upmarket. It's really important that the entire company is on board with this decision. From there, I'd have representatives from GTM and EPD take a long hard look at any "upmarket at bats" that your company has had to date, listening to Gong calls, reviewing Salesforce data, etc to see what's working and what isn't working. You'll want to have the best assessment that you can have on whether or not your product is ready to move up market, where the gaps are (or might be), and whether or not those gaps can be resourced and built. You'll also want to make sure that you have the best initial pulse possible on who your upmarket ICP is. i.e. How are they similar or different to your current ICP? You probably won't know this initially, but you'll figure it out. Finally, you'll want to make sure that you're being thoughtful with how you (in sales) are going to approach generating and working these deals - probably setting aside a small team of sellers to help with the testing. Moving upmarket is generally a tough assignment from my experience and one that really only has a shot of "working" or "feeling good" if your company allocates real cross-functional dollars and resources to it.
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802 Views
Charles Gryor Derupe
accessiBe Director of EnablementFebruary 7
This answer is purely based on opinion, so please keep this in mind. I believe that any new tactics and strategies need to be relevant to the sales methodology set by the enablement team. Why? Reps, especially those that are "green" to the field, need a repeatable, consistent skill development structure. Additionally, this methodology should be where onboarding, ongoing reinforcement training, and content should map to. Adding new sales tactics and strategies are most effective for experienced reps who have already mastered their own selling methods. This doesn't mean you shouldn't or can't share some cool articles or resources for these new tactics and strategies - especially cool non-enablement resources and tools they can use to implement those methodology-mapped skills. A good example of this is how to sell through social media, where selling skills like good discovery, creating interest, and driving the next steps, etc. can still be incorporated into this new selling channel. Sharing knowledge should be part of the Sales culture. However, enablement programming should prioritize established methodologies for consistency and to make your impact measurement as easy as possible. 
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1796 Views
Rachel Mayes
Carta Senior Director of Sales - Venture Capital at CartaDecember 10
I don’t believe there’s a single "right" career path for a sales professional. Sales is an incredible foundation that can lead to countless opportunities because the skills are universally valuable. Whether you’re pitching investors as a founder or advocating for an internal business initiative, you’re always selling—yourself, your ideas, your vision, or your work. Traditionally, Sales careers may start as an SDR, progress to AE, Mid-Market AE, Enterprise AE, and eventually to Client partner or Senior Relationship Manager. Alternatively, you might take the leadership path, from sales manager and graduate to senior leadership roles. Ultimately, your path should align with your strengths and what gets you excited every morning.
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460 Views
George Cerny
Iterable VP, Growth Sales, B2B2C Sales & LATAMNovember 15
"You can't improve what you don't measure" - Peter Drucker. When starting out in a new market, there can be lots of uncertainty. This uncertainty is the starting point, however, for a fun and exciting journey to figuring this new market out. But uncertainty can be the enemy of action, so you want to remove as much uncertainty as possible, as quickly as possible, so you can get out there and start driving results. A few places to look for data in the planning and early implementation phase to eliminate uncertainty: 1. Your network - while you may not have a network of people in this new market already, you should be able to define a couple people who would be willing to speak with you who can help get the ball rolling. One or two quality conversations with your network can lead to a number of intros, and increase your network size overnight. If these people already know you, they'll also be kind if you fumble through your first conversations or have some misconceptions going in. 2. Interviews - when I was opening the Latam team, I learned so much from the interview process. I spoke with dozens of the top leaders in the industry and the vision became more and more clear each conversation I had. They helped me calibrate the resources needed for success, nuanced buying characteristics in each country that I was unaware of, partners and strategies that I wouldn't have learned about without their expertise, and more. I approached the process humble, and was honest about where I was at in my journey of learning the landscape, and so many people were happy to help fill in the blanks. 3. Online research - there's no shortage of information online. This is an obvious step and a great place to get a baseline before you test it out in the wild. This can get you past the initial uncertainty phase pretty quickly, and put you in a position to take action. That action COULD be to hire someone who IS certain and can go build out the appropriate KPI's based on their vast expertise in the the new market you're looking to enter. If this is an option and makes sense for your business - then this is a short answer. Go hire a superstar and let them do what they're great at. Get them what they need and get out of the way. If that's not the appropriate action, then you need to establish a baseline to measure against - so you can improve and re-calibrate along the way. A few things I would consider in going through this exercise: 1. Prioritize winning early, over winning BIG early. You want to prove concept, validate the mission and get people fired up for the cause early. You want positive visibility across the org, and an infectious enthusiasm in this new market. If you shoot too high, do a good job, but don't quite hit your big lofty goals, you'll move slower, dampen the enthusiasm of the team, and may even get skeptics on if it's the right bet. Set very attainable goals, crush them, and ramp the goals up quickly from there. 2. Think long-term revenue, short term activity. The short term revenue will come as a natural output from intense focus on activity. As stated there will be some uncertainty early on - especially around when/where/how that first deal will come in. So instead of overanalyzing it - go out and get data. Lots of data. Set intense activity goals and talk to as many prospective customers as possible. Don't overqualify when you still aren't positive what you're qualifying for. Every conversation is valuable early on. If you hit your lofty activity goals, and have a solid product market fit, you should naturally hit reasonable revenue goals in the first year. Year 2 is really where you want to ramp up expectations after validating assumptions in year 1. 3. Re-calibrate, re-calibrate, re-calibrate. Every week you should review what we learned week over week. Trends, competitors, partners, what's resonating, what's not, resource needs, etc. Your ICP will likely fluctuate during this time, which will inform the types of prospects you'll want to go after. You may adjust this as often as weekly early on. This is also where you review your achievement against your baseline metrics, and may adjust these KPI's if they're not the right ones. But you need a starting point. TL;DR When entering a new market you want to eliminate uncertainty as quickly as possible so you can take action. Hire or network with top talent in this new market to improve your ability to define starting KPI's that make sense. Prioritize high activity and achieveable revenue targets early to collect more data and build momentum. Re-calibrate often based on your initial KPI's and adjust as you continue to get real data about your product in this new market.
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1109 Views